An Upbeat Perspective on Peak Oil: Bart Anderson on Coming Challenges  

TreeHugger points to an interview with Energy Bulletin editor Bart Anderson - An Upbeat Perspective on Peak Oil: Bart Anderson on Coming Challenges .

With last year's high gas prices fading in our memories, and with the Copenhagen climate talks grabbing the headlines, the peak oil meme seemed, until recently, to have been taking a bit of a breather. Then along came an (admittedly anonymous) whistleblower from the International Energy Agency claiming that statistics on global oil reserves have been massively inflated under political pressure. So what are we to do about peak oil?

There's no shortage of folks out there telling you you need to grab a gun and run to the hills. Luckily Bart Anderson, former editor of EnergyBulletin.net, is a little more optimistic. In this interview with Peak Moment TV—the folks who have brought us videos on everything from backyard permaculture and safe, legal graywater—Bart expounds on everything from the importance of building resilience, to not painting ourselves into a corner with any one solution or philosophy.

On a similar theme to the discussions on the Dark Side of Transition Towns, Anderson argues that national and international political action is at least as important as grassroots local activity. As he puts it: Small may be beautiful. But big is powerful."

Perhaps most importantly, Anderson argues that we need to get over petty ideological differences and pessimism—changes will come sooner or later as oil runs out, so we'd best start preparing. Things will be very different, he says, but we'll make it through.