the last gasps ....

If you still have any doubt that the world's oil is fast running out, the fact that even the UK may attempt to use oil produced from the Canadian Tar Sands - the most uneconomic, damaging to the environment and, frankly, CRAZY oil that has been or ever will be produced, should make it clear!

We have tied our econmies to oil, a dirty and finite resource that is now reaching its end, rather than making the infrastrucure changes (rail travel, renewables, either abandoning or rail-connecting the suburbs) governments are burying their heads in the sand and trying to keep things the way they were. This is not only stupid and dishonest, but extremely dangerous. If we don't start redesigning our societies NOW we will be leaving future generations living in extreme poverty, environmental destruction and violent climate change. Do you really want your kids and their kids to inherit this legacy, when we ALL know what needs doing?

Please read the following and act accordingly. Remember that the change from oil to post-oil requires that we use the remaining oil to help make these changes. The fact that many of us still think it's okay to waste this resource DRIVING to out of town shopping areas to buy more tat (made with oil!) shows that the government needs to take the lead. In this at least we are too dim or too selfish to think of anyone else!

This morning 50 Greenpeace activists are blockading the Department for Transport with two immobilised cars parked in front of the entrances and a giant handshake. Our government is trying to scupper legislation that will block tar sands oil - the dirtiest, most polluting form of oil there is - from being sold at UK petrol pumps.

Mining for tar sands is wrecking the Canadian boreal forest, destroying the homelands of indigenous people, and accelerating dangerous climate change.

So why then is the UK government trying to sabotage legislation that would block tar sands oil from European petrol pumps? Well it looks like they've been lobbied hard by the Canadian government and big oil. Now it's your turn to lobby.

Please write to Nick Clegg: he needs to tell the ministry for transport to stop standing in the way of green legislation. It's time Clegg acted on the green credentials he keeps talking about.

The tar sands deposits of heavy oil mixed with clay and sand lie below the surface of the Canadian wilderness. To extract the tar, oil companies destroy the Canadian boreal forest, gouge out hundreds of metres of top soil, and turn the landscape into a gaping black pit. Two tonnes of earth has to be dug up and processed to produce each barrel of tar sands oil.

Worst of all, tar sands oil creates three times the emissions per barrel that you would get from normal crude. There's no way tar sands oil makes any sense for our environment or climate.

Next week, officials will meet from across Europe to approve the plan that would prevent tar sands oil from ending up at the pumps. If the proposal goes ahead it would deal a major blow to oil industry plans to expand Canada's tar sands open cast mining operations.

Right now the vote could go either way because of the UK-led diplomatic effort to scupper it. That's why we need your help to put pressure on the government to stop its attempts to scupper the legislation.

Please join the lobby for legislation to block tar sands from Europe and write to Nick Clegg today.

lack of focus

Amazing that the Occupy protest in Bristol is STILL going on.

There is one HUGE problem with Occupy, and it is the reason that the whole thing is falling apart. They have stupidly aligned themselves with the left. The left has a TINY amount of support in the UK, about 1%. So the Occupy movement is doomed from the start for this reason.

And why has Occupy aligned itself with the left? I suspect it is because of the total lack of imagination of the people behind this. They really do believe that this is some sort of crisis of capitalism when the opposite is of course true. The bail out of banks and car companies, insurance and finance set ups was 100% SOCIALIST, in a peculair attempt tp preserve jobs and ailing businesses. Capitalism would never allow this. For capitalism to progress, and if nothing else it is a fantastically progressive economic system, companies that are failing HAVE to close, so that new, leaner businesses can take their place. This is in reality the SECOND CRISIS OF SOCIALISM (the first was the collapse of the Soviet Union of course).

So what Occupy are proposing is more of the same thing that has caused the situation in the first place! This makes them probably the most reactionary and pointless 'protesters' ever seen.

In reality of course there is already a quiet evolution going on as we are faced with zero or falling growth and the end of cheap oil. The true evolutionaries are all involved at different levels in this process. Whether it's restoring closed railways, pushing permaculture, starting cooperatives, building and installing alternative energy set ups, relearning old craft skills or starting community initiatives.

I suspect you've seen the danger here. Believe it or not once, back in the eighties, the Green Party was a genuinely radical party, yet today it is just a watered down version of New Labour, with a tiny patina of green awareness. Result - all the radicals and progressives left. Some of us kept going with proper projects (such as the New S&D), others probably left politics altogether. I have heard that some in Transition are trying to set up a dialogue with Occupy - this would be a disaster if it happened. Occupy's agenda has nothing to do with the future, it is firmly set in old politics (socialism/communism) and assumes that there will always be a strong nanny state providing jobs from cradle to grave (so 1950s!). Occupy is the last fling of the old fogeys, the Empire Loyalists, New Labour, One Nation Tories, the BNP, every half thought out, of it's time, lack of vision 'movement' that was in reality just an agenda thing for a tiny minority interest group.

If Transition, or any other progressive movement, gets tainted by association with Occupy - which will be a laughing stock everywhere within months - it will be finished, which isn't fair.

To conclude, Occupy is simply a last gasp of the old world, a nostalgic hankering back for the big welfare state of the post war time of plenty, a fan club for the Baby Boomers, cornucopians who will refuse to get their hands dirty - in short the chaff that will not survive Peak Oil.

Harsh I know, but can anyone actually prove otherwise?

this is what Occupy want to preserve ...

 It is astonishing how the supermarkets shun locally grown food - even when it's readily available.

Local, seasonal food is healthy, cheap and environmentally-friendly. It supports British growers and reduces air-miles.

But in a survey by the Independent last year, researchers took 10 foods that were grown in the UK. They found seven major supermarket chains were importing these foods from as far away as South America.

Asda sold asparagus from Peru, strawberries from Spain and cauliflower from France. Marks & Spencer sold beans from Guatemala and broccoli from Spain.

These were foods that were in season in the UK!

It all comes down to costs and sales. It's better for supermarkets to buy some imports because of cheap overseas labour. If their customers keep buying this stuff instead of the local version, there's no reason for them to change.

This is an example of how we should be leading the supermarkets, not the other way round. After all they're not charities or environmental agencies - they're just businesses trying to make money.

So it's up to us to use our purses and wallets to make them change - force them to deliver what we want.

a working class view on too thick to fail

The middle class bone idle 'protestors' currently infecting St Pauls and various other locations around the world - generously paid for by US, the taxpayers - are a very tightly-knit bunch of upper middle class low achievers who live only to cause trouble and are selfish to a point beyond psychosis.

They won't listen to me, as being working class I am an untermensch, a subhuman. The Nazi philosophy behind this 'movement' is sickening. They are classist, racist, authoritarian and ambitious for power over the rest of us. They are opportunist thugs, a blend of the SA and the Bullendon Club. They DARE to try to lump us in with them, disgustingly calling us (and they doubtless include me - and you - in this) the 99%. For we must ALL be the same, think as one.

They blame the wrong target - the idiot bankers who are the biggest beneficiaries of this horrible socialism every western government has been practising for years, rather than the governments themselves, and their thoughtless supporters.

Now, the solution. Empty these Waitrose refugee camps, by force if necessary. They bring shame on us all. Take the details of all the participants and their supporters, stop their benefits, and deport any that don't belong. Send the remaining ones to compulsory lessons on economics and capitalism, and give each of them seed capital (as a loan) to start a business. Let them understand Peak Oil and Climate Change (two terms I doubt any of them have ever heard) so they can see just how difficult the future will be. Educate these idiots, so they can become valuable members of society, rather than the dregs.

And will they listen? Of course not. I'm working class, this is nothing to do with me. This is middle class types playing games with other middle class types, the real 99%. It's up to the 1%, the working class, the artists, writers, professionals, craftsmen, businesspeople etc, to sort this mess out.

post-capitalist living

In their breathtaking hubris the 'Too Thick to Fail' zombies are offering the following course to the bone idle middle class chumps that form 100% of the miserable campers.

POST CAPITALIST LIVING

Remember that after capitalism you will be required to live where we say, do the work we say and share your house with others.

Remember that state controlled food supply can be VERY chaotic, so try to grow some fruit and vegetables in the tiny part of your garden that we allow you to keep. However do not under any circumstances attempt to sell any produce, as this will be illegal.

If you have a business close it immediately. We are NOT interested in people that can stand on their own two feet, earn foreign exchange (money is wrong!) or live free of state benefits.

You will be required to join one of the armed services and fight for your fatherland if capitalists threaten our country.

Have any pets destroyed as they are decadent and capitalist.

Trash your environment. Care of the environment is a decadent capitalist trait and will NOT be tolerated. Socialism decrees that EVERY natural resource is to be exploited and depleted - there will be no opposition to this.

JOIN the party, which will be the only one allowed. Otherwise your career will stall and your life, and those of your family and friends, will be in danger.

Destroy all decadent art, music and literature. There is no room for beauty or art in the post capitalist future.

SMILE at all times. You are FREE. Remember you are one of the 99%, the proletariat. The 1%, those old comrades  of the Occupy Movement, will be the elite.