[Peakoil] Canberra's own 2020 summit Re: Prospects for the 2020 summit - new ideas or more of the same?

Wed Mar 12 03:17:15 UTC 2008

A local 2020 summit is being held to look at a Canberra's future. Being 
local, it may achieve more

Alex
O4O4873828

ACT Peak Oil
http://act-peakoil.org

_________________________________________________________
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/11/2185841.htm

Canberra to host own 2020 summit
Posted Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:27am AEDT

Canberra will host its own 2020 talks two weeks before Prime Minister Kevin 
Rudd's national summit.

Federal and ACT Labor politicians want to assemble 300 local 
representatives to generate ideas that will be taken to the national 
convention in April.

Innovation will be the theme of the summit.

Member for Canberra Annette Ellis says involving members of the community 
will generate innovative ideas.

"We really just want to give people in the ACT the opportunity at this 
level that I'm speaking now, to participate and to be encouraged to come 
forward and take part in this," she said.

"There's always a call for our democratic processes to be open and to be 
inclusive, to try and listen and to adhere to people and encourage them to 
participate in these sorts of discussions.

"I'm really pleased that now that door has been open."

The Canberra 2020 Summit will be held on April 5.

People wanting to register for the talks can email summit at con-sol.com by 
March 21.

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:39:46 +1100, Nature and Society Forum 
<office at natsoc.org.au> wrote :

> 
> 
> 
> The following is the transcript of a "Perspective" broadcast through  
> ABC Radio National on Tuesday evening.
> --------------------------------------------
> The Australia 2020 Summit - more hallucination than clear vision
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/rn/perspective/stories/2008/2186644.htm#transcript
> 
> In April this year 1000 of Australia's best minds will congregate in  
> Canberra for Kevin Rudd's Australia 2020 summit. The name suggests  
> that these fine folk will form a clear vision of what we want  
> Australia to be in 12 years time and the long term challenges that our  
> nation faces. Quoting from the Labor Party website for the summit  
> [1] , one of its five objectives is said to be, "To provide a forum  
> for free and open public debate in which there are no predetermined  
> right or wrong answers". This sounds great but as one reads further  
> one finds that this is simply not true. In fact, the summit is  
> destined to fail. By the year 2020 - only 12 years away - we will look  
> back on the summit and the reports it produces as a lost opportunity.  
> A tragic victory for fantasy and self-deception at a moment when a  
> clear vision of reality could have helped us to meet the challenges  
> ahead.
> 
> How do I know this? Let me quote a couple more lines from the website:
> 
> "The Australia 2020 Summit will examine...
> 
> How we best invest the proceeds of [current] prosperity to lay the  
> foundations for future economic growth."
> 
> and
> 
> "How ... we plan future population growth at a national and regional  
> level, given the constraints of water shortages and sustainability?"
> 
> The trouble with these statements is that they assume the possibility  
> of future economic growth and the inevitability and even desirability  
> of population growth. But economic growth requires energy. A clear,  
> objective view of the facts shows that by 2020, Australia and the rest  
> of the world will be deep in an energy and food crisis of epic  
> proportions. Two independently-formulated computer models of world oil  
> production - by Bakhtiari and Guseo - give the same result [2]. The  
> peak of oil production is about now and production will be down 30% by  
> 2020. An analysis of all the large and not so large oilfields coming  
> on line in the next 7 years sees little new production beyond 2012  
> [3] . Even the world's highest advisory body on oil, the International  
> Energy Agency that has previously been so complacent about the world's  
> energy security, last year did an about face and declared that it sees  
> a "supply crunch" developing by 2012 [4].
> 
> If a 30% reduction in world oil production by 2020 sounds bad then  
> consider this. For an oil importing nation like Australia, it is not  
> important how much oil the world is producing. What IS vital is how  
> much oil is available to buy on the export market. Oil production in  
> most of the major exporting nations has now peaked or is in decline.  
> However, at the same time, the consumption of oil in these nations is  
> rising rapidly. This is because the oil exporting nations are  
> currently earning huge profits from sales of oil at high international  
> prices. This stimulates rapid growth in their economies and so rapid  
> increases their domestic oil use. Most of the oil exporting nations  
> also have young and rapidly growing populations that they supply with  
> oil at cheap, subsidized prices. So the major oil exporting nations  
> are increasing their internal oil use rapidly at the same time as  
> their production is falling. On current trends this leads to the  
> shocking projection that there will be little oil available on the  
> world market within 10 years [5]. In fact, oil exports are already  
> decreasing at the same time as demand from China and India is rising.  
> This is the fundamental explanation for the current oil price of  
> around $100 per barrel. Remember, it was only $20 six years ago.
> 
> By 2020 Australia may have another Sydney's worth of population - 4  
> million additional mouths to feed, house and transport. However, we  
> will be scraping by on whatever oil we can produce ourselves - and  
> this will be a small fraction of what we use today. The price of fuel  
> will be many times its current cost. Since energy and economic growth  
> are inextricably linked, our economy will be in severe and long term  
> decline. Since oil is central to modern, industrial food production,  
> food prices will be through the roof and our very food security will  
> be uncertain.
> 
> Today, in 2008, it is politically incorrect for any politician, even  
> of the Greens, to suggest that future economic growth is impossible or  
> that population growth is undesirable. In 12 years time, as we  
> struggle to survive, the future vision that came out of the 2020  
> summit will look more like an hallucination.
> 
> 1. Australia 2020 Summit (Labor Party website)
> www.alp.org.au/media/0208/mspm030.php
> 
> 2. Peak Oil: The End Of The Modeling Phase, by Ali Samsam Bakhtiari
> tinyurl.com/yrprr9
> 
> 3. Oil Megaprojects
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Megaprojects
> 
> 4. IEA Medium-Term Oil Market Report, July 2007
> online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/iea20070707.pdf
> 
> 5. A quantitative assessment of future net oil exports by the top five  
> net oil exporters,
> by Jeffrey J. Brown and Samuel Foucherhttp:
> www.energybulletin.net/38948.html
> and
> Australia and the Export Land Model
> www.theoildrum.com/node/3657
> 
> 
> Guests
> 
> Michael Lardelli
> Senior Lecturer in Genetics
> University of Adelaide
> 
> 
> 