Saturday, July 09, 2005

Chevron-Texaco Declares "The Era of Easy Oil is Over"

The Sustainable Blogosphere is abuzz with the news of Chevron-Texaco's acknowledgement of the peak oil phenomenon. Trend's I'm Watching (via Treehugger and The Oil Drum) compares this announcement with BP's "Beyond Petroleum" campaign (which has been a bit disappointing), but also gives C-T some props:
This website, called Will You Join Us, contains articles and explanations about the peak-oil issues we face (as Chevron sees them, anyway – but they mostly do a good job explaining things) and why we face them. They write about supply & demand, population, geopolitics and the environment. They also have ads and a discussion section. To their credit, they are not hiding the problems in the back row while only spotlighting how good a company they are for working on solutions.
Other in the SB are even more postive: Steve at Inventing for the Sustainable Planet, for instance, says "Great move by Chevron we think. If you know you are not going to be able to supply customers the best thing to do is to engage them in creative problem solving!" I agree with Steve's sentiment, and I genuinely hope that's what Chevron-Texaco is doing. At the same time, I remember BP received many kudos for the "Beyond Petroleum" concept, and at this point I'm mainly noticing TV ads with the rather lame tag line "It's a start..." Let's stay open to the possibility that this is a real effort to address the issue, but also attentive to the actions the company takes.

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