It was encouraging to see that the BTF series was reproduced in its entirety on the Nationalist Unity Forum, and that the articles elicited a range of reactions and lively debate.

Most of the commentary was prompted by Andrew Brons’s considered response which took the form of an article entitled ‘Musing Analysed – Parts of Them are Good!’

This in itself suggests that some merit was perceived in their content, although not unnaturally, the reception that they have received has not been uncritical.

That the articles have stirred up a certain amount of debate is to be welcomed, as is the fact that this debate is helping to differentiate those who wish to make a positive fresh start in politics from those who do not.

Amongst the latter are those who belong to what could be dubbed the ‘Reichest Tendency’, a small but vocal minority who have long bedevilled nationalism in this country through their bizarre obsession with an imported ideology spawned in the last century.

In his response, Brons made a number of specific criticisms, with those in his conclusion being of a pertinent and practical nature. Others however, perhaps arose from a lack of clarity on my part.

For example, one criticism related to his conclusion that I had asserted that the BNP’s collapse had not been attributable to the media, with some specific examples being provided of how media hostility had been detrimental to the party’s fortunes.

Whilst recognising that media hostility did play a role in its demise (I have written about this previously), even without this stance, the BNP would have failed for the serious reasons that were outlined in part I of the series. The decision was taken not to focus upon the attitude of the media, for there was little or nothing that could have been done to change this.

Although Brons can be said to have made a credible case against the formation of another nationalist party, I did not and do not find his case persuasive; to be credible is not necessarily to be convincing.

My opinion with respect to the necessity of forming a new political party has only been reinforced by the recent local election results. As to the details of how that should be achieved, it was not the intent of the BTF series to provide this information.

Such practical matters will become self-evident through the party’s creation and subsequent growth. This does not signify an absence of thought regarding this matter or a lack of planning, but rather a desire not to give too much away to prospective opponents of the concept.

Brons placed great store upon the failure of breakaway parties. This assumes a somewhat proprietorial attitude towards nationalism and nationalist politics.

Having never belonged to any political party myself, my reflections have not been addressed exclusively to former and existing members of the BNP, but rather to all in this country who think and feel that the first and foremost duty of the state should be to advance the welfare, prosperity and security of the members of the national community as a whole, rather than the particularistic interests that promote globalism, globalisation and our attendant loss of sovereignty and identity.

It is therefore addressed to a wide readership including members of other parties such as the English Democrats, the Democratic Nationalists, UKIP and the BFP, individuals who have traditionally supported the mainstream parties, and those of no political affiliation whatsoever.

The new party concept is not supposed to appeal only to those who have been involved in the nationalist movement, but to those who whilst sharing its core values have up until this point been repelled by some of its fringe obsessions and the less savoury behaviour and opinions of a number of its prominent spokesmen (Clive Wakley has grasped this point perfectly).

Thus the title of ‘Beyond the Fringe’. The goal may seem grandiose, but the ultimate aim is to create a mass party.

What has been proposed therefore, is not a ‘breakaway party’, but a new party altogether; an exercise that could be deemed to be even harder than establishing a breakaway party, but one that is nonetheless necessary owing to the manifest serious shortcomings of existing parties.

The criticism was also levelled that I had made the assumption that a certain percentage of the vote would somehow fall into the lap of a new party. Whilst I did identify a potential baseline of electoral support by aggregating votes cast for particular parties, it was stressed that this was a potential share rather than being automatically available. As shown by the election of the BNP’s two MEPs, it is far from necessary to obtain 30% of the vote to succeed in EU elections.

Brons implied that I assumed that candidates from competing nationalist parties would stand aside to allow a new party to fight elections without them hindering its prospects, yet this is something that I neither stated nor believe would be the case. A central objective of a new party, as was reiterated throughout the ‘Beyond the Fringe’ series, would be to establish recognition as a credible and moderate nationalist party, as well as being such a party rather than just appearing to be.

As such, it ought to render the challenges of the existing small parties irrelevant, although of course competing with UKIP in EU elections would be a serious business.

With respect to the five specific practical questions posed by Brons in his conclusion, my responses are as outlined below.

1. How do we overcome the dilemma that breakaway parties always fail if the parent party is still operative?

Response: I am not proposing a breakaway party. This will not be ‘son’ or ‘daughter’ of the BNP, but it will contain former BNP members, as well as people who would never have considered joining the BNP.

2. How do we prepare a party to win seats in the European Parliament against all of the competition that will undoubtedly be there?

Response: The answer to this question depends very much upon how large and how strong the party has become by the spring of 2014. Whatever the case, the concentration of resources will play a crucial role.

3. How do we make this Westminster breakthrough in 2015?

Response: Once again, a perfectly legitimate question, and a very tough one to answer. The same observations apply as in the preceding answer.

4. When we have recovered the serious small party status that we had in 2010, how do we progress to become a large party? How many of the factors that determine that are within our gift and how many are beyond our control?

Response: If our message, and indeed our policy, is what the public wants and the party is rational, credible and moderate, that question will answer itself. It will grow.

5. Is it possible to change the political culture of a party without changing the type of people we recruit?

Response: As stated in the answer to the first question, this will not be BNP Mark II, thus the type of people recruited will be more varied. ManxmanGreenhaugh was correct in his observation that ‘There needs to be a split between the ‘old school’ nationalists and the modernisers.’

Forthcoming articles dealing with the question of perception in the media and within the nationalist movement will provide further clarification with respect to some of these issues.

Conclusion

I welcome Andrew Brons’s qualified positive response and also the pertinent set of practical questions that he raises in his conclusion. I fully acknowledge that it will be no easy task to take this concept, realise it and make it succeed, but if we do not try, only one outcome is certain: failure. Without an animating desire to initiate and realise the positive changes required to protect and advance the well-being, freedom and security of our people, there will be no action and success. Ultimately, the success of this endeavour will rest upon the motivation and dedication of those who share the goals outlined in the BTF series, and who find the forthcoming detailed party concept to their taste. That detailed exposition will however have to wait until another day.

In closing, I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all for their feedback, particularly those of you who have responded positively. Given your favourable comments, further suggestions would be welcome from (names in alphabetical order, those with real names first followed by pseudonyms): Lewis Allsebrook, Geoff Crompton, David Hamilton, Bert Leech, Peter Mills, Kevin Scott, Clive Wakley, Ivan Winters, ‘Adrian’, ‘Barry’, Bilbo, British Activism, Cygnus, For England, Goldenmerlin, Lanky Patriot, A Man from Brum, ManxmanGreenaugh, Mo, North-West Nationalist, Quiet Man, SerpentSlayer, Salford Nationalist and Silly Kuffar. Apologies are in order for anyone that I have omitted from this list. Mention of these individuals does not of course imply that they have necessarily endorsed this concept.

Appendix

For those of you who are perhaps mystified as to why this decision has been taken and think that the concept of a new party is a waste of time, then please refer to the three constituent articles of ‘Beyond the Fringe’ by following the links below:

* Part 1 dealt with the electoral failure of nationalist politics in general and nationalist parties in particular, highlighting the weaknesses of each of the visible small parties.

* Part 2 tackled the issue of which policies should form the bedrock of a new party.

* Part 3 examined the potential baseline of support for a new party, as well as: electoral strategy, tactics, linguistic usage and general principles of party organisation.

Or on the Nationalist Unity Forum website to start the debate.

The current Chairman of the BNP was prosecuted in 2005 for describing Islam as an evil religion and for predicting correctly that third generation immigrants would commit a terrorist atrocity. His colleague was prosecuted for comparing immigrants being attracted to our provision of social security to insects being attracted by the light. Neither said or implied that it would be desirable for immigrants or Muslims to be dead. They were eventually acquitted but only after two lengthy trials.

This week, a prominent member of the Establishment Safety Valve Party, (also known as UKIP), the astronomer, Sir Patrick Moore, said in an interview with the Radio Times: “A Kraut is a Kraut is a Kraut and the only good Kraut is a dead Kraut”. This not quite an incitement to violence but it comes fairly close to it.

Sir Patrick did give the interview in his home and there is or was  a defence that the words were used in a dwelling house. However, in this case he was speaking in his home, in order that his words could be recorded and published.

I have no wish to see Sir Patrick or anybody else prosecuted for the notoriously imprecise offence of incitement to hatred, although I deprecate his offensive remarks.

What is important is that the law must be enforced equally, without fear or favour. We cannot have a situation in which some people are prosecuted for insignificant comment, whilst others are immune from prosecution for much more serious words. As Sir Patrick Moore might have said (less offensively): “The Rule of Law is the Rule of Law is the Rule of Law”.

Will Sir Patrick be prosecuted? Will the interviewer from the Radio Times, who described Moore as speaking with ‘sincerity’ be prosecuted for giving his words wider currency and speaking of them sympathetically? Will the writer of an article in the Daily Mail who quoted Moore’s views with approval, describing them as ‘forthright’, be prosecuted?

If the answer to these three questions is ‘No’, why was the author of a drunken, offensive and tasteless Twitter article about a critically ill Black footballer prosecuted and gaoled? Why was the woman on the tram who made offensive remarks about foreigners prosecuted? Why were the BNP Chairman and his colleague prosecuted for their remarks in 2005?

The answer is that there are laws that apply to British Nationalists and to ordinary members of the public but these laws do not apply to members of the Establishment or to members of its safety value political parties.

Speaking during a debate in the EU’s foreign affairs committee meeting (AFCO) on an address from Vice President Reding on Communication of ‘information’ about the EU, Mr Brons said that one of the first votes in which he took part in that committee was over a motion which “called for more money to be spent on informing the public about the benefits of EU membership.

“The ECR members and the EFD member proposed what I thought was a perfectly reasonable amendment suggesting that people should be informed of the benefits and the detriments of  EU membership,” Mr Brons said.

“The amendment was defeated overwhelmingly. Either those who voted it down thought that EU membership had no detriments or they thought that the detriments should not be exposed to public view.

“One-sided partial information is not really information at all; it is propaganda,” he continued.

“For private organisations and individuals to publish and spend money on propaganda is perfectly acceptable.

“For the EU to spend public money in pro-EU propaganda is quite unacceptable.

“Does it matter? Yes! In the recent referendum in Croatia EU propaganda paid for and published by the EU swamped the arguments put forward by the two sets of protagonists,” Mr Brons pointed out.

“There is a belief common among Europhiles that opposition to the European Union Project can be motivated only by ignorance of its benefits.

“Ignorance and Opposition can be dispelled at one fell swoop by propaganda dressed up as information – directed not just at discerning adults but even at children which is not acceptable.”

Speaking during a recent debate in the European Parliament on “Human Rights in the World,” Mr Brons pointed out that the sponsor of the motion had said that ‘For the EU to be a credible actor, it must act consistently and avoid double standards between internal and external policies.’

“That is,” Mr Brons said, “It must not itself practise what it condemns in others.

“Tyrannies ban political parties, but then so do Belgium and Germany.

“Tyrannies ban heretical opinion on academic subjects but don’t think that begins and ends with Turkey’s prosecution of Orhan Pamuk,” he continued.

“France passed a history-heresy law only this year and several EU countries have similar laws.

“Tyrannies lock people up for expressing different political opinions from those of the Political Class,” Mr Brons said.

“he unsuccessful prosecution of Geert Wilders had scarcely passed when we saw the unlovely spectacle, in this Parliament, of the Commissar for Justice (no less) drooling over the possibility of gaoling Wilders for his website.

“Before the countries of the EU seek to spread the appreciation of Human Rights beyond their borders, they should put its own houses in order,” Mr Brons told his colleagues, unpleased as they were at their rampant hypocrisy being exposed in this manner.

And yet, on a regular basis, like a strange knee-jerk reaction, it also cocks a supercilious snoot at the only kind of political movement that can remedy the very catastrophes it laments – Nationalism.

Daily Mail writer Stephen Glover, for example, in a single headline to his article on page 17 of April 12th, fully recognizes the threats Britain faces, yet in the very same sentence, extraordinarily feels the need to jump yet again on the same old and obsolete bandwagon of “putting the boot in” where the growth of European Nationalism is concerned.

The headline in question states in big black letters: “Economic crisis, a failing political class and the spectre of 1930s-style extremism across Europe.”

The Daily Mail is merely one common example of this widespread affliction of double-standards, and I have no wish to malign it or single it out, except by explaining that it is my regular newspaper and has been so since I was 17 in 1956, thus it comes to my attentions more than any other newspaper.

This same form of “knock all Nationalism regardless” is, of course, also encouraged by our successive governments, by 99% (probably more) of Fleet Street, by the TV and radio management and owners, and by all those “Establishment-leaning” institutions, movers-and-shakers and opinion-makers who, en masse, have their collective hands upon the steering wheel of the general public’s attitudes, opinions, thought-processes and world-view.

And unless this mischievous and outdated spread of mis-information can be popularly challenged and overcome, its infection of the attitudes of the general population of this country will help drag Britain down to death like some poor staggering wildebeest being eaten alive by hyenas on a television wildlife documentary.

Consider this metaphor: if a famous mathematician in a bygone era, now long dead, stated some eighty years in the past that two plus two equals seven, then it is evidently extremely difficult to convince successive generations that this is not, in fact, the correct answer to the sum, and thus everybody must be compelled to continue to believe that this is the correct answer, and to always remember to include it as correct in their own calculations, and that, because it is such a famous historical example of mathematics, this answer will remain correct and therefore unchangeable for all eternity amen.

Immediately we can see the utter fallacy of this kind of “regimented thinking” (actually, it is defined as “vertical thinking”, which is not capable of escaping the walls of its limitations, as opposed to “lateral thinking” which can adapt outwards as necessary to new ideas and facts).

If this analogy seems vague to you, then I ask you to consider the identical premise when it is applied, not to fictional mathematical opinions, but instead to the political opinions of the average British people as they are spoon-fed by the media. Eighty years ago next year, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party gained power in Germany, with results that everyone is familiar with. The Nazis were Fascists, a term coming into usage via the earlier rise to power of Benito Mussolini in Italy (from the Latin “fasces”, a bundle of rods tied round an axe used by the Romans as the badge of a civic magistrate). The term “Nazi” derives from “National Socialist” (Nationalsozialismus).

Thus it is the easiest thing in the world for newspapers and the general media, for politicians, reporters, editors, writers, interviewers, social commentators and all that plethora of people who speak to the nation, to equate any political party which includes the word “Nationalist” in its title, or even if it does not, which dares to promote political Nationalism in its policies and its political stance, as “Fascists”, or “Right-Wing Extremists” or even “Nazis” or “Nazi-Like”.

Thus, since it can be categorically shown that, eighty years ago, someone stated two plus two equals seven, it is regularly hammered into today’s public that two plus two must still equal seven in the present day. Present-day mathematicians are quite obviously incapable of noticing the error in the bygone equation and adopting instead a correct formula that will give accurate and much more useful results. That is the identical logic used by everyone who seeks to defame Nationalism. It is not logic. It is the application of hysterical bigotry and preferential ignorance. When it is presented on a daily basis by the media, it becomes hysterical ignorance and is entirely inexcusable.

As most people will know, the word “Tory” derives from the old Irish word “tóraidhe” (in modern Irish, tórai) which means “outlaw, robber, brigand”. However, the typical “grass-roots” members and voting supporters of the Tory Party in the present day would surely be most outraged if the British media at all levels insisted on defining them as “an outlaw party” or “a party advocating extremist brigandage”, or simply as “a band of criminals”.

Nationalists are not fascists, or right-wing extremists, or Neo-Nazis, any more than the Conservative Party are all criminals, or the Labour Party all wear cloth caps and clogs, or the Liberal Democrats are Whigs. Yes, there are doubtless some criminals amongst the Tories, and some Labour MPs might wear cloth caps; there may even be one somewhere who wears clogs; and there may even be a few Lib-Dems who fondly think of themselves as wearing powdered wigs, buckled shoes and knee-breeches. But these caricatures are generally the exception rather than the rule.

Likewise, Communism has many sub-species, but the largest countries to have been ruled by Communism are the former Soviet Union and China. The Soviet Union got its calculations wrong and collapsed, having made mistake after mistake. Communist China, on the other hand, has made mistakes in the past (haven’t we all?) but has managed to make progress and today is the second largest economy in the world, exceeded only by that of the USA – and the way western economics are heading, China may well soon overtake the US and become the world’s biggest economy.

I do not favour the rule of Communism, any more than I favour that of Nazism or Genghis Khan. My point in citing such examples is, simply and patently obviously, they show that like all things except the media, political opinions and associations must change and evolve as time passes, because those that do not will collapse and are erased from the world-scene.

Political Nationalism in today’s Europe (including Britain) is likewise, in absolute terms, not the same animal as the fascists of the 1930s. In fact, by an examination of comparative policies, it can be quite easily seen that the Nationalism of such parties as the Dutch Freedom Party of Geert Wilders and the French National Front of Marine LePen, and the striving cause of the new unified Nationalist trend in Britain, actually have far more realistic and potentially successful political strategies for solving the economic, sociological and political crisis that now grips all Europe in an iron fist.

The biggest problem of all, though, is that the voting people are forced to wear propaganda blinkers which project into their minds the false and obsolete illusion that Nationalism is a bogeyman synonymous with fascism or worse, whilst at the same time completely camouflaging the truth that it is the Iron Fist of a Europe run by secured “establishment” parties that holds everyone in the death-grip of a very real bogeyman (or gang of bogeymen)!

The Nationalist parties of Europe, including Britain, offer policies that can remedy the situation and restore the status quo of proper regional government and proper regional economies – and, come to that, of proper democratic voting such as is denied to anyone who wishes to resign from, or not vote to join in the first place, the catastrophic European Superstate. Countries such as the now-suffering Ireland, when they voted “no” to Europe in a referendum, were ordered by Europe to go back and do it again, and if necessary again, until they got it right! Is this not the working of actual fascism?

The European Union and the traditional establishment or “normal” political parties who support it are the producers of the policies that are destroying our civilization.

Nationalism, on the other hand, today offers a complete and rational set of policies that will enable a country such as Britain, or Ireland, or Greece, or Italy, or Spain, or Portugal, or…..  – the list is perhaps too long to complete – to repair the damage inflicted upon them by the European Union and the “establishment” political parties who are securely in its pocket.

This is the new mathematical formula that Nationalism can offer Britain and Europe, and it is a correct and successful formula, not an outmoded grotesquery still given Frankensteinian lifeblood from the superstitious fears of past generations kept aflame by the fanning of media and political propaganda.

Until the media and the general public begin to see the truth of this, we will inevitably be seeing more lurid anachronistic headlines attempting to convince the ordinary voting people that two plus two still equals seven just as it did many generations ago.

I have news for the News – we are now in the 21st Century and things have changed, especially politics. They need to face that fact and admit it to the public.

Peak Oil is the theoretical point when the maximum rate of oil production is reached and after that time enters into a terminal decline. There is a lot of debate surrounding the Peak Oil theory, with some observers predicting rapid decline in oil production with serious implications for our entire economy and society.

No name is more closely associated with the concept of Peak Oil than geologist Marion King Hubbert.

Hubbert was a research geologist for Shell Oil Company and later the US Geological Service. Hubbert is credited with developing a quantitative technique (Logistic Growth Curve) now commonly referred to as the Hubbert Curve, which he suggested could be used to predict the remaining oil supplies (or any other finite resource like gas, copper, etc.) and the time of eventual depletion.

In the 1956 meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, Texas, Hubbert presented a paper titled Nuclear Energy and Fossil Fuels where he suggested that overall petroleum production would peak in the United States between the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

Since US oil production did indeed appear to peak in 1970, many Peak Oil advocates acclaim Hubbert as a prophet. However, an apparent peak in production does not necessarily represent a peak in oil availability, especially in a global market—something that Peak Oil advocates tend to overlook. In fact, a “peak” may just be one of many “spikes”.

Another point of confusion in the debate over the ultimate availability of oil and gas supplies is the question of “unconventional” fossil fuel sources like tar sands, oil shales, heavy oils, and shale oil.

Hubbert did not include these other energy types in his estimates and many of the proponents of Peak Oil today tend to ignore these hydro-carbon sources.

However, since there is vastly more oil (and gas) found in these “unconventional” sources compared to “conventional” crude oil and traditional gas sources, the exclusion of them from any policy debate over oil’s demise leads to serious misrepresentation of our ultimate fossil fuel availability.

As Hubbert wrote in his paper, “if we knew the quantity (of some resource) initially present, we could draw a family of possible production curves, all of which would exhibit the common property of beginning and ending at zero, and encompassing an area equal to or less than the initial quantity.”

In theory, Hubbert’s basic concept is sound. As a way of thinking about and approaching the issue of declining finite resources, Hubbert was a pioneer.

But that does not mean his predictions were accurate.

The problem for anyone trying to predict future resource availability is discerning the initial starting amount of a resource such as oil when one cannot readily see or gauge accurately the resource.

This lack of transparency presents huge opportunities for error, in particular, erring on the side of under estimation of the total resource.

And time has consistently shown that under estimation of total resource is the most common error, and as we shall see this is exactly the error that Hubbert made with regards to his estimates of our remaining oil and gas reserves.

Hubbert can be forgiven because new technology can make previously unavailable resources accessible, even less expensive to exploit. In fact, he even anticipated this to a degree in his paper, another point that Hubbert’s admirers today tend to overlook.

FORECASTING PROBLEMS

Few that credit Hubbert with a successful prediction have apparently actually read his paper. A reading of his presentation demonstrates that Hubbert grossly underestimated total oil supplies, and thus his predicted high point of the bell curve deviates significantly from reality.

Indeed, there is good evidence we haven’t even reached the top of the bell curve, much less past it in 1970.

He did not anticipate things like the discovery of oil in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay or shale oil like the North Dakota Bakken Formation, among many other oil discovery that have significantly changed total oil supplies.

And because US oil production did peak in 1970, the same time period which Hubbert suggested oil reserves would reach their half-way point and start an inevitable decline, few bothered to ask whether the observed decline in US production might have any other explanation other than declining geological petroleum stocks as Peak Oil advocates suggest.

Predicting future oil and gas supplies is fraught with dangers. Many factors influence oil extraction other than geological limits. A rapid shift to renewable energy, a decline in global economies, new technological innovation, energy conservation, a high oil price that dampens consumer demand, political instability and wars all significantly affects energy production, thus when and how “peak” is achieved.

Many believe a more realistic model rather than a bell curve is a rapid run up in production to a spike or series of spikes followed by a long drawn out plateau and production decline with ultimately more oil production occurring after the apparent peak, but less rapidly than prior to the “peak” which of course wouldn’t really be a peak in the traditional sense of the word.

HUBBERT’S ERROR

The first problem with Hubbert’s prediction is that his estimates of total oil and gas reserves are far too low. If the starting amount of reserves are low, than the top of the bell curve is reached much sooner than if there are greater amounts of oil–assuming that a bell curve actually represents what is occurring–which many people dispute.

Some suggest Hubbert just drew the curve to fit his assumptions.

In his paper, Hubbert estimated that the “ultimate potential reserve of 150 billion barrels of crude oil for both the land and offshore areas of the United States.”

Hubbert’s estimate was based on the crude oil “initially present which are producible by methods now in use.” Using the 150 billion barrel estimate he predicted US Peak Oil occurring in 1965. But to be cautious, he also used a slightly higher figure of 200 billion barrels which produced a peak in oil production around 1970—the figure that Hubbert advocates like to use to demonstrate that Hubbert was prophetic in his predictions.

However, by 2006 the Department of Energy estimated that domestic oil resources still in the ground (in-place) total 1,124 billion barrels.

Of this large in-place resource, 400 billon barrels is estimated to be technically recoverable with current technology.

This estimate was produced before horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or fracking techniques were widely adopted which most authorities believe will yield considerably more oil than was thought to be recoverable in 2006.

Going back to Hubbert’s paper we find that he predicted that by 1970 the US should have consumed half or about 100 million barrels of oil of the original endowment of 150-200 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

And by his own chart on page 32 of his paper if we use the assumption of 200 billion barrels as the total potential oil reserves of the US we should be completely out of oil by now.

According to his curve and graph, by year 2000 we should have had only around 27 billion or so barrels of oil left in the US and fallen to zero sometime in the mid-2000s.

Yet the US government estimates as of 2007 that our remaining technically recoverable reserves are 198 billion barrels, and this excludes oil that may be found in area that are off limits to drilling (i.e. like most of the Continental Shelf).

And there are another 400 billion barrels that some suggest could be recovered with new methods (which itself is a subset of total in place oil which future technology may make available at an affordable price).

Obviously if Hubbert were correct, and we had reached Peak Oil in 1970 (point where we had consumed half of our oil) and we started out with only 200 billion, we could not have nearly 200-400 billion still left to extract—and total resources are likely even higher than this figure.

It’s also important to keep in mind that “technologically recoverable” resources are not the “total” amount of oil thought to exist in the US, so the total in-place reserves are much, much larger. It does not take a lot of imagination to predict that many of these oil resources will eventually be unlocked with new technological innovation thus added to the total “proven reserves.”

Another example of his under-estimation of oil is US off-shore oil. In his 1956 paper, Hubbert suggests we had 15 billion total barrels, but the US government now estimates there is closer to 90 billion barrels of oil left off-shore–and we have already extracted quite a bit.

(I’m not sure if that figure is just for off -shore currently open to exploration or all off shore–since oil exploration is banned on 83% of the US coastline. If this figure refers only to those areas currently available to drill–then the number may be quite a bit higher if all off shore areas were opened to oil extraction).

Hubbert was even farther off in his estimate for global oil reserves, which is not surprising since in 1956 very few parts of the world had been adequately studied.

In his 1956 paper Hubbert wrote that there was “about 1250 billion barrels for the ultimate potential reserves of crude oil of the whole world.”

In his paper he estimated that the entire Middle East including Egypt had no more than 375 billion barrels of oil.

Yet by 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that just the “proven reserves” in Saudi Arabia alone totaled 262.6 billion barrels.

Similarly in his paper Hubbert uses an estimate of 80 billion barrels for all of South America, yet Venezuela has 296 billion barrels of proven reserves.

By 2000, the point when Hubbert estimated that we would reach global Peak Oil we would have only around 625 billion barrels of oil left.

Just the 558 billion barrels of proven reserves known to exist in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela alone (and a lot more in-place resources) is nearly equal the total global oil supplies that Hubbert estimated would remain in global reserves.

Obviously once again Hubbert’s global estimates were way too low.

The world has already burned through more than a trillion barrels of oil, clearly demonstrating how far off his prediction of oil supplies were.

The estimated “proven reserves” left globally are today more than 1.3 trillion for the top 17 oil producing countries alone.

PROVEN RESERVES Vs. TOTAL RESOURCES

Part of the confusion in the Peak Oil debate is that people, agencies and organizations use different definitions and accounting methods that are often not explicitly acknowledged.

For instance, most Peak Oil advocates rely upon “proven reserve” numbers to argue we have limited oil supplies remaining.

However, it is important to note the term “proven reserves” has a very precise meaning that only includes oil that has a 90% certainty that the oil can be extracted using current technology at current price.

It does not represent total oil that may over time be produced. The total estimated amount of oil in an oil reservoir, including both producible and non-producible oil, is called various terms including oil in place. Due to technological, political and other limitations, only a small percentage of the total “in place” oil can be extracted at the present time.

However, proven reserves are the bare minimum amount of oil that reasonably can be expected to be extracted over time.

One of the wild cards in predicting oil reserves is the recovery factor. Recovery factors vary greatly among oil fields. Most oil fields to this point have only given up a fraction of their potential oil holdings—between 20-40%.

By 2009 the average Texas oil field had only about a third of its oil extracted, leaving two-thirds still in the ground.

Using Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques, many of them not even available when Hubbert wrote his paper, recovery can often be boosted to 40-60%. In essence if EOR were applied to many of the larger US oil fields, we could effectively double the oil extracted, hence “proven reserves.”

Even Hubbert recognized that we may eventually extract more oil from existing fields, though he still underestimated the effect of new discoveries and new technology.

Hubbert wrote ”… only about a third of the oil underground is being recovered. The reserve figures cited are for oil capable of being extracted by present techniques. However, secondary recovery techniques are gradually being improved so that ultimately a somewhat larger but still unknown fraction of the oil underground should be extracted than is now the case. Because of the slowness of the secondary recovery process, however, it appears unlikely that any improvement that can be made within the next 10 or 15 years can have any significant effect upon the date of culmination. Amore probable effect of improved recovery will be to reduce the rate of decline after culmination…..”

While no one realistically believes it’s possible to get every last drop of oil from an oil reservoir, new technologies are often able to get significantly more oil from existing fields than was possible in the past.

The important fact is that the recovery factor often changes over time due to changes in technology and economics. Since the bulk of global oil still remains in the ground, and any shift upward in price and improvement in technology suddenly makes it profitable to exploit reserves that were previously not included in the “proven reserves” estimate. Thus proven reserve estimates are a minimum, not the maximum amount of oil available.

To demonstrate how technology and price can affect “proven reserves” estimates, just a few years ago Canada’s “proven reserves” of oil were only 5 billion barrels. Today, due to higher prices and improved technology that makes tar sands production economically feasible; Canada now has “proven” reserves of 175 billion barrels of oil.

Nothing changed other than the price of oil and the technology used to extract it. Oil companies knew there was a lot of oil in the tar sands, but it took a change in technology and price to move it into the “proven reserves” category.

Even more telling is that the total minimum estimate of in place oil for the tar sands exceeds 1.3 trillion barrels of oil. Keep in mind that 1.3 trillion barrels is more oil than Hubbert thought existed in the entire world when he presented his 1956 paper.

People knew all along there were tremendous amounts of oil locked in Alberta’s tar sands. But it took a change in price, along with some technological innovation to make it profitable for extraction.

So proven reserves are not a static figure based on geology, rather it reflects economics and technology.

Unfortunately too many writing about the presumed Peak of oil in the United States appear to ignore the distinction, and regularly use the “proven reserves” figure as if it were the ultimate geological limit on oil and/or gas supplies.

Although the major point of his paper was the potential depletion of traditional oil and gas reservoirs, he did mention “unconventional oil.” Unconventional oil reserves are oil or hydrocarbons found in geological formations other than a traditional oil reservoir.

Examples of unconventional oil include Alberta’s tar sands, oil shales of the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, the heavy oils of Venezuela, and other non-traditional hydrocarbons.

There are far more of hydro-carbons in these formations than traditional oil reservoirs—a fact that many Peak Oil advocates frequently ignore.

Or if they acknowledge their existence, they dismiss them as uneconomical or technologically impossible to exploit and therefore will never make a significant contribution to global energy supplies.

Hubbert failed to appreciate the potential contribution of these unconventional sources of synthetic oil. For instance, he put the total for US oil shales at around a trillion barrels of oil equivalent.

Recently the USGS estimated that the Green River drainage area of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah may contain as much as 4.2 trillion barrels of in place oil equivalent in oil shale deposits.

To put this into context, the US currently consumes around 24 billion barrels of oil in 2010, so even if a fraction of these oil shales are exploited it will significantly increase available energy to the US.

With unconventional oils like tar sands, oil shales, heavy oils, etc. included, it seems we have huge amounts of potential energy–even acknowledging that much of that oil may not be extracted until some future date due to cost and/or lack of technology.

NATURAL GAS ESTIMATES

As he did with his estimates of oil, Hubbert also appears to have underestimated natural gas supplies as well. He put total natural gas supplies to be around 850 trillion cubic feet (TCF) and maximum US production would be 14 TCF annually.

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates that shale gas reserve alone total 750 TCF and shale gas is only one source of natural gas.

Total natural gas reserves are increasing. Estimates vary about total gas reserves, but they run between 1400 to 2000 TFC. I see no reason to doubt these estimates.

If correct, then his estimate of natural gas was also a vast underestimate.

This link shows that gas supplies are increasing well into the future.

And new estimates for gas hydrates (methane locked in frozen ice) suggests there may be twice as much energy locked in these resources than all the coal, oil, and traditional natural gas supplies combined.

One estimate suggests there may be a 3000 plus year supply of natural gas in gas hydrates. Whatever the ultimate number may be, the important point is that we are not in any danger of running out of fossil fuels in the near future.

OTHER EXPLANATIONS FOR US PEAK OIL PRODUCTION

Was it just coincidence and luck that Hubbert picked 1970 as one of the possible peaks in US oil production even though his starting numbers were way too low?

This raises the question whether declining US production since 1970 is due to depletion of oil fields as asserted by Peak Oil advocates or whether economics explains it better. (This is not to deny that at some point we will see declining production due to real limits–the question of importance however is when that will occur).

Another explanation requires looking beyond the US. Keep in mind that oil is a commodity. Just because we may see a decline in production of some commodity does not mean we are running out of that substance or resource.

The Northeast US was once the major producer of timber in the US. Today if you buy lumber in New England, there’s a good chance it was cut and shipped from the Pacific Northwest, not because there are no trees to cut in New England. Rather due to climate, vegetation, and infrastructure factors, it’s less expensive to cut trees in Oregon or British Columbia than to log New England forests.

It would be wrong to conclude that because New England imports most of its lumber that there are not enough trees left to provide wood locally.

Similarly attributing declining US oil production to geological depletion ignores the effect of global oil production.

Immediately after WWII the US was easily the global leader in oil production.

This dominance of global oil markets by US production and companies continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Then in the late 1960s and early 1970s oil production in other parts of the world began to increase substantially.

In particular, Middle East oil production improved dramatically due to foreign investment and technology. For a variety of factors, once the oil infrastructure (pipelines, tanker ports, oil fields,) was built in these places, it became less expensive to import oil from Saudi Arabia, for example, than to build a new oil field in Wyoming or Texas.

Indeed in some cases producing oil wells in the US were capped and retired even though they were perfectly capable of producing more oil. Not only was oil production increasing in Saudi Arabia, but all over the world at this time including Venezuela, Mexico, and the Soviet Union. All of these new fields were producing lower cost oil than one could get from most US oil fields at the time.

So could it be that US producers just decided it was a better business plan to invest in and/or buy oil from other oil producing countries? Did this low cost oil cause oil companies to import oil rather than invest in US oil production?

Worse for US producers, except for a few manufactured shortages like the 1973 oil crisis created by OPEC in response to US support for Israel or the War in Iraq, the abundance of relatively inexpensive oil kept oil prices depressed throughout the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and into the early 2000s, discouraging new investment in US oil production.

It takes up to a decade or more to bring a new oil field on line, especially if the field is not located near other infrastructure. For instance, Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay Oil field was discovered in 1968 and it wasn’t until 1978 before the first oil was sent to market.

Oil companies will only invest in major new production if they are certain that the prices are stable and will remain at a specific break-even point into the future.

This lag time between changes in price or technology and significant production is why the oil industry cannot rapidly respond to short term price increases or politically created shortages.

Peak Oil advocates continuously point to the rise in oil prices during the latter part of the 2000s and suggest that an apparent lack of significant new oil production is due to depletion. However, there is a time lag before higher prices result in a noteworthy increase in oil production. Given the huge investments needed to bring on line new oil production, companies have to first wait for quite a number of years after an oil price hike before they start any new development to make sure that higher prices are going to stabilize, not rise and then fall suddenly as happened in 2008 when oil reached $145 a barrel then crashed to $30 a barrel. Such volatility does not lead to greater oil production.

Nevertheless, higher oil prices in the past few years have started to spur new development in the US and around the globe. The US, for instance, has reduced its import of foreign oil from 60% to 45% due to higher production at home as well as greater efficiency spurred by higher fuel prices. These trends point to continued reduction in imports. However, because of the long delay between start up and full production, there is no quick relief. This is one reason why “Drill, Baby, Drill” is a foolish response to any oil price increase.

From the oil producer’s perspective, there is no advantage in increasing spare production capacity. All this will do is flood the market (global market) with cheap energy. What company wants to reduce its profits by over production? So far global oil production has largely been able to meet all demand, except for short term shortages as a result of political change, wars, and/or price speculation. But none of these reflect a true geological short-fall or serious effect of depletion.

Despite Hubbert’s prediction that we would be just about out of oil by now, the US oil production (and gas) have both gone up in recent years. This is in response to higher prices and new technologies. But according to Hubbert this could not be occurring because we are long past our Peak and indeed, very near our bottom line for oil.

There is no doubt that a finite resource such as oil will continue to decline, and demand will likely grow at least into the foreseeable future, both of which should lead to higher fuel costs. But whether this leads to a long term chronic shortages that cause major economic disruption or even the collapse of civilization as some predict is subject to more uncertainty than perhaps some like to admit. For one thing there is far more oil on the planet than most people recognize, and new technologies combined with rising price for fuels is spurring development of new oil supplies. Rising prices also spurs shifts to other energy sources, as well as greater efficiency and conservation of energy.

Rather than running out of oil and/or gas any time soon, I think the bigger danger is that we have more than enough oil and other fossil fuel energy resources to sustain us for quite a few decades if not centuries. Any efficiency and/or conservation of energy, combined with some replacement of fossil fuel energy with renewables than these finite resources, will extend hydrocarbon resources quite a few additional decades.

The real problem for the planet and human society is not the imminent danger of running out of hydrocarbon fuels, but that an abundance of these energy sources will permit population and economic growth that will gradually diminish the planet’s biodiversity, degrade ecosystems, and disrupt global climate and other systems.

George Wuerthner is an ecologist. He is currently working on a book about energy. This article originally appeared in Counterpunch magazine, 29 March 2012.

“I have a book on British Wild Animals from 1947 in which it welcomed the addition of the Grey Squirrel to British Wild Life in the interests of Diversity,” Mr Brons said.

“I have some good news for the writer of the book and for the Grey Squirrel: it is now to be found everywhere in Britain.

“For the Red Squirrel I have some less welcome news: Your habitats have been taken and you will soon be extinct.

“There are some people who defend the Grey Squirrel and say:

- it was born and brought up in Britain;

- it would have gone to school in Britain if squirrels went to school;

- it would have a British passport if squirrels had passports.

- indeed, it is not really a Grey Squirrel at all but simply a native Red Squirrel that happens to have grey fur.”

Mr Brons said that 1947 was “only sixty-five years ago and yet the squirrel population has undergone such enormous changes.

“The human population of Britain has also changed enormously.

“It just shows how the wrong kind of diversity can lead very quickly to the displacement of native populations,” he told his less than pleased EU colleagues.

Speaking during a debate on the EU’s Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Brons said that “both the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights provide that people have or should have freedom of expression.

“In several EU countries and signatories of the Convention, people can be, and are, gaoled for heretical opinions on academic subjects and for political opinions that are disapproved of by the Political Class.

“Perhaps the worst example is the country in which we are now, France,” he continued.

“France, only this year, passed a law prescribing a description of the killing of Armenians in 1915 backed up by criminal penalties.

“Furthermore, people have been prosecuted for the careless use of a word such as ‘debate’ to refer to an historical event,” Mr Brons added, referring to a leading French Front National figure, Bruno Gollnisch, who made that remark about the Holocaust.

“It really doesn’t matter whether or not one dishonest document is judged by the standards of another dishonest document,” Mr Brons continued, referring to the European Union with its document, the Charter of Fundamental Rights: and the Council of Europe with its document, the European Convention on Human Rights.

Speaking later, Mr Brons explained further: “The issue here is whether or not one organisation, the European Union, complies with its obligation under Article 6 of the Lisbon Treaty, and becomes a member of the second organisation, the Council of Europe, and thereby signs up to the Council of Europe’s document, the European Convention on Human Rights.

“When the European Union signs up to the Council of Europe and to its European Convention on Human Rights, there might be a succession of ‘compatibility’ court rulings.

“It might have to be decided whether the national law of a member country is consistent with EU law (if the national law is within an area of EU competence); or it might have to be decided (ultimately by the EU’s Court of Justice) whether the EU law is consistent with the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.

“It might hen have to be decided whether the judgment of the EU’s Court of Justice and the (EU’s) Charter of Fundamental Rights are consistent with the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Human Rights,” Mr Brons said, pointing out that it was all very confusing.

Speaking during an European Parliament debate this past week, Mr Brios said that “whilst trafficking in human beings can be for many purposes, the dominant form is of women and girls for sexual exploitation.

“When this subject was discussed in LIBE about two years ago, I asked the representative from Europol, whether any population groups were prominent among the traffickers and the trafficked.

“He answered, without any qualification: ‘The answer to both questions is the Roma’. We need to examine the significance of that answer,” Mr Brons said.

“Of course, criminal sexual exploitation of girls does not always involve the crossing of international frontiers.

“The grooming of underage girls by Asian men in the United Kingdom was first brought to public attention by our Chairman. The authorities responded by prosecuting him for alleged incitement. It was only when he was acquitted that the authorities were forced to start prosecuting those responsible for the grooming.”

* A 2005 report, Trafficking in Human Beings in South Eastern Europe, written by Barbara Limanowska and published by the United Nations Development Programme

 (UNDP), criticized the Roma community’s attitudes towards trafficking. According to her research in 2003, many practitioners involved in combating trafficking emphasised“…the involvement of some Roma people in trafficking, the lack of critical voices from within Roma communities and of Roma involvement in anti-trafficking work. NGOs working on trafficking issues complained about the lack of access to this group, the lack of interest on the part of the Roma community to address the issue and lack of co-operation between organisations – inside the community and between Roma and non-Roma NGOs.”

Speaking during a debate last week in the European Parliament on a statement by the President of the Commission over “the means to combat the economic crisis,” Mr Brons said the “ ailing countries of Southern Europe must withdraw from the Euro-zone, return to their own currencies and allow their values to fall to their market levels. This will lead to export-led expansions in each country.

“Debts would have to be translated into their own currencies by negotiation. Austerity measures are strangling the economies of these ailing countries (in the euro-zone and others outside it). They need expansion and not suffocation,” he continued.

“The embrace of neo-liberalism and globalism must be abandoned. The challenge from the emergent economies like China must be tackled head-on. We must protect our economies from their cheap exports, kept low by artificially low wages and under-valued currency.

“Infrastructure must be built, repaired and brought up-to-date by public-sector initiative. This must be financed by delayed-payment Quantitative Easing and not by interest-bearing debt.

“President Obama, when introducing the American Jobs Bill saw the contradiction between infrastructure in disrepair and unemployed construction workers.

“We Nationalists have a principle: What is physically possible should be financially possible. If it is not, there is something wrong with the financial system,” Mr Brons concluded.

Speaking later, Mr Brons explained further: “People in Portugal, Greece and Spain, whose unemployment is between 15% and 24% must look enviously at Norway and Switzerland with 3.2% and Iceland at 7.3%. Whilst the latter countries are expected to grow in 2012, the former will contract.

“The yield on Spanish ten year bonds is 4.1% higher than on German ten year bonds, which means that the market rate of, and confidence in, Spanish bonds has plummeted.

“In Spain, weaker bonds mean weaker banks and weaker banks mean weaker bonds and, in due course another Euro crisis. Falling growth and fiscal austerity in Spain is discouraging investment.

“Southern Europe is exporting its employment and its most able workers to Germany, for whom the Euro is undervalued. The 50% youth unemployment rates in Greece and Spain have social costs of homelessness and suicide.

“Keeping these countries in the Eurozone is not an act of kindness; it is locking them into poverty and misery,” he said.