This is a guest post from Robin Lovelace (lovelacerobin@yahoo.com), a graduate student at the University of York, UK. As part of his Environmental Science and Management MSc Robin was asked to pick a policy area and discuss how it could adapt to climate change. Due in part to the Oil Drum, he decided to include peak oil in the discussion, with a reluctant ‘OK’ from Professor Mike Ashmore. Robin is a qualified bicycle mechanic, writing part-time for Interclimate, starting an interdisciplinary PhD in energy research next year and wants to save the world.

On April 27/28, 2009 the Europe Forum Lucerne organized a workshop entitled Energy - A Conflict Area: Trends and Horizons.

In the tradition of a townhouse meeting, the Swiss public was invited to Lucerne to listen to an impressive number of high-caliber politicians, scientists, and journalists discussing issues of energy security that Switzerland and the world will be facing in the coming years.

The author of this report attended the conference and wishes to report to the readers of The Oil Drum what he heard at the meeting … and also what he didn't hear.

It is certainly a laudable goal to get the public involved in discussions concerning energy security issues as these undoubtedly affect all of us directly. We need to be informed in order to be able to contribute to the solution of the problems facing us and in order to reach the best decisions for ourselves.

Yet this conference once again missed an opportunity to inform in an unbiased way. The discussions were dominated by political interest groups, and the people attending the meeting were sent home with assurances that there is nothing to be worried about. We were told that we still have oil and gas for decades to come.

What makes energy sustainable? I think each of us has our own idea, and the various ideas are not entirely the same.

To be sustainable, clearly the fuel supply must be adequate--not run out shortly. If we are concerned about climate change, a sustainable source of energy production should not add much carbon to the atmosphere, either. We are running short on fresh water, so a sustainable fuel must not put a burden on the water supply. Furthermore, it is becoming more and more clear that the system of international trade that underlies our high-tech system will not hold together indefinitely. Because of this, an energy source that depends heavily on imported raw materials or parts, or is dependent on our whole high-tech way of life, is not likely to continue very long.

Ideally, any energy source we want to emphasize in the future will meet all of these criteria, and additionally, will be inexpensive to produce. The problem is that it is very difficult to find fuels that meet all these criteria.

The seminar "Mission Earth - Modeling and Simulation for a Sustainable Future" (http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/fcellier/AGS/AGSME_2009.html) was held in Zurich on Jan 26 2009, organized by Francois Cellier and Andreas Fischlin. It was a rare occasion of a truly interdisciplinary meeting where people from different fields of modeling were given a chance to present their work and exchange views. Climate modelers and resource modelers haven't interacted very much, so far; however, resource depletion will surely have a strong effect on the future of earth's climate. While we are still far from integrated world models that take into account all factors, economic as well as environmental, this seminar was a first attempt at understanding what issues are involved.

The “Mission Earth” meeting was about three kinds of models: climate models, world models, and resource exploitation models.