Dan Roodt, Author at praag.co.za

Met rukke en stote vorentoe

Statistiek Suid-Afrika het op 24 Oktober die eerste resultate van hulle 2007 Gemeenskapsopname bekend gemaak. Pali Lehohla, direkteur-generaal van die departement, het tydens ’n funksie in Tuynhuis die verslag aan president Thabo Mbeki oorhandig. Die verslag het betrekking op die 48 miljoen inwoners in die land en is gebaseer op antwoorde wat van 255 000 huishoudings ontvang is. Hierdie opname was veronderstel om die vakuum te vul wat gelaat is deur die regering se besluit om voortaan net elke tien jaar ’n sensus te hou.

“Betekenisvolle vordering is gemaak met betrekking tot die verbetering van die lewensomstandighede van Suid-Afrikaners,” meen die organisasie. Daar word egter gewaarsku dat die demografiese groei meebring dat die grootte van Suid-Afrika se arbeidsmag steeds opwaarts neig. Volgens die 2001-sensus was daar 44,8 miljoen mense in die land.

Die ondersoek na Suid-Afrikaanse huishoudings het aangetoon dat 70,5% van huishoudings nou in formele nedersettings geleë is. Die 2001-sensusgetal was 68,5%. Daar is tans 80% huishoudings met elektrisiteit in vergelyking met 69,7% in 2001. Die Oos-Kaap het die laagste persentasie wat elektrisiteitstoegang betref. Verder het sowat 8% mense landwyd nog geen toegang tot toiletfasiliteite nie. Die hoeveelheid huishoudings wat oor ’n selfoon beskik, het egter oor die afgelope ses jaar meer as verdubbel. 15,7% het verder rekenaars tuis, maar net 7,3% beskik oor internettoegang by die huis.

Ten opsigte van onderwys het die hoeveelheid mense ouer as 20 met “’n mate van hoërskoolopleiding” agter die blad van 30,8% in 2001 tot 40,1% vanjaar toegeneem. Die persentasie van diegene met ’n graad 12-kwalifikasie het egter gedaal van 20,4% na 18,6%. Daar is verder ook ’n daling van 18% na 10% onder diegene wat geen skoolopleiding ondergaan het nie. Blanke kinders het die hoogste skoolbywoning en kleurlingkinders die laagste.

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Immigrante uit Noord-Afrika maak moles

St. Dizier brand

Die Franse polisie het vanoggend nege jeugdiges gearresteer, waaronder sewe minderjariges. Dit volg op die geweld wat vroeër hierdie maand in Saint-Dizier uitgebreek het. Drie van hierdie jeugdiges is jonger as sestien, het die vise-prokureur van Chaumont gesê.

Daar is nou in totaal al 25 jong mans, almal immigrante uit Afrika, gearresteer. Drie brandweermanne en een polisieman is gedurende die gewelddadige insidente van 4 Oktober beseer. Die gemaskerde vandale het daardie aand 41 motors aan die brand gesteek, drie woonstelblokke probeer afbrand en ook ’n bushalte verwoes.

Sowat ’n week voor die geweld uitgebreek het, het ’n groep van tien immigrant-jeugdiges by die Saint-Dizier-polisiestasie ingestorm en stoele en ’n lessenaar begin rondgooi. Hulle wou sodoende beswaar aanteken omdat ’n polisiepatrollie een van hulle vriende gestop en ondervra het. Die polisiemanne het egter opdrag van hulle owerhede ontvang om niks oor die voorval te sê nie.

Buiten die insident in die polisiekantoor was daar geen ander gebeure wat die uitbreek van die geweld op 4 Oktober kon verklaar nie. Dit wou voorkom of die jong mans bloot wou kyk hoeveel skade hulle kon aanrig.

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Demokrate op soek na blanke mans

In die aanloop tot die volgende Amerikaanse presidentsverkiesing het ’n debat losgebars rondom die Demokratiese Party se onvermoë om blanke mans as kiesers te trek. Slegs 38% van blanke Amerikaanse mans stem vir dié party.

Die meerderheid van Demokratiese kiesers bestaan uit vroue en sogenaamde “etniese minderhede” soos swartes en Spaanssprekendes. Nie minder nie as 89% van alle Amerikaanse swartes stem vir die Demokratiese Party terwyl 69% van Spaanssprekendes insgelyks dié party ondersteun.

Goeie nuus vir die Demokratiese Party en slegte nuus vir die Republikeine is dat swartes en Spaanssprekendes se getalle styg terwyl die blanke Amerikaanse bevolking besig is om te daal. Teen 2050 gaan die aantal swartes toeneem vanaf die huidige 13% van die bevolking tot 16% en die aantal Spaanssprekendes vanaf 14% tans tot 23%. In sommige state soos Kalifornië verkeer blankes reeds effens in die minderheid. Weens die lae bevolkingsaanwas van blankes in Kalifornië is slegs een uit elke vyf kinders op laerskool blank wat ’n duidelike blik op die toekomstige demografie van dié deelstaat bied.

Die meerderheid van Amerikaanse vroue is deesdae ongetroud. 66% van sulke enkellopende vroue stem Demokraties en volgens meningspeilings huldig hulle “progressiewe sienings oor maatskaplike kwessies, die ekonomie en buitelandse beleid”.

Sedert 1965 toe die nuwe Immigrasiewet in die VSA die voorkeur vir blanke immigrante uitgeskakel het, het die aandeel van blankes in die Amerikaanse bevolking gedaal vanaf 90% tot die huidige 70%. Sommige ontleders voorspel dat blankes weens hul lae bevolkingsaanwas en min immigrante teen 2050 in die minderheid gaan wees.

Indien huidige etniese stempatrone voortduur, is die Demokratiese Party dus van ’n blink toekoms verseker. Maar intussen regeer daar nog ’n Republikeinse president wat deur blanke mans en getroude blanke vroue verkies is. Volgens Demokratiese ontleders moet hul party hom op “tradisionele manlikheid” beroep en sodoende meer blanke mans as kiesers lok. Luidens een so ’n ontleder, David Paul Kuhn, “word die steun wat presidente verdien direk deur hul persoonlike manlikheid beïnvloed”.

Hoewel blanke mans ’n minderheid (33-36%) van Amerikaanse kiesers uitmaak, meen Kuhn steeds dat hul steun “die meeste saak maak”. Alle aanduidings is egter dat blanke mans hul rug op die Amerikaanse liberalisme gekeer het. Daarom beplan die Demokratiese Party om in sy verkiesingsveldtogte minder klem te plaas op feminisme en regstellende aksie.

Wat dienende politici betref, lyk dinge egter nog rooskleurig vir blanke mans. Minder as 17% van die kongres bestaan uit vroue en sedert die Amerikaanse Burgeroorlog was daar nog net drie swart senators. In die Amerikaanse geskiedenis was daar insgelyks nog net ses Spaanssprekende en vyf Asiese senators waarvan nie een ’n vrou was nie.

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‘Die Merkel-koste’

Angela Merkel wat al beskryf is as die magtigste vrou ter wêreld, het haarself onlangs die kritiek van Duitse nyweraars op die hals gehaal. Terwyl die ekonomiese logika in Suid-Afrika behels dat die swart mark ten alle koste ontgin word, en die ernstige politieke uitskot daarvan met min simpatie deur sakemense bejeën word, is Merkel besig om die "eerlike en reguit" pad te bewandel ten koste van ekonomiese oorwegings en werkskepping.

Of ten minste is dit die mening van Eberhard Sandschneider, navorsingshoof van die Duitse Raad vir Buitelandse Aangeleenthede. Hy meen dat Merkel veral te blameer is vir die moeilike verhoudinge met Rusland enersyds en China andersyds. Merkel se ondersteuners meen egter dat die feit dat sy uit Oos-Duitsland kom haar meer krities stem teenoor sogenaamde diktature. Haar standpunt bly dat sy Duitsland se buitelandse beleid op "waardes" eerder as ekonomiese logika wil bou.

Haar voorganger, Gerhard Schroeder, het Poetin as 'n model voorgehou en alle Westerse kritiek teen die Russiese leier afgeweer omdat Duitsland afhanklik is van Russiese energie. Dit het Duitse maatskappye in staat gestel om die Russiese mark in groter getalle te betree. Onder Amerikaanse druk, is Duitse nyweraars tans van mening, word die potensiaal van die Russiese mark nie naasteby tot Duitsland se voordeel aangewend nie.

Diplomate in Berlyn brom onderlangs dat Merkel in die geskiedenis opgeteken sal word as die persoon wat Rusland vir die Weste verloor het. Walter Steinmeier, minister van buitelandse sake, dryf al jare lank nouer integrasie met Rusland. Steinmeier, wat ook in Schroeder se regering gedien het, wil sien dat 'n uitruil van Duitse hoë-tegnologie en Russiese energie die grondslag lê vir dieper samewerking.

Dat Duitsland die aanvoorwerk gedoen het vir beleggings in beide China en Rusland ly geen twyfel nie, maar onder leiding van die eerste vroue-Kanselier is die inisiatief besig om verlore te gaan. Nyweraars verwys daarna as die "Merkel-koste". Die Russe het in Oktober tydens 'n staatbesoek in Dresden byna gesmeek om 'n energieaanleg in Duitsland op te rig, maar die lukratiewe aanbod is van die hand gewys. Die aanleg gaan nou in Oostenryk gebou word.

Verhoudinge met China is eweneens kil. Merkel, 'n Bush-aanhanger, het pas die Dalai Lama in Duitsland ontvang tot groot ontsteltenis van China. Die voorsitter van BASF het die uitnodiging as "taktloos" beskryf. Duitse diplomate berig dat die besoek verhoudinge met China op alle vlakke negatief beïnvloed het. Omdat Duitsland geen stem by die VN het nie, meen kritici dat dit belangrik is om twee lande wat wel stem nie te vervreem nie.

By gebrek daaraan mag Duitsland se invloed om konflik te bestuur in die gedrang kom. Die Duitse publiek is salig onbewus van die impilkasies van Merkel se buitelandse politiek, ook op werkskepping en groei. Die Dalai Lama se besoek het byval by 80% van die kiesers gevind en vir die meeste Duitsers is hulle Kanselier se "uitwaartse" blik met talle oorsese reise, sterbesoekers en spitberade 'n teken daarvan dat Duitsland se status as wêreldmoondheid herstel is.

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US to set up permanent base in Botswana

More than 1 500 American soldiers may be permanently based in Botswana from next year, should government go ahead with alleged plans to host America’s recently created Africa Command (Africom).
The Office of the President and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week could not confirm reports by Democracy and Governance that Botswana is alleged to have indicated interest to host Africom.

Africom is aimed at stemming the assumed threat posed by swathes of Africa’s “ungoverned” spaces, feared to be potential hide-outs and training fields for terrorists. According to the controversial 2007 “Failed States Index” recently released by the US-based Foreign Policy, Africa tops the list of failed states.

The US budget for the Trans-Saharan Counter-terrorism partnership for 2007 is some $115 million (P1, 5 billion), while non military assistance has increased by 60 percent. Admiral Moeller, head of the Africom planning team hinted that the command will cost in the region of $50 million in the 2007 financial year. The super power’s military investment is also expected to create a lot of jobs for locals.

Despite the economic lures of Africom, a number of African countries, even America’s strategic partners like South Africa, have indicated that they are not willing to host the command, citing concerns with the long term impact it would have on their sovereignty.

According to the report by Democracy and Governance, “it is Washington’s unilateral invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Bush administration’s strategy of pre-emptive strikes against its perceived threats which present liabilities which some African states are shy to bear. Countries considered by the US and its allies as pariahs such as Sudan and Zimbabwe shudder at the possibility of Africom being used to coordinate strikes against them ala Iraq.”

Since Al Qaeda blew up American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing 225 people, America has trained its heavy guns on the organization and its suspected local allies in the region. Some 1,5 00 US military and civilian personnel attached to the combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) have maintained a presence at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti. The command of the CJTF-HOA, currently under CENTCOM, will be transferred to Africom in Botswana in 2008, should Botswana agree to host the command.

Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Moostaq Moorad, would not confirm reports that Botswana has indicated that they are willing to host Africom, saying “This is more of a military cooperation issue than an international cooperation issue.” He referred all enquiries to the Office of the President.

Presidential Affairs spokesperson, Dr Jeff Ramsay, also said he could not confirm the reports. He promised to come back to us next week.

The Sunday Standard can, however, reveal that logistical difficulties that would come with Botswana hosting Africom were cleared in 2003 when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation agreed to sign a non surrender pact with America under controversial circumstances.

According to the write up by the Director of Democracy and Governance, Dr Peter Kagwanja, “ locating American soldiers permanently on foreign soil will depend on the host country’s approval of a Status-of-Force Agreement (SOFA) – a legal document that the State Department negotiated to define the legal standing of American soldiers abroad.”

Botswana has already signed this bilateral pact binding them not to surrender American military personnel to international tribunals, commonly known as Article 98. The agreement was signed on June 30, 2003 in Gaborone and entered into force on 28th September 2003.

In its carrot and stick campaign, Washington withdrew military aid to all American allies that refused to sign the agreement, among them SADC countries like South Africa, Lesotho, Zambia , Malawi, Tanzania and Namibia.
The Bush administration also issued a waiver, exempting Botswana from the military sanctions.

The Botswana government was, however, under pressure from the local media and opposition political parties which felt that the country had sold out to America. In an attempt to stem the groundswell of hostile public opinion, Foreign Affairs Minister, Lt Gen Mompati Merafhe, issued a statement in July 2003 trying to justify Botswana’s position.

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Riots in Amsterdam and Brussels

Europe’s no-go zones or SUAs (“sensitive urban areas”) are multiplying. These are areas where the police no longer dares to venture and where Islamists hold sway. Every night since the beginning of last week, immigrant youths have been torching cars and clashing with police in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district. The incidents started on Oct. 14 when a policewoman shot dead Bilal Bajaka, a 22-year old ethnic Moroccan, whilst he was stabbing her and a colleague with a knife. The officers were stabbed in the breast, face, neck and back. Surgeons could only narrowly save their lives.

Since the incident, Slotervaart has seen rioting almost every night. The Amsterdam Moroccans are “shocked” because one of them has been killed by an infidel woman. According to his family, Bilal Bajaka was mentally deranged and had a suicide obsession. Ahmed Marcouch, the Moroccan-born Socialist mayor of Slotervaart, criticized the Dutch authorities for failing to provide adequate health care for Bajaka’s mental problems.

Bilal Bajaka was, however, a personal friend of Mohammed Bouyeri, the Jihadist who ritually slaughtered the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh in 2004. Bilal’s attack on the two police officers came exactly two years after the arrest of his brother, Abdullah Bajaka, the leader of an alleged plot to blow up an El-Al Boeing at Amsterdam airport. Bilal’s family background is not at all deprived. One of his sisters is a medical doctor, another sister is a Dutch judge.

For ten days now, the situation in Amsterdam’s immigrant neighbourhoods has been tense. Senior police officers compare the current situation in Amsterdam to the 2005 Ramadan riots in Paris. Media outside the Netherlands, however, hardly mention the riots, which aim to drive the police from Slotervaart and turn the neighborhood into a new no-go area – yet another pocket of Eurabia on Europe’s soil.

Similar events are currently taking place in Brussels, the capital of neighbouring Belgium and of the EU. Last Sunday, demonstrating Turkish youths ransacked an Armenian restaurant in the Sint-Joost-ten-Node borough. According to the owner the police was present at the scene but did not interfere while his establishment was being demolished. The Armenian had to flee for his life.

Another man who had to run for his life was the Belgian journalist Mehmet Koksal, an ethnic Turk. He was attacked around 11 pm on Sunday evening by a group of some twenty Turkish youths in front of the American embassy in Brussels, a few yards from the Belgian parliament building. The Parliament and the US Embassy are less than one kilometer from Sint-Joost-ten-Node. Koksal fled to a nearby police car, but a female police officer refused to let him into the car, whereupon the youths savagely beat him up. Fearing that they were about to lynch him, the police officers changed their attitude and allowed the journalist to seek refuge in their car.

Koksal told the press today that he is not going to press charges against the police for failing to help him. “The police woman was more afraid than I was and ultimately the police came to my rescue,” he said.

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Police: stop more black suspects

One of Britain’s leading black police officers is to demand that more people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched if the fight against inner-city gun and knife crime is to succeed.

In a speech that will reignite one of the most contentious issues in British po licing, the president of the National Black Police Association will dramatically call for an increase in the policing strategy in black communities. It marks a U-turn by the association, which has previously questioned the high proportion of black people stopped and searched by police.

Speaking at the group’s annual conference, Keith Jarrett will ask Police Minister Tony McNulty and Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to consider escalating stop-and-searches among black people to reduce the number of shootings that have claimed the lives of another two teenagers in the past week.

The disputed use of stop-and-search has arguably caused more conflict than any other modern policing tactic and first achieved national notoriety during the Eighties, when it was blamed for precipitating inner-city race riots. Black people are four times more likely to be stopped than white people, according to Scotland Yard’s figures, which continues to give rise to charges of police racism.

Jarrett admitted he was braced for a negative backlash during his headline speech in Bristol last Wednesday. It is the first time that a senior black officer has called for an increase in stop-and-search among the black community.

Traditionally the association, which has 8,000 members ranging from senior figures such as Tarique Ghaffur, assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan police, to backroom staff, has pointed to the ‘alarming’ and disproportionate numbers of black people who are stopped and searched.
Jarrett told The Observer: ‘From the return that I am getting from a lot of black people, they want to stop these killings, these knife crimes, and if it means their sons and daughters are going to be inconvenienced by being stopped by the police, so be it. I’m hoping we go down that road. I am going to be pressing him [Blair] to increase stop-and-search. It’s not going to go down very well with my audience, many of whom are going to be black. We have talked about disproportionate use of stop-and-search in the past, but what I am proposing is quite the reverse. The black community is telling me that we have to have a look at this.’ Controversially, Jarrett said he would not oppose a random use of stop-and-search when officers had ‘reasonable suspicion’ an offence had been committed. He argued that, as long as officers used the powers courteously and responsibly, many within the black community would accept it as a necessary evil. He added that the toll of shootings and knife crime meant that deep-seated misgivings over the policing strategy were being increasingly outweighed by fears over mounting violence.

The backlash was led last night by Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg, who said stop-and-search only ‘increased community tensions and distrust in the police’. He added: ‘Effective policing depends on good intelligence and smart ways of fostering community co-operation. This suggestion points us in exactly the opposite direction and risks repeating all the worst mistakes of the past’.

Although widely viewed by senior officers as an effective policing tool, stop-and-search use was blamed for the 1985 Handsworth riots in Birmingham which erupted after the arrest of a black man. Its predecessor, the discredited ‘sus law’ which empowered the police to arrest any person they suspected of loitering with intent to commit an arrestable offence, was abolished after its widespread use against young black men sparked the 1981 Brixton riots.

In the wake of the south London uprising, new rules for stop-and-search determined that officers required ‘reasonable suspicion’ that an offence had been committed. Yet its use against the black community has continued to attract claims of racism.

Publication of the Macpherson Report in February 1999 into the murder of the teenager Stephen Lawrence, which found that police were institutionally racist, condemned the use of stop-and-search. Racial equality watchdogs have also threatened the police with legal action over stop-and-search, claiming its use has single-handedly poisoned relations with ethnic minorities.

Until Jarrett’s speech this week, senior black and Asian officers publicly agreed that stop-and-search risked criminalising and alienating ethnic minorities. Last year Ghaffur warned that counter-terrorism laws, including an increased incidence of stop-and-search, had indirectly discriminated against Asians.

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Segregation rules

The new building that will soon house the Arab-Jewish bilingual school Hand in Hand sticks out against the rest of the houses in the Pat neighborhood in Jerusalem. The roomy halls and spacious lawns are not very characteristic of the nearby streets. Neither is the multicultural atmosphere which many of the religious Jewish neighbors don’t care for.

The building’s opening ceremony yesterday revealed an impressive structure, with small gardens with olive trees that will accommodate outdoor classes once the building opens its doors to the school’s 400 primary and junior high students. The institution is still waiting for some final permits from the municipality.

The Jerusalem Fund had raised the NIS 40 million needed to fund the new building from German, Austrian, Swiss, British and other European donors.

Many people from Pat are not very happy about the school. Some say their objections have nothing to do with the fact that it’s a Jewish-Arab school. They cite the lengthy construction and the traffic-related problems they will have to contend with every morning. Others object on cultural grounds.

"It’s a mixed school and it doesn’t sit well with a religious neighborhood," one of the residents told Haaretz, requesting anonymity. "If this were a normal school then there’d be no problem. The same goes for a yeshiva, of course. It’s the mixing between Jews and Arabs that’s the problem. The rest pales in comparison."

Another woman echoes this sentiment. "The Arabs have their own villages. That’s where they should go study. Not here in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood," she said. "I’ve got nothing against Arabs, but why do they have to go to school with Jews? It will only lead to assimilation that will begin at an even earlier age because of this school."

A third neighbor, Mariana Kuman, said she didn’t mind the school. "The Arabs from Beit Safafa are here all the time anyway. They come to hang around here on Saturday nights. They also come here on holidays and they don’t bother anyone. It’s not like there aren’t any Jewish troublemakers.

Hand in Hand’s management says there are people from outside the neighborhood who are trying to persuade the residents to oppose the school.

The Hand in Hand organization has two other bilingual schools, one in Gush Misgav and one in Kfar Kara, in addition to the one at Pat, which is co-managed by principals Dalia Peretz and Ala Khatib. The organization also has two kindergartens in Be’er Sheva.

In keeping with the Jerusalem school’s bilingual identity, Arab and Jewish teachers are equally represented. When the Jewish teacher reads a story, her Arab colleague translates into Arabic. The next day, it will be the Arab teacher to tell the story in Arabic, and the Jewish teacher’s turn to translate into Hebrew.

When addressing the teachers and their schoolmates, some students switch effortlessly between Arabic in Hebrew, depending on the person they are addressing.

The next step for the Jerusalem school will be to open a high school division. Currently, however, the school only has 14 students in the 9th grade, all of whom are Arab. Their Jewish counterparts have all left in favor of more traditional institutions.

The elementary school division, by contrast, is much more popular. Each grade has two classes with 30 students. "We try to keep the balance between boys and girls and Jews and Arabs," says Khatib. "It’s harder than populating Noah’s Ark."

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Swiss party gains record high

The nationalist Swiss People’s Party have gained a record high 29 percent of the vote in national parliamentary elections after an agressive campaign that blamed foreigners for much of the crime in Switzerland. The official results released Monday by the Federal Statistics Office showed the SVP edging out the 1919 performance of 28 percent achieved by the pro-business Radical Democrats when Swiss elections were reorganized immediately after World War I. On the left, the Green movement increased to 9.6 percent from 7.9 percent of four years ago. The Socialists suffered a major setback.

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‘Complete meltdown of society’

World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.

The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 – much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel.

"The world soon will not be able to produce all the oil it needs as demand is rising while supply is falling. This is a huge problem for the world economy," said Hans-Josef Fell, EWG’s founder and the German MP behind the country’s successful support system for renewable energy.

The report’s author, Joerg Schindler, said its most alarming finding was the steep decline in oil production after its peak, which he says is now behind us.

The results are in contrast to projections from the International Energy Agency, which says there is little reason to worry about oil supplies at the moment.

However, the EWG study relies more on actual oil production data which, it says, are more reliable than estimates of reserves still in the ground. The group says official industry estimates put global reserves at about 1.255 gigabarrels – equivalent to 42 years’ supply at current consumption rates. But it thinks the figure is only about two thirds of that.

Global oil production is currently about 81m barrels a day – EWG expects that to fall to 39m by 2030. It also predicts significant falls in gas, coal and uranium production as those energy sources are used up.

Britain’s oil production peaked in 1999 and has already dropped by half to about 1.6 million barrels a day.

The report presents a bleak view of the future unless a radically different approach is adopted. It quotes the British energy economist David Fleming as saying: "Anticipated supply shortages could lead easily to disturbing scenes of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month. For government, industry and the wider public, just muddling through is not an option any more as this situation could spin out of control and turn into a complete meltdown of society."

Mr Schindler comes to a similar conclusion. "The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life."

Jeremy Leggett, one of Britain’s leading environmentalists and the author of Half Gone, a book about "peak oil" – defined as the moment when maximum production is reached, said that both the UK government and the energy industry were in "institutionalised denial" and that action should have been taken sooner.

"When I was an adviser to government, I proposed that we set up a taskforce to look at how fast the UK could mobilise alternative energy technologies in extremis, come the peak," he said. "Other industry advisers supported that. But the government prefers to sleep on without even doing a contingency study. For those of us who know that premature peak oil is a clear and present danger, it is impossible to understand such complacency."

Mr Fell said that the world had to move quickly towards the massive deployment of renewable energy and to a dramatic increase in energy efficiency, both as a way to combat climate change and to ensure that the lights stayed on. "If we did all this we may not have an energy crisis."

He accused the British government of hypocrisy. "Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have talked a lot about climate change but have not brought in proper policies to drive up the use of renewables," he said. "This is why they are left talking about nuclear and carbon capture and storage. "

Yesterday, a spokesman for the Department of Business and Enterprise said: "Over the next few years global oil production and refining capacity is expected to increase faster than demand. The world’s oil resources are sufficient to sustain economic growth for the foreseeable future. The challenge will be to bring these resources to market in a way that ensures sustainable, timely, reliable and affordable supplies of energy."

The German policy, which guarantees above-market payments to producers of renewable power, is being adopted in many countries – but not Britain, where renewables generate about 4% of the country’s electricity and 2% of its overall energy needs.

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