Avoiding powerless future

Except for oil, energy resources are plentiful. The author argued that we should be planning now for the inevitable changes to our transport system after the peak of world oil production, variously estimated as between about 2005 and 2020. More generally, heavy use of coal and oil is causing a wide range of environmental problems. The world's increasing use of these fossil fuels is now recognised, even by the Australian government, to be changing the global climate. Growing concern about the likely consequences led to the adoption of the Kyoto agreement, which commits all major fossil fuel-using OECD nations except Australia to reduce gas emissions. Technologies such as solar, wind and biomass energy systems are seen as cleaner and more worthy of subsidy than coal, oil and shale, all of which receive government subsidies and tax concessions