Richard Ha writes:

Qatar just held the Middle East’s first-ever Peak Oil Conference, and when Arab countries start showing concern about peak oil, we definitely need to pay attention.

Energy expert Robert Hirsch attended the Qatar conference and wrote about it at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) website.

By Robert L. Hirsch PhD, Senior Energy Advisor, MISI

I was fortunate to be among the few westerners invited to attend and speak at this first-of-its kind “peak oil” (PO) conference in a Middle East. The fact that a major Middle East oil exporter would hold such a conference on what has long been a verboten subject
was quite remarkable and a dramatic change from decades of PO (Peak Oil) denial. The two and a half day meeting was well attended by people from the GCC as well as other regional countries.

The going-in assumption was that “peak oil” will occur in the near future. The timing of the impending onset of world oil decline was not an issue at the conference, rather the main focus was what the GCC countries should do soon to ensure a prosperous, long-term future. To many of us who have long suffered the vociferous denial of Peak Oil by GCC-OPEC countries, this conference represented a major change. In the words of Kjell Aleklett, who summarized highlights of the conference, the meeting was “an historic event.”

A flavor of the conference can be gotten from the following loosely translated, random quotations:

• This is a groundbreaking conference.
• The organizers were brave to organize this conference.
• Peak oil provides an incentive to consider important national and regional issues. The GCC is currently working new problems with old solutions.
• Oil revenue represents about 93% of the Saudi budget. Everything is now imported — foreign expertise and most labor. Saudi can’t continue on the current track, because it would lead to a “bad future.” We need radical change.
• After peak oil, will there be great cities, or will Middle East cities end up like the gold mining ghost towns of the old U.S. west?
• So far we have wasted our opportunity.
• Shale oil in the U.S. is so much foolishness and does not invalidate peak oil. We definitely must worry about peak oil.
• Political reforms have failed to properly address our lack of democracy and accountability.
• When people are excluded from politics, they get unruly.
• Citizens in the Middle East prefer public sector jobs because they pay better than private sector jobs.
• Foreigners are the majority of our populations, typically 80%.
• Schools are teaching children “old stuff.” Schools are a disaster.
• The current culture is one of waste….

Read the rest.

This country’s conference on peak oil is coming up in November, and Hawai‘i needs to send more people to it. We need to be smart about what we do. It’s all about cost and effect on the rubbah slippah folks.

We must base our decisions on good, verifiable data. We need to play the position on the chess board that exists in front of us, not the position we wish we had.

In the end it is about all of us, not just a few of us — in the spirit of aloha.