Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

Fingers are pointing everywhere in the shortage, from government promises before winter hit that there were adequate supplies, to new pipelines being slowed down, to labor strikes. The people freezing in their homes however, are likely less concerned about who or what is to blame than getting the supplies they need.

Consistently, those who try to talk about resource depletion are labeled as "alarmist." The Independent quotes a representative of the Energy Intensive Users Group as saying: "I trust that ministers will recognise that CBI warnings last November were not alarmist. With prices this high, some heavily energy-dependent firms could be forced to turn down or shut production."

The following article from the Guardian, clearly shows that even those who bought policies to protect them from heat shutoff are left adrift.

Thousands of British Gas customers have been left without heating or hot water for days - and in some cases weeks - during the coldest part of winter because the company's HomeCare insurance operation is in chaos.

A whistleblower who works for British Gas has revealed that staff were told customers without central heating "no longer constituted a priority", even though they have paid around £200 a year for emergency call-out insurance.

More than 3.4 million people have such policies promising "expert boiler care", but thousands have endured long waits in the cold for engineers who often fail to arrive or don't have the correct parts.

The whistleblower contacted the Guardian after reading our report on how it took British Gas three months and seven appointments to fix a minor problem in an oven in Surrey.

He says call centre staff deal with similar instances every day, and every "third or fourth call is currently from someone complaining about the poor service they have received".

He reveals that appointments to fix boilers are frequently canceled without informing the customer. Around Christmas it was taking the company six days to fix some boilers - longer if new parts were required. While the system was unable to cope, he says the company continued to press staff to sell policies to new customers.

British Gas admitted it has experienced problems with its HomeCare operation, but denied several of the whistleblower's claims.

My guess is that this preview of the consequences of peak gas are going to mobilize a lot of people in Britain and in Europe. It should mobilize us all. Unfortunately, this situation is not making it to the U.S. media. For some reason, a catastrophe in the U.S.' closest ally is simply not worth mentioning. Nor are there any reports that the U.S. government is moving natural gas supplies to help the people of Britain - despite their help with oil supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps it is because supplies are not that robust in the U.S. either.