Is just facing up to the reality that oil is a finite resource 'scaremongering'?
From todays press:
"Govt should listen to OPEC, say Greens
Tuesday, 29 March 2005, 6:06 pm
Press Release: Green Party
Govt should listen to OPEC, say Greens
Energy Minister Trevor Mallard confirmed in the House today that he hadn’t heard the latest OPEC news when he claimed last week that Peak Oil is still thirty years away.
OPEC producers said on 16 March that they are already pumping as fast as they can, with the Qatari Oil Minister saying, “OPEC has done all it can do.” The US Department of Energy, on whose forecasts the Government generally relies, said Saudi Arabia, the only OPEC country believed to have excess capacity, is already pumping at 90 per cent of the maximum possible rate.
A trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange subsequently took out a futures option to buy oil at US$100 a barrel in June. "
Source:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0503/S00543.htm