There is A amount of non-renewable stuff lying around and there is only b% that can be extracted.
These complex mathematical models take years to fully grasp and, when expressed with arcane terminology, e.g., "extracted" .... well, you just gotta give the guy credit it only took him 2 years to 'get' it.
</snark> A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run
I also think he is a well informed person on energy matters and understands certain problems like the pointless dash for agro-fuels. This makes his hesitation in putting forward a proper policy even more awkward. Vencit omnia veritas.
We elect these people to do the best for us in the long term, there are situations that require national and trans-national responses and playing 3 wise monkeys and fiddling while Rome burns don't constitute effective policy making.
Like all the neocons in the US who were wrong about everything, they should resign from being invovled in the prediction/decision making game and let in those who were right all along. keep to the Fen Causeway
It's only that the renewing is maybe 10000 times slower than consumption, but maybe he thought we were extracting less than was recreated, or only just as much. "The womb that spawned that thing is fertile yet"