Which Energy? I-SIS energy report

Preface

We started this energy review in the summer of 2005, when accelerating global warming and soaring energy prices finally struck home to most of the world's political leaders that business as usual is no longer an option. The challenge to find the right survival strategies has never been greater; and we have to find them now. Time and energy resources are both running out. Squander them on the wrong technologies and the consequences will be catastrophic. Choose the right options and we can mitigate global warming and thrive in a greener, cleaner post fossil fuel planet.

Choosing the right options requires a critical understanding of the science and technologies involved. We need to know how our energy options affect the health of the planet and the human species, and impact on other life necessities, above all, food security. We need to know how the way we produce and distribute food affects energy use and energy security. We also need to take account of the social, ethical, economic and political consequences of our choices. And finally, we need to question some of the most deeply held assumptions of the dominant model of unlimited unsustainable growth based on competition and market forces. Our Energy Report does all of that.

We concentrate on the energy options that are most immediately available, the most promising and the most contentious. We address many of the key issues tackled by the world's governments in response to climate change and the impending energy crisis, and others they have yet to do. No country can act in isolation. The most important lesson of global warming is that the ecological impacts of our energy consumption in all forms cannot be outsourced with impunity, and the best way to protect our own ecosystem may be to protect the integrity of far-flung forests on the other side of the globe and enable people living there and elsewhere to claim an equitable share of the resources.

Please make this Report widely available to policy-makers and the public across the world to help people everywhere make the transition to a greener, cleaner, healthier, wealthier and more fulfilling life without fossil fuels.