BELLINGHAM — Residents have at least two more chances today to talk about a peak oil task force. City Council members decided to hold off voting on the project at their last meeting.
Council members didn’t vote on a resolution to create the task force — though all signaled their agreement with creating the volunteer group — after Councilman Gene Knutson pointed out that the document hadn’t been discussed in committee.
Councilman Jack Weiss has proposed that an 18-member group study the effects of declining oil supplies worldwide, which could mean either no fuel for vehicles or increasingly skyrocketing gas prices.
Peak oil is a theory created by M. Hubbert King, a Shell geoscientist, in 1956. He used the theory to determine that American oil production, based on the available places to drill at the time, would begin declining between 1965 and 1970. The prediction proved to be true.
It is still widely debated, however, whether or not King’s theory works on a global scale, and oil company executives argue that while conventional oil supplies may cease to be found within the next decade that other potential sources, like the Canadian oil sands in Alberta, are still viable options.
Weiss is concerned that local governments should formulate a plan to be prepared for any such emergency. He believes that low-income residents will be forced to decide among paying higher home energy bills, fueling up their cars or buying food.
Those people would then seek out the help of government social services, and if those services become inundated, Weiss previously said, they could fail and that would require other government agencies to step in.
The point isn’t to control gas prices, Weiss has said, but to be prepared.
The city of Portland, Ore., also convened such a task force, which recommended after about a year of study that, among other things, the city should try to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 50 percent by 2032.
No members of the public or city leaders who spoke at the Bellingham council’s May 5 meeting said anything negative about the task force.