I feel sorry for our Prime Minister. No really! He’s the unlucky guy who has taken over running the country just at the time when the proverbial is hitting the fan. What has been predicted for many years is seemingly happening. Climate change is literally all around us and the doomsters who have been muttering about peak oil are now quite rightly saying ‘I told you so’.

We have a coming together of economic, environmental and humanitarian catastrophes across the globe. Millions of poor people are starving due to the high price of food staples and oil is rocketing in price creating a wave of price increases in almost all areas of life. And in the US where the ‘strongest economy in the world’ is seemingly collapsing, I understand the authorities in several areas have set up ‘hostels’ in car parks where people dispossessed from their homes on account of the sub-prime debacle are allowed to live on their cars with police protection to stop them being attacked.

Now in some ways Gordon Brown should be feeling like he’s achieving something. His government have consistently said they want to lower CO2 emissions, get people driving and flying less. And the global economy has come to his aid. There are now reports that people are cutting back on travel and using less fuel.

But what he has to contend with is a massive outcry from motorists and freight drivers who want things to go back to how they were. The pressure to do another u-turn on the car tax policy must be enormous. However, we can’t ignore what is around the corner. Oil industry analysts, including the Chief Executive of Shell are quite clear that the world has begun to run out of easy to get at petroleum. It will never be cheap again. And sometime over the course of the next 50-60 years we are going to have to move to an economy that is based on another energy source.

Since there has been no technological miracle as yet it makes sense to gear ourselves up for a transition that’s as smooth as possible. And that means not going back on what has been put in place so far. We are going to have to stop driving and flying everywhere without a second thought. We are going to have to stop demanding so much meat and move to a more vegetarian, or even better, vegan diet. We are going to have to make things last and stop buying the latest gadgets from China just because they have a new feature that the old model didn’t have etc etc etc

So as to the title of this blog, as I say, I feel sorry for Gordon (Brown), but I would implore him to stick to his principles (Red), stick to his stated aims (Green) and not cave in to unreasonable demands (Yellow). We’ve just got to accept the changes that are on the way and use the opportunity to make positive improvements to our lives. The Transition Network has a vision that makes this possible. Let’s all get on board!