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Oil Industry Expert to International Energy Agency: Please Tell the World the Truth
Richard Heinberg 11/11/09
For Release Nov 11 2009
Tod Brilliant, PCI
tod@postcarbon.org
707-823-8700 x105
Oil Industry Expert to International Energy Agency: Please Tell the World the Truth
Santa Rosa, CA (11. November 2009) Internationally known oil supply expert and energy analyst Richard Heinberg is urging the International Energy Agency (IEA) to clarify its position on global oil reserves after a 9. November 2009 article in The Guardian reported that whistleblowers within the IEA claim purposeful manipulation of oil data by the IEA to “deliberately underplay a looming shortage.”
In a public plea to the IEA, Heinberg points out that national and local governments must rely on officially sanctioned fuel supply and price projections for all their critical planning. “Energy policy, transport planning, agriculture policy, economic forecasting, and much more depend upon the august pronouncements of the Paris-based IEA,” says Heinberg, who has great concern that the IEA’s willful misinformation, despite ostensible ‘good intentions’ may spell catastrophic results for the global economy.
Heinberg elaborates, “Without accurate oil data and forecasting, the governments of the world are flying blind. It's bad enough that OPEC reserves data is opaque; evidence suggesting that the IEA is muzzling its staff from talking about the precariousness of future world petroleum production is even more troubling. Maybe they feel that we (or the markets) can't handle the truth. But any temporary distress that comes from hearing the bad news will be nothing compared to the awful crash that will ensue if we hit the wall of oil scarcity without adequate preparation.”
Heinberg hopes that the IEA will publicly release accurate data prior to the 7. December 2009 start of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Doing so will provide world leaders with the accurate data needed to make the energy analyses and projections that are critical to the success of a global emissions reductions pact.
Richard Heinberg is Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute (PCI Fellows include Bill McKibben, Majora Carter, Wes Jackson, David Orr and 23 others) and author of "The Party's Over: Oil, War & the Fate of Industrial Societies" and “Blackout: Coal, Climate & the Last Energy Crisis”.
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