Transition Culture reports on Al Gore responding to questions on peak oil at a recent talk at the Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh:

Do you see the impending peaking in world oil production as a crisis or an opportunity?

There’s an old cliche about the way the Chinese write the word “crisis.” They have two symbols back to back. The first means danger, and the second means opportunity. And we sometimes emphasize the danger in a crisis without focusing on the opportunities that are there. We should feel a great sense of urgency about the impending peak oil scenario because it is with climate change the most dangerous crisis we have ever faced, by far. But it also provides us with opportunities to do a lot of things we ought to be doing for other reasons anyway. And to solve this crisis we can develop a shared sense of moral purpose. Peak oil is not a political issue its a moral issue which needs global cooperation and strong leadership.

Do you see it as a problem that Governments are able to respond to, or will the response by necessity emerge from the local level?

Both need to respond however when individuals make a commitment to become part of the solution instead of the problem typically they become much more active and vocal as citizens stressing the need for new policies and in the dance of democracy individual and local community commitment does often lead to big policy changes and I think we are on that road now.