ABSTRACT
The UN’s successive International Panel on Climate Change Reports show the immediacy of the ecological crisis facing the planet (Flannery, 2010). Global climate change is not something that will affect future generations; it is already affecting our own generation as Arctic ice and permafrost melt, seas become more acidic, desertification intensifies and extreme weather conditions increase in number and intensity. In addition, the limitations of known oil reserves (peak oil) combined with increasing demand for oil from India, China and South-East Asia will increasingly threaten established oil-based patterns of human interaction such as cheap land and air transport as well as oil-based food production. These problems will be further exacerbated by a growing global population.
