According to many experts, we are at or very near “Peak Oil“—the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.
Whether we have reached the peak, or perhaps have another decade or more, one thing is certain: oil is a finite resource that is becoming increasingly expensive to extract, that also costs us dearly in climate, environmental, and human health. The world’s leaders are debating on how to stop this harm this very week.
This weeks’ GreenLinks are about Peak Oil and transitioning from a fossil fuel economy. I hope you are as inspired to make changes in your life as I was.
1. This week, leaders from over 85 countries met at the United Nations to discuss climate change and what we all must do to reduce global warming. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao each vowed urgent action to cool an overheating planet, even as prospects dimmed for a full treaty by the end of the year. Read more about it at the Huffington Post.
2. A great map over at Treehugger shows us that the total area of land and ocean needed to install enough solar and wind power plants to provide energy to the entire world is surprising small. All we need is the political will to make it a priority.
3. Despite the fact that we have the technology to transform our energy systems now, CBS News article called “Living Through the New Energy Crisis” tells us that our transition from a fossil fuel economy to one based on renewable energy is likely to be a bumpy ride. So great is our demand for energy, and so well-entrenched the existing systems for delivering the fuels we consume, that (barring a staggering surprise) we will remain for years to come in a no-man’s-land between the Petroleum Age and an age that will see the great flowering of renewable energy.
4. This week, an Alternet article asks: Would you know how to survive after the oil crash? It’s hard to imagine what our lives would look like if oil was no longer cheap and plentiful. Sure, there will always be some in the ground, but when it becomes too expensive to get it out, there will be big changes afoot.
We depend on oil to get us to the store and to get our food and goods there as well. It’s a huge component of the industrial agriculture model that feeds most of our country. And petroleum is in just about everything we buy—from bubble gum to tires to eyeglasses.
There will be life after cheap oil, at least for many of us, but it will be vastly different from what most Americans are accustomed to. We may crash and burn, or we can aim for something called “creative descent.” This involves teaching people about the coming crisis, retraining them in skills that will be useful and helping communities to be more localized.
This idea has recently spun into a concept called transition towns. The basic premise is for communities to become more self-sufficient, and hence more resilient. This often means more local-food networks, more local energy and water systems and robust community businesses. Transition town groups provide a structure for communities to relocalize. Towns form working groups on issues like energy, food, transportation and local economics. Read more about surviving—even thriving—in a post peak oil world here.
There are many things you can do to reduce your need for fossil fuels: buy locally produced food, carpool, bike or walk, install solar panels, hang your clothes to dry outside, and more…
What are you doing this week to be less dependent on fossil fuels?
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