The assistant majority whip of the Connecticut House of of Representatives, Terry Backer, has introduced a bill to address peak oil.

Backer, cofounder of the Connecticut Legislative Peak Oil and Natural Gas Caucus, introduced Bill #5724 to ensure there is sufficient planning in place and alternative strategies to address every-increasing oil costs, and possible supply disruptions.

“We are headed into a new world," Backer, a Democrat, said on his Web site. "One the west has not seen in over one hundred years. We have precious little time to redesign our world if we are to maintain some semblance of the life style now enjoyed. Hopefully my colleagues in the Legislature will be able to better gauge how difficult the future will be when the projections from the model are before them."

Meanwhile in British Columbia, Premier Gordon Campbell and NDP Leader Carole James remain strangely silent on the issue of peak oil.

This is generally defined as the point at which global oil production peaks and then goes on a downward slope.

The Straight's Matthew Burrows has requested an interview with Campbell about this issue, but the premier's staff have not made him available.

It will be intriguing to hear how the premier reconciles his Gateway road-expansion strategy with ever-rising oil prices, which punched through US$130 per barrel last week.

The Wilderness Committee released documents last week pointing out that the Gateway project was conceived on the basis of gasoline selling at $0.80 per litre. It is now more than 50 percent higher.

Meanwhile as Burrows previously reported, the NDP's James is not doing a lot to bring public attention to this issue.

It's not as if Campbell and James weren't warned of this. Since 2003, the Georgia Straight has been raising concerns about peak oil. There was even a cover story in 2005.)

Vancouver peak-oil theorist Rick Balfour is hoping to persuade the board of Metro Vancouver to pass a peak-oil motion.

I think Balfour would be better off running as a mayoral candidate for the Coalition of Progressive Electors, particularly if Gregor Robertson loses the Vision Vancouver nomination next month.

Balfour, an architect and planner, has played a leadership role in trying to draw attention to the peak-oil issue. The only way the media will give a voice to his views in any thorough way would be for him to run for mayor with an established party.

There's little hope of Vision Vancouver or the NPA taking the peak-oil threat seriously, so why not COPE?

That way, COPE councillor David Cadman could still run for council and have a decent chance of being elected. Then if Balfour lost, voters could be assured that there would be at least one person elected in Vancouver who gave a damn about this issue after the 2008 municipal election.

Some have suggested that the north slope of Alaska might contain enough oil to offset declining production elsewhere.

However, a U.S. Geological Survey assessment in 2005 estimated there were four billion barrels of recoverable oil.

That would supply current world demand for less than two months.