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I actually read, for the first time, the copyright warning at the begining of a movie when I watched a bit of Fight Club for the umpteenth time late last night. Apparently they don’t want people watching movies that have been purchased for home use in places like prisons or oil rigs! Seems like a bizarre choice of examples of unlawful use. I mean how many people do you know out on oil rigs? Even more importantly how likely is 20th Century Fox going to try and stop some oil men from watching the Hollywood hit when it comes out on DVD. And remember, no lending your Fight Club DVD to you friends!

I haven’t blogged much as of late due to the unusually large (well maybe just normal) amount of work to be done around here. Grid 3.2 is getting dialed and we are really trying to make a big push to improve the stability and the our entire component platform.

Anyways, in a few spare moments this morning I was perusing Craigslist, as you do, in search of a few things ranging from a turntable to an old blender to a bike trailer … or anything in between. I haven’t been on for a while and generally ignore the links along the top of the posts trying to get people to download firefox or report bad posts etc. I looked at that today and noticed that one of the links there is to a Google search about Peak Oil. Of course for those that don’t know, peak oil is the idea that oil is a non-renewable resource and will therefore eventually be used up. This is destined to happen sooner than later and will really put a monkey wrench in the machinery of capitalism, which literally runs on oil.

It is nice to see that Craigslist is keeping it real! I sure hope that Craig either cycles to work at the very least uses a clean fuel car (and that does not include the ones that are charged with electricity generated by burning coal out in Nevada).

Climate talks in Montreal are starting today and Richard Black at the BBC seems to think that they will not get anywhere [1] …

Well of course they won’t get anywhere! When it comes down to weighing the livelihoods of some poor Bangladeshis against Americans who _need_ to heat their entire 3000 square foot homes to 23C in the dead of winter or wage wars in the name of oil I think we know who will come out on top. If George really cared about bringing “freedom” to oppressed people around the world then he could start by looking at how the merciless tyranny (blatantly unfair “globalisation” trade rules, climate change, war for oil, etc) of America keeps the world’s poor poor while the rich keep getting richer.

The whole idea of Kyoto is simply ridiculous. Yes, let’s make some outrageously low targets for greenhouse gas emissions that the largest emitters will not even sign up to and after which everyone will realize that the economics don’t work out and so we will all just emit even more to make up for the slow growth in GDP. When will the general public realize that the whole thing is a sham - oh that’s right they won’t.

Just like the “Make Poverty History” crap and Live8 which was deemed a great success by Geldof and made everyone feel warm and fuzzy so they don’t have to think about the poor little children who suffered making the next pair of shoes they buy. It is just like in the recent Dukes of Hazard movie - Hogg (aka George Bush, Tony Blair et al) is just using slight of hand damn it! In everything they do! “Yes we are abolishing $40 billion in debt to Africa” all the while they are just planning on making it actually benefit themselves and their own nations by not having to give that equivalent amount of money in aid and likely getting lucrative natural resource contracts etc. Boss Hogg was going to turn Hazard into a strip mine but the good people of Hazard were complacent and didn’t believe the armadillo helmet wearing crazy guy. Thanks to people like Luke and Bo, Hazard was not destroyed - the problem is that even though we have respectable scientists and campaigners telling everyone that the world is going to end up like a strip mine still no one is listening! Where is Daisy when you need her!

[1] Climate talks - hoops and hot air

What To Do
In the wake of Katrina, many gas stations in the southern US last week either ran dry or had to stop selling gas because the price was rising so quickly [1]. With the price still near $70 a barrel many people in the US and Canada are crying foul and want the governments to step in and lower taxes on their precious fuel. It seems that the US government has tried to step in many times before and after their latest plan they are still trying to fight off insurgents and bring all the greatness that is democracy to Iraq.

Addiction
In the recent weeks and months with fuel prices soaring, there has been no decrease in demand; in economic terms this is a trend indicative of an addictive substance, which is a trend also evident with crack addiction. In fact crack addiction and gasoline addiction have many things in common - not the least of which is that both have expensive, and generally ill-conceived, “wars” waged in their names. Sure it can be tough to kick an addiction but the oil addiction could well be the one perpetrating the problems in the Gulf of Mexico through the phenomena known as global warming [2]. And it appears that there are still more hurricanes in store [3].

I think that the people who made this lovely sign on a train bridge over Holloway Road said it best (sorry it’s a bit blurry).

[1] Some U.S. gas stations run dry - CBC, September 01, 2005
[2] Hurricanes getting worse with global warming - CNet News, August 03, 2005
[3] Scientists forecast more US Atlantic hurricanes in upcoming months - September 03, 2005

I noticed today on the CBC that the average price of gasoline (petrol) in Canada has risen to over $1 CAD a litre [1] for the first time ever (not sure if that is considering inflation or not). It is no wonder given that a barrel of crude oil costs nearly $66 USD these days.

I find it strange that Steven Harper (the leader of the official opposition party in the Canadian Parliament) seems to think that we need to reduce taxes on gasoline to help out Canadians … given that the trend of rising oil prices will likely continue due to Peak Oil [2], if he really wanted to help Canadians he would suggest increasing taxes to get people to ride their bikes or take the bus and then put any extra tax revenue towards helping people to kick their nasty gasoline habit. If fewer high flying executives, soccer moms and Internet tycoons would drive ridiculous cars like these (for the internet tycoons) or these (for the soccer moms) then we might be in a better situation both environmentally and economically. As fuel prices rise in the future it will increase the cost of everything that needs to be moved arround like food or products from Amazon. At least it will even the playing field for local food producers who traditionally cannot produce food as cheaply as you can in places further afield.

Given that transportation acounts for about 2/3 of our oil usage [3] it just seems silly reduce taxes or wage billion dollar wars for oil [4] rather than combatting consumption. Please Mr. Harper (and the rest of the Canadian Government) wake up and smell the reality of running out of oil.

[1] Gas Prices Soar Above $1 - CBC
[2] ‘Peak Oil’ Enters Mainstream Debate - BBC
[3] US Oil Demand by Sector - US Energy Information Administration
[4] Cost of War

The Canadian government in 2003 decided to reduce the corporate tax rate for natural resource companies. This includes but is certainly not limited to oil and gas companies. The tax rate for these companies is going to be reduced from 28% in 2002 to 21% in 2007. Furthermore, they are going to introduce a 10% tax credit for exploration.

According to the Globe Investor, the top 10 oil and gas companies in Canada had revenue of over $86 billion while the top 300 companies on the Globe Investor’s list had revenue of over $115 billion - the industry wide numbers quoted by the Canadian Association of Pretroleum Producers of $77.5 billion. If we assume that these companies have profits of about 5% then profits are around 5 billion. So if the Canadian government is reducing the tax rate by 7%, that would be equivalent to a government subsidy of $300 million a year. Add on top of that the 10% tax credit for exploration costs and you are looking at nearly $1 billion government subsidy for the oil and gas industry.

Now if you look at the Canadian government climate change website website you see how this corporate climate criminals tax break pales in comparison to what they are committing to the Renewable Energy Deployment Initiative (REDI) - a mere $51 million - only 5% of the tax breaks given to big oil.

It seems quite ironic that the government climate change website says “Taking Action on Climate Change - Together, we can do it” when in fact while claiming that they are doing something to combat climate chaos the government is promoting the use of fossil fuels!