Peak Oil, the Decline of the North Sea and Britain's Energy Future

A paper to accompany the presentation to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil, Tuesday 24th November 2009

We are so often told about the problems of climate change by the various political parties in Britain, but in fact the changing climate is just one of a number of factors that we will have to manage over the course of this century. If we take an ecological or biophysical perspective then we see that society faces a far wider set of problems to resolve as it adapts to the reality that growth within a finite environment has its limits. Such limits are not theoretical, and are being played out within our lives today under the guide of phenomena such as global food shortages, resource depletion or climate change.

These are global issues; in many cases they will require global solutions in order to create a satisfactory outcome for everyone on the planet. However, Britain has its own domestic problems related to the