James Barclay

[Parmenion]

This does have relevance to a book...but i want to peak your interest first (no pun intended) Book details to follow.....soon

Have you heard of the term 'Peak Oil' yet? If you haven't...read on.


Civilization as we know it is rapidly approaching a drastic tipping point. This is not the prediction of some religious cult or foil-hat conspiracy nuts...but that of many leading professionals and investors in the oil business. (CNN MSNBC BBC)

What does the 'Peak' in 'Peak Oil' refer to?

The flow of oil is predicted to choke, as supply of easy-to-extract crude is rapidly outstripped by demand.

Oil production follows a bell curve. This is true whether we're talking about an individual field, a country, or on the planet as a whole. Oil is increasingly plentiful on the upslope of the bell curve, increasingly scarce and expensive on the down slope. The peak of the curve coincides with the point at which the global reserve of oil has been 50 percent depleted. Once the peak is passed, oil production begins to go down while cost begins to go up.

Amongst many geologists and oil experts it is agreed that we passed the peak somewhere between 2000 and 2005, and now we're on the downslope.

What does that mean to me?

If you live in the 1st World, you live in a country that survives only because there's a regular flow of oil into it. And if you're living in Europe or America, you're living in a country that imports virtually everything. When oil supply inevitably starts to choke...your local supermarket will empty very quickly...your power supply will falter and fail.

The way of life you've known all your life, could vanish surprisingly quickly.

The End of the Oil Age.

The last 100 years of oil-fuelled activity has allowed this planet's population to grow well in excess of what it can naturally sustain. With oil powering farming machinery, producing pesticides and super-fertilisers, food production has swollen allowing the world's population to grow from approximately 1.5 billion in 1900 to over 6.5 billion now When the flow of oil falters, the capacity for this world to generate food for a population this large will be slashed.

The Big Die Off...

...is a term used by paleantologists to describe rapid species depletion following a significant environmental event. It is a sensational and somewhat alarmist term to use, but perhaps an accurate term to describe the ensuing resource-driven wars once Peak Oil begins to bite hard and global economic powers fight for control of the last viable elephant oil fields.

The End Game

Arguably, we have already seen the opening skirmish of this end game being played out in Iraq, and soon to be...in Iran. Iraq, as we know, was never about WMD or removing a dictator. It was instead about providing the excuse for America to place the largest military footprint in the world, right in the middle of the planet's richest oil fields.

A very clear message to the world...'the oil in the ground here is ours.'

Hmm...thanks for ruining my day.

Sorry, but you should know this. And given 99.999% of the population have never even heard of Peak Oil, nor given a second thought to energy security (as they drive their kids 500 yards down the road to school in their gas-guzzling SUV) you're now one of the few who do know.

However, there's still time to change things. The sooner we begin to wean ourselves off oil-dependency, the better. The sooner we all learn to rely less on our local supermarket to provide everything...the better.

Sure, okay I'll do those things.
But is there anything I can do right now, whilst I'm all fired-up?

Yes, you can raise the general awareness of the issue by doing any or all of the following:
Google 'Peak Oil' and find out more for yourself
Talk to the tiny minority who already know
Support documentary makers covering this topic
Support authors writing on the subject using fact and fiction
Get up to speed on the subject with YouTube

[Parmenion]

Ok so no tickles of interest...well here you go any way...its a subject i got interested in while speaking to the author...and also its a book with a character called Lt Robin Carter...so you can see why i have another reason to really like it.....its a fantastic story as well.

(james sorry for the shameless promo...but if it helps i do the same for your books on alex's forum...call it cross promotion)



Prepare for LAST LIGHT ? 25th JULY 2007

July 2007 sees the UK launch of Alex Scarrow's eagerly anticipated 2nd novel




You can view the trailer here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvEwiUKAM4w

Alex Scarrow has written a chilling thriller that depicts in a harrowingly convincing way just how fragile our society really is, and how we are only a hair's breadth away from total collapse.



Beginning on a very normal Monday and spanning the ensuing week, the world's oil supplies are severed by a series of perfectly targetted explosions. And, at a horrifying pace things begin to unravel the world over.



Oil engineer Andy Sutherland is stranded in Iraq with a company of British soldiers, desperate to find a way home to his family, trapped as transport links and the very infrastructure of daily life begins to collapse around him.



Back in Britain, his wife Jenny is stuck in Manchester, fighting desperately against the rising chaos to get back to London, where their children are marooned as events begin to spiral out of control; riots, raging fires, looting, rape and murder. In the space of a week, London is transformed into a lawless and anarchic vision of Hell.



And against all this, a mysterious man is tracking Andy's family. He'll silence anyone who might be able to reveal the identities of those behind this global disaster. It seems that the same people who now have a stranglehold on the future of civilization have flexed their muscles before, at other significant tipping points in history, and they are prepared to do anything to keep their secret - and their power - safe.



A knuckle-whitening look at what our future could hold; that puts Peak Oil theory in front of a mass market audience.



LAST LIGHT is terrifying, compelling, and above all, convincing.