Downturn In Oil Consumption Cause for Green Cheer

In the midst of the gloom on the terrible number of jobs being lost in current banking crisis, the fact that the resultant reduction in fossil fuel consumption, might be providing a last gasp opportunity for us to take genuine action to avoid the worst effects of the climate and environmental crises, is being drowned out in the media, in the welter of the special pleading by the fossil fuel lobbyists.



The International Energy Agency (IEA) last week announced that oil demand this year would be 2.8 million barrels lower than 2008. Yet, instead of welcoming this as the first glimmer of good news in the last ditch battle to avoid even more catastrophic emissions, it talks about there being a "recovery" in oil consumption 2010.

Imagine reporting on an alcoholic in a similar manner, describing their resumption in alcohol intake as a "recovery" in consumption?!



Even George Bush in the end described America's consumption of oil as an addiction. We therefore need to urgently change the media's choice of language in how it describes the effects of the banking crisis, if we are to have any chance to grab the unique opportunity of this pause for breath of the fossil fuel economy's dash to the environmental precipice.


So instead of describing a potential rise in oil consumption in 2010 as a "recovery", the IEA should instead be warning of a "dangerous resumption in the growth of oil consumption".

If this happened then maybe our misguided political leaderships might begin to grasp the opportunity for a new renewable energy economy, instead of wasting billions on trying to revive the dying dinosaur car and fossil fuel industries and instead concentrate on creating good green sustainable jobs for those who are tragically losing their jobs in the current downturn.

However, lets conclude by raising a cyber glass of organic champagne to the first positive reduction in oil consumption in nearly two decades Goodness knows we are in severe need of such positive green shoots.