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Apocalyptic vision of a post-fossil fuel world - The Lady Eve Balfour Memorial Lecture

Saturday, November 24, 2007
Posted in Peak Oil | Tagged Peak Oil

Global food production faces four simultaneous crises arising from our relatively recent pattern of dependence on depleting fossil fuels.� The first consists of the direct impacts on agriculture of higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs. The second is a consequence of high oil prices-increased demand for biofuels, resulting in farmland being turned from food production to fuel production.

The third consists of climate change and extreme weather events caused by fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions. Finally comes the degradation or loss of basic natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high rates, and unsustainable methods, of production stimulated by decades of cheap energy. Each of these crises is developing at a somewhat different pace regionally.

As these crises grow and mutually interact, the consequences for humanity and the biosphere are likely to be profound and unprecedented in scope. The primary solution to each and all is a planned rapid reduction in fossil fuel consumption by society, though this presents economic and technical challenges of its own.

� Read the transcript of the lecture
� Download the podcast [101 MB mp3]
Please note: this recording is approximately 1 hour long. Downloading may take some minutes. Please be patient.

About Richard Heinberg
Richard Heinberg is the author of eight books including The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, The Oil Depletion Protocol and Peak Everything. He is an educator, editor, lecturer, a Core Faculty member of New College of California where he teaches a program on “Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community,” and a Research Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators. He has authored scores of essays and articles, which have appeared in such journals as The Ecologist, The American Prospect, Resurgence, European Business Review, Alternative Press Review, and The Sun; and on web sites such as Alternet.org, EnergyBulletin.net, ProjectCensored.com, and Counterpunch.com.

Panel
The panelists who debated Richard’s lecture were:

• Patrick Holden, Soil Association director
• Lucy Siegle, Columnist, The Observer
• Christopher Skrebowski, Editor of Petroleum Review
• Guy Watson, Managing Director, Riverford Farm

In response to Richard’s lecture, Anna Ford will ask the panel to air their views on our current UK food culture, as well as inviting questions from the audience.

� Download the podcast of the panel discussion [107 MB]
Please note: this recording is approximately 1 hour long. Downloading may take some minutes. Please be patient.

� Read the biographies of Richard Heinberg and the panel participants

http://www.soilassociation.org/ladyevelecture