Radio 4: The End of the World is Nigh!

Having a couple of weeks leave (our American readers will enjoy the knowledge that I'm entitled to 28 days per annum), and setting about the manly pursuits of DIY and gardening whilst listening to the BBCs Radio 4.

Wonderful analysis of the current economic fiasco: basically a disaster laid down by the Thatcher government City reforms in the late eighties, which enable the economy to grow exponentially, but equally encouraged systemic recklessness for which the world is about to pay, (without the participation of most of the protaganists who have long since stashed their ill-gotten gains in anticipation of this very scenario).

Then, following the collapse of XL and the imminent demise of Air Italia, there is the warning that a number of minor airlines are about the go out of business due to the cost of aviation fuel, and thus auger the end of an era for cheap flights.

Which segues to a wonderful piece on Peak Oil, the notion that the world has passed it's watershed on oil production, and that cheap oil is no longer possible. Yes, there are untapped resources available, but at a price. The extraction costs are so high that the oil barons have to wait for prices to hit an extreme before the new resources become feasible.

And this has always been the case. On reading The Oil Drum, a peak oil site, this was the motivation for the exploitation of Britain's North Sea fields following the OPEC embargo:

It was known that oil was available in the North Sea prior to the oil embargo. It was not until the price run-up related to the embargo that it was economically feasible to drill there

Which means that all that deep water oil off of Brazil, or even that under the arctic, may be feasible, but only at huge costs. The notion of Peak Oil doesn't necessarily concentrate on the decline of oil as a comodity, rather that the notion of cheap oil is a thing of the past.

Basically that four-wheel drive school run will soon cost more than the school fees!

Make the fat little fuckers walk!