I've just finished reading The Last Oil Shock. Excellent, informative and frightening read. It’s a pity we can't get our politicians to have a read and to act as well.

Hi Charger,
yep... this thing is a nightmare that just does not want to go away!

I keep waiting to wake up, and it's been 3 years now.

Anyway, Maxine McKew listened to a little 7 minute peak oil thang I did last Monday night, and then was booked to do an introduction for Dr Roger Bezdek just 3 days later at the Thursday Smart conference.

So there's a 50 minute film of the thing by a mate of mine up at Sydney Peak Oil at
http://www.sydneypeakoil.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=12270#12270

If you use Firefox as your browser, you can download an extension/plugin called "Unplug" that puts a little "fish" in the top right window of your browser. Click on that to download the movie to your hard-drive. It's pretty good, but as you'll see on the discussion thread at SPO, some of us peakniks are not to sure about seeing "coal to liquids" as a permanent "solution"... indeed, peak coal might be biting us sometime between 2025 and 2050.

I think this is a really good viewpoint from former CIA Director James Woolsey on the problem we in the west face with oil.

http://www.energybulletin.net/31004.html

As a side effect, reducing our dependence on oil would definitely help to curtail the rise of Islam.