[Peakoil] Fwd: Oil price flirts with new high

[Nature and Society Forum]

And overnight in the US it reached $US 129.61.

Here's a reminder of the talk tonight on peak oil, facing the future,  
children, denial and ignorance. This is about coming to grips with the  
problems facing us and not just sitting there, caught in the  
headlights. Please pass on this invitation to your friends and  
acquaintances.

===================
Wednesday 21 May 2008 – 7:30 pm – Paul Tranter's talk is "A monster  
problem or child’s play: coping with peak oil".

Two major problems are associated with our ability to cope with peak  
oil: ignorance and denial. This presentation argues that a critique of  
a popular children’s movie may provide an entertaining way of  
introducing people to the serious issues of peak oil, children’s  
rights and child friendly cities. The Pixar-animated Disney movie  
Monsters, Inc., released in 2001, is popular with both adults and  
children, and sales of DVDs indicates that it is still a favourite  
movie. Monsters, Inc. can be seen as an allegory about changing  
conceptualisations of children, an emerging energy crisis, and our  
responses to this energy crisis. However, a simplistic interpretation  
of the movie suggests that a technological fix will be found for the  
world’s looming energy crisis: peak oil. A more detailed critical  
analysis of the movie suggests that there are far more important  
messages hidden beneath this humorous children’s story. This  
presentation explores the likely impact of peak oil on children’s well- 
being, and argues that while peak oil may present a crisis for  
children’s rights, it can also be seen as providing an opportunity, if  
we can only see peak oil coming and think about how we can change our  
cities now to prepare for it. A reflection on messages from Monsters  
Inc. suggests that coping with peak oil may well require the sort of  
creativity and openness to new ways of thinking that children exhibit  
in their play. In the real world, by taking a child’s perspective, and  
by making our cities more child-friendly, we will also prepare our  
cities for the challenges of peak oil.

Paul is at the School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical  
Sciences, University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force  
Academy, Canberra. Those NSF members who were inspired by Paul’s talk  
two years ago on child-friendly cities are delighted to welcome him  
back.

Please pass on this invitation to your friends and acquaintances.

Venue: the ANU Emeritus Faculty. A map showing the venue can be found  
on the ANU website:

http://campusmap.anu.edu.au/displaymap.asp?grid=cd32

The building is called the Fellows Lane Cottage and is building 3T on  
this map. It is to the immediate north of the Law Faculty buildings  
and east of the South Oval.
===================
--------------------------------------------------
Keith Thomas
Nature and Society Forum
www.natsoc.org.au --- www.biosensitivefutures.org
02-6125 2526 (weekday mornings) Mobile: 0412 487 625
--------------------------------------------------

From: "Alex Pollard" <alex-po at trevbus.org>
Date: 20 May 2008 5:45:03 PM GMT+10:00
To: peakoil at act-peakoil.org
Subject: [Peakoil] Oil price flirts with new high

www.theage.com.au
Oil price flirts with new high

May 20, 2008 - 6:48AM

The price of crude oil came close to reaching a new record high on  
Monday
as the market shrugged off higher output from Saudi Arabia, traders say.

New York crude hit as high as $US127.77 a barrel, just off its all-time
peak of $US127.82, reached on Friday.
<snip>
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