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oil be damned
China imported a fifth more oil in April 2005 than in April 2004. In many ways an unhappy stat, but can a positive light be thrown? It contributes to the high price. It brings on the interesting day when oil runs low, when there might be some big power shifts, and it stops the Americans getting it all before it does.
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LTP2 deadlines
The next 2 weeks is the busiest period for ltp2 consultation deadlines, with at least 11 local authorities about to finish (this stage of?) the exercise in preparation for Provisional Ltp2 submission to the government on 29th July 2005. Copies should start turning up in libraries after that, probably running to 100+ pages. Presumably then everything goes quiet until the office of the Secretary of State responds, which seems timetabled for December 2005, with the final document submitted back to the Government in March 2006. Given the schedule, it seems unlikely there'll be significant further consultation before then; our LTP2 database page, for some weeks now the only page on the site to get a Google PageRank score of 4, will gradually wither.
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bickering
The EU tax on air tickets proposed by France and Germany to fund development aid has only voluntary status and it's hard to see how it could last long unless everyone joins in. The reaction of Easyjet was a bit different though: they suggested EU ministers look to the oil industry if they want to alleviate world poverty, a comment presumably inspired by the profits of big oil companies. Pointing the finger at another responsible party at least acknowledges a problem and encourages discussion which maybe brings action a bit closer.
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