Open Letter From Chris Skrebowski Eviscerates Cambridge Energy Research

[hatrack]

EDIT

I have no way of knowing what pressures CERA is under nor do I know if this was a CERA initiative, instigated and funded by CERA, or a commissioned report. I know oil analysts, like supermodels, don’t leave their beds for less than extravagant piles of dollars. So who paid for this report is important if we are to take it as any more than special pleading.

Because CERA has chosen to use its resources and contacts to achieve maximum anti Peak Oil impact I have no embarrassment in seeking the widest possible circulation for this open letter.

In the report and press release you suggest that the Peak Oil community is somehow irresponsible in drawing attention to the challenge Peak oil could present. A ‘Be happy, don’t worry’ approach may be applicable in many areas of life. However, I find it hard to believe that the future of global oil and energy supplies is one of them. The maxim ‘Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst’ encapsulates what most people would call a responsible approach.

It is not even clear if CERA believes its own report as I am intrigued to see that CERA is now promoting a new multi-client survey ‘Dawn of a New Age’ Global Energy Scenarios for Strategic Decision Making—The Energy Future to 2030. In the promotional blurb we learn in the first paragraph that it is a multi-client study and such gems as

...reflecting the heightened anxiety about the future of energy. The concern is not just over oil, but every aspect of the energy value chain; and the stakes are high for all participants in the global economy – but especially for senior executives and policy makers.

Let me see if I’ve got this correct. For a public attack on Peak Oil activists’ concerns, you claim there’s not an oil supply problem and we’re all irresponsible alarmists. But for senior executives and policy makers you have ‘undertaken the most comprehensive research project in our history’. Seems hard to believe the report’s conclusion is that there’s not a care in the world. Could it be that the real objection to the increasing publicity given to Peak Oil is that the senior executives and policy makers are losing control of the secret?

EDIT

http://www.energybulletin.net/23977.html

[EST]

1. Awareness is growing, dissenting voices growing louder...

[GliderGuider]

2. It's a brilliant rebuttal and challenge.

I hope he can get wide enough distribution for this open letter, it's a wonderful antidote to CERA's deliberate obfuscations.