Kiss Your Gas Goodbye Showing
Anyone who has had to pay some of the exorbitant gas prices over the last few years-- had to pay more for utilities or bought any product that they could have made here but was shipped from someplace like china should be interested in the issue of peak oil. Because it affects them, and it’s about to seriously affect their lifestyle—perhaps you’ve noticed the price increases on their expenditures like food, some of which are now being sold for MORE money with reduced packaging to cover the cost of gas needed to ship them.
While the environment is something that people may not like to talk about, you might have heard others complain about America’s dependency on foreign oil –which has become a big topic over the last few years. --I’m sure you’ve all heard all of the arguments. But we’re not going to talk about that. The reason that we’re here today is to talk about the more important issue of why the discussion of oil has become such a big topic regarding the global economic crisis and how the issue of peak oil impacts every aspect of your daily life. Because the bottom line is, there is only so much oil that this planet can produce. It takes millions of years to form, and with the amount of energy that we consume it’s only a matter of time when the amount of oil that we use in the production of our plastic cups and cell phones—among other things will exceed the amount of oil that we are able to produce. Unfortunately, the time when we could no longer worry about that is long gone and we’ve reached the point where in THIS century—and the likelihood is that it will be in many of our lifetimes – that we are going to be able to see the impact of what that means. In the United States we’ve already seen how much an oil shortage can affect our ability to ship food, supplies, pay for gas, or have access to products that we don’t manufacture here. For some us, the price has already hit us pretty hard in the pockets. Even now proposals are being made to begin extracting oil from tar pits to make up for the difference, which is the equivalent from trying to slurp clean water out of a dirty sponge --INSTEAD of learning how to simply live better and healthier using less stuff. There are a lot of things that we import into the US that we don’t even need. And not only do we pay other people for this stuff, we ship our jobs there so that we can continue to buy into a system that at the drop of a hat could sabotage our ability to be able to provide for our own basic needs. So what we’re doing this evening is taking a closer look into why this issue exists and over this film series we’ll really begin to look at some practical strategies for conservation and relocalisation to address these issues. And the best thing is, by adding this community into the discussion we can learn a lot of strategies from each other of ways that we can not only save energy & money, but make sure that as the price of oil jumps back up, that you all are more prepared to deal with these changes so that you’re not stuck footing the bill of your own overconsumption. To learn more about this we have provided the minutes and reflections of tonight's film showing and discussion surrounding the Richard Heinberg film.
Post Peak Berea Film Showing: Kiss Your Gas Goodbye
One of the most important aspects of growing any movement is community participation. No one wants to build a movement and move on only to watch it fall apart due to lack of leadership, so Post Peak Berea is experimenting with ways to build community participation in order to see their community organization efforts take a life of its own.
That being said, one aspect that is rarely maintained consistently with community organization efforts, is the cataloging and marketing of any community initiative campaign. Often times, more energy is expended letter writing and recruiting participation than is used to properly catalog the efforts initiated so that future participants can continue to carry on the work. While the current series only features three films, results have already shown that their is interest in continuing developing the Post Peak and Energy Descent Power-Down movement and rebuilding re-localization efforts. In order to provide a stepping stone to those who wish to carry on the torch, Post Peak Berea is providing a brief overview and reflection of our initiative so that the resource will be available for those who wish to pursue more conservation efforts.
For those who are interested in continuing transition work, there is now a Transition Town wiki located @ http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionNetwork that provides access to other initiatives that transition towns around the world have worked to develop. Here are a few words from the "Father of the Transition Town Initiative" and his "holy grail" for community organizing in his article: "10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative".
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative
Source: Energy Bulletin[ The Transition Town concept, as championed by Rob Hopkins, has been celebrated in recent days at the Soil Association conference in Cardiff. Transition Town initiatives engage community in peak oil and climate change awareness, planning and action, building on the influencial Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan concept. The following headlines link to full articles on the process so as Rob and the people of Totnes, UK are developing it. These tips should be indispensable to anyone involved in local post-peak planning, and inspiration to anyone who isn't involved yet.
-AF ]
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #1. Awareness Raising.
There are a number of groups now wanting to initiate Transition Town projects, and their first question is usually “where do we start?” In order to answer this question and to clarify our own minds on this whole subject, we have prepared this collection of the first 10 steps as we see them. At this point we cannot offer an A – Z map for how to do a Transition Town project. But having travelled from A-C, we can at least give you some indicators as to what has been successful for us through the Totnes experience. While they don’t necessarily run in the order they will here, today’s is by necessity the first. (more…)
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #2. Lay the Foundations.
It is extremely unlikely that you will be starting a Transition Town project in a place where absolutely no environmental initiatives have ever happened before (although it is possible that such places exist: if you are in such a place it might be worth contemplating why…). Within the community there will be people who are just finding out about environmental ideas, people who have been familiar with the intellectual side of it for years but haven’t done much practical action, those who are gardeners, growers and builders, and people who are burnt out from doing all this stuff for years while no-one listened. (more…)
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #3. The Official Unleashing.
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #4. Form Groups.
You can’t do this on your own. Part of the process of developing an Energy Descent Action Plan is that of tapping into the collective genius of the community. One of the most effective ways to do this is to set up a number of smaller groups to focus on specific aspects of the process. Each of these groups will develop their own ways of working and their own activities, but will all fall under the umbrella of the project as a whole. (more…)
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #5. Use Open Space.
Open Space Technology is an extraordinary tool. It has been described as ‘a simple way to run productive meetings, for five to 2000+ people, and a powerful way to lead any kind of organization, in everyday practice and ongoing change’. In theory it ought not to work. A large group of people comes together to explore a particular topic or issue, with no agenda, no timetable, no obvious co-ordinator and no minute takers. (more…)
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #6. Develop Visible Practical Manifestations of the Project.
It is easy to come up with ideas, harder to get practical things happening on the ground. It is essential that you avoid any sense that your project is just a talking shop where people sit around and draw up wish lists. Your project needs, from an early stage, to begin to create practical manifestations in the town, high visibility signals that it means business. The power that doing this has in how it affects both people’s perceptions of the project and also in people’s willingness to engage is huge. (more…)
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #7. Facilitate The Great Reskilling.
In my experience, peak oil is a better motivating issue than climate change, because it holds a mirror up to an individual community/individual/society and asks where is the resilience? Where is its ability to withstand shocks? Beyond the realisation that very little resilience actually remains, comes the realisation that very few people still have the skills a more resilient society needs. This is where your Transition Town initiative comes in. (more…)
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #8. Build a Bridge to Local Government
Whatever the degree of groundswell your Transition Town initiative manages to generate, however many practical projects you manage to get going on the ground and however wonderful your Energy Descent Plan is, you will not progress too far unless you have cultivated a positive and productive relationship with your local authority. Whether it is planning issues, funding issues or whatever, you need them on board. You may well find, in many places now, that you are pushing against an open door. (more…)
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #9. Honour the Elders.
For those of us born in the 1960s when the cheap oil party was in full swing, it is very hard to relate the idea of life with less oil with our own personal experience. Every year of my life (the oil crises of the 70s excepted) has been underpinned by more and more energy. I have no idea of what a more localised society looked like in the UK, the closest I have is how towns were in rural Ireland when I moved there in 1996, the shops all owned by families, the most memorable ones slightly damp smelling with wooden floorboards that sold the most unusual combinations of things (paraffin lamps, boxes of biscuits and aprons) generally run by a couple in their late 60s. There is a great deal that we can learn from those who directly remember the transition to the age of cheap oil, especially the period between 1930 and 1960. (more…)
10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative #10. Let it Go Where It Wants to Go and Reflections…
This final one won’t take long, as it is really pretty straightforward, requiring very little elucidation. In essence, although you may start out developing your Transition Town process with a clear idea of where it will go, it will inevitably go elsewhere. You need to be open to it going where the energy of those who get involved want to take it. If you try and hold onto the idea that it will be a certain way it will, after a while, begin to sap the energy that is building to do certain things. It is what is so exciting about the whole thing, seeing what emerges. (more…)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~For more information see Rob's blog www.transitionculture.org and the Transition Towns website www.transitiontowns.org
-AF~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Original article available here~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Energy Bulletin is a program of Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the world transition away from fossil fuels and build sustainable, resilient communities.
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