CATCH Articles:
Peak oil author speaking in Hamilton
Jan 04, 2008
The urban issues consultant who advised city council on the implications of peak oil will be the keynote speaker at a public forum on January 10. Richard Gilbert will be talking about the future of transportation without oil, in Hamilton and elsewhere, with particular emphasis on the prospects for air travel and light rail transit.
The meeting is part of a bi-monthly series organized by Hamiltonians for Progressive Development. Gilbert will be questioned by an expert panel that includes McMaster professor Nicholas Kevlahan, Environment Hamilton executive director Lynda Lukasik, and the city’s general manager of public works, Scott Stewart.
Gilbert was commissioned by the city in the summer of 2005 to do a study on how Hamilton should respond to rapidly rising energy prices. At that point oil was selling at under $65 a barrel. This week it reached $100 a barrel.
Gilbert’s report predicted that prices will rise much further over the next decade as global production is no longer able to meet demand. He concluded that it is likely that gasoline prices will reach $4 a litre by 2018. Consequently he called on the city to redo all its plans to put energy first. His views were outlined in a Spectator feature in mid-December.
He also recommended that a more detailed follow-up report be commissioned by the city. At the April 2006 meeting where Gilbert formally presented his report, councillors asked staff to prepare a terms of reference for such a follow-up study, but this has still not been done.
Last month, Gilbert and Simon Fraser University professor Anthony Perl released a new book called Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil which offers responses to “an early peak in world oil production and profound climate change resulting in part from oil use.”
Thursday’s free public forum starts at 7:30 pm in the FRWY Café at 333 King Street East (corner of Wellington).