ANYONE who grew up in Aberdeen in the 1980’s knows what a boom town looks like.

Mysterious foreign gentlemen in ten gallon hats talking in a southern drawl soon began popping up in the city’s bars waxing lyrical about their jobs as roustabouts and derrickmen.

They were soon joined by other nationalities, mainly French, who gave the Granite city a Gallic tinge while the local restaurants started reeking of Gauloises.

It was start of the city’s oil boom that saw almost full employment, drinks at twice the price of the rest of Scotland and young men straight out of school with the cash to buy them.

Suddenly the city was catapaulted into the big league as the oil capital of Europe and it was transformed, seemingly forever.

It was also at the same time that most of the rest of Scotland was suffering mass unemployment meaning Aberdeen virtually propped the entire economy as tax receipts flowed in almost as fast as the oil and gas.

Even the local football team got in on the act, helping Aberdonians to walk with an even bigger swagger.

But now 40 years on, the city is once again facing uncertainty as moves are made to shut down the oil industry to help the country’s journey to Net Zero. On the face of it, the move is fair enough given the dire warnings about the state of the planet, which according to some doom-mongers will overheat and explode some time around Easter.

However, given the current situation in Ukraine is it time to look again at the future of the oil industry and in particular new gas fields.

Vladimir Putin currently provides around 40% of natural gas used in the EU which is a situation that is completely unsustainable.

Environmentalists, of course, say that we should stop importing all natural gas and we should move rapidly towards renewable energy and leave all remaining fossil fuels underground.

But that is not really an achievable target yet and does not take into account the economic catastrophe that will ensue by moving too fast, too soon.

Last Monday the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in its sixth assessment that time was fast running out to achieve the reductions in emissions required to prevent an irreversible catastrophe. The landmark report has now led to campaigners intensifying calls for curbs on oil and gas activity just as the Russian assault on Ukraine has underlined the value of the North Sea industry.

Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC, said: “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction.”

“It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet.”

Friends of the Earth Scotland weighed in and claimed the IPCC report gave a “stark reminder of the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to transform economies away from fossil fuels to avert its worst impacts”.

All valid warnings indeed but what it fails to do is offer any sort of alternative to meet the demands of the planet.

Until there are, then the industry should be left alone to slowly wind down as the world transitions away from over reliance on fossil fuels.

Many oil firms in Aberdeen are already transitioning to being experts in renewable energy but it will take time for the whole industry to move over.

In the meantime, domestic bills are skyrocketing due to the soaring cost of global wholesale gas.

Most homes in the UK have gas central heating, a legacy of the 1980’s oil boom when the country had plentiful supplies of North Sea gas that saw bills amongst the lowest in Europe.

The North Sea still has large fields that are currently untapped that could again help to drive bills down but the environmental lobby are wholly against such a thing.

It is clear and obvious that climate change is happening and must be reduced, but at what cost?

Many people, including the current Scottish government, will not entertain nuclear as an option, despite the fact that bills in France have risen by just 4% due to its nuclear plants.

Wind is fine to be thrown into the mix but cannot be relied on to keep the lights on due to the fact that it’s not actually as windy in Scotland as you might think.

This leaves a big gap in energy supply that has to be filled at the moment by foreign gas and coal-fired plants which is as bad for the environment as it is for household finances.

Ministers on both sides of the border must now stop tilting at windmills and act.