An Open Letter to Councillor Peter Ladner

Dear Mr. Ladner,

I have been asked by several of my associates in the fledgling Vancouver Peak Oil Group to contact you regarding the implementation of a peak oil resolution in Vancouver. It has been brought to my attention that you have - allegedly - sought to maintain an attitude of indifference towards an issue that may well be (in the short-term) be more egregious to the citizenry of the GVRD than climate change. Furthermore, to aid this missive, I will assume that this posture towards energy depletion is, indeed, your de facto stance. To this end, I look forward to being corrected; to being told that I am wrong; that the elephant in the room is under intense scrutiny so to speak.

Vancouver is striving to become a world class city. Politics notwithstanding, it is to play host to the Winter Olympic games in 2012. Yet, to occupy this echelon fully, it has to develop a top-notch strategy of concern towards epoch-defining issues such as peak oil (and the depletion of other energy sources such as natural gas.) Sadly, this is not happening. As such, Vancouver is truly being left behind; that is to say, as far as the metaphorical sprint is concerned, it risks being viewed as a "Cascadian Tortoise," outrun by the sprightly hares that are Portland and San Francisco - each of which have a working resolution already in place. Furthermore, Seattle is in the process of consolidating a proposal, as are Ashland, Oregon and Oakland, California. Even Burnaby, ordinarily in Vancouver's shadow, has nosed ahead.

A former Vancouver city councillor, Gordon Price ( now Director of the City Program for Simon Fraser University) writes succinctly in a blog entry of Burnaby's preeminence:

"In my 15 years on City Council in Vancouver, I read a lot of reports. Ninety percent of them were not exactly stimulating: lane pavings, grant approvals, appointment of the external auditor … all the things that keep a city going. Occasionally, a report would appear that grabbed your attention – and on a very rare occasion, would actually change your understanding of the world, or at least your city. I’d like to say that such a report recently appeared on the agenda of the City of Vancouver. But it didn’t. It appeared in Burnaby – the municipality just to the east."

On January 16th 2006 Burnaby released a council report on peak oil entitled "Global Peak in Oil Production: A Municipal Context." While the paper kowtowed to an overly optimistic timeline on peak oil production and sidelined itself with agencies such as the United States Geological Survey, it's writers did take a bold step forward. As Gordon Price so succinctly puts, it: "[...] the mere fact that a government body is opening the door to a subject that most leaders would prefer remain firmly shut off is a tangible action all on its own."

I do not write this in order to convince you of the validity of peak oil. We are not running out of oil any time soon. But we are bottoming out on the light, sweet crude, the most easily available oil. And here is where the black cloud begins to brew: all forms of energy are subject to the EROI equation (energy returned on investment.) When the easily obtained oil diminishes, we are left with the gloopy hard to get stuff. Stuff that has to be cooked, pressure washed, or brought up from the ocean depths. In a nutshell, EROI intensive. It therefore follows that transportation costs are going to rise to match energy expenditure - alongside petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides ( a dual upsurge which has potentially devastating effects on agriculture and food security.) Finally, anything made from long chain hydrocarbon polymers (plastic) will become more expensive to produce.

I really do not want to get into the usual interminable debates of the hydrogen economy's being "an energy carrier and not a fuel source," or the EROI issues surrounding bio-fuels. If you wish to crunch through this material, I suggest you visit Matt Savinar's excellent - yet slightly alarming - website at: www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Any date or year that may be offered as being the zenith point of oil production will be, at best, hypothetical; to wit, the late Dr. M. King Hubbert's theory cannot be exact as all reserve data for the main OPEC countries are falsified (and some would say, wildly exaggerated.) One thing is for sure: oil is not a renewable resource. No amount of rhetorical spin can change that. IT IS FACT: elementary science. Whether (as the American Society of Peak Oil - ASPO - maintain) we are at peak, or we are on a post peak plateau, about to slip down an "Olduvai slope," we need to make preparations individually and collectively. Even if we have 20 years of carefree motoring left, we still have to plan ahead. (Incidentally, many experts maintain that two decades of proactive mitigation and preparation constitute the bare minimum of what is needed to adequately prepare for such a paradigm change.)

A post-carbon world will be one of diminishing energy returns, of powering down and making do with less. Granted, it is not something a politician can easily contemplate as, ordinarily, anything that runs counter to economic growth is anathema. Not exactly a vote-winner. Nevertheless, I write this as a concerned activist and father, and I implore you: please do not to push aside energy depletion so lightly. It is very much something to be concerned about. As a father yourself, I urge you to look at that aforementioned pachyderm, right in the eye. Do it for your children. For their future security. I leave the rest up to your conscience.

However, let me make one thing clear: I intend this as an open letter. It will be recorded, historically as a primary source. So, consider this: how would you like to be remembered? As an individual who looked the other way, or as the stalwart luminary who helped the City of Vancouver pass a peak oil resolution?

I do so hope it will be the latter.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Westlake