Peak oil scenario will bring about change

Transition Towns: Peak oil scenario will bring about change

By Will Vorobioff

In the past few weeks, the rocketing price of fuels has been dominating our media. Even the Rudd Government has been “hoist on its own petard” on the price issue but the reality is: the era of cheap fuel is over.

This government has no more control over cost than the Howard government. The price of oil has risen way beyond expectations from the predicted ceiling of $100 to over $135 per barrel in a matter of months. The resulting impact on our communities will be far reaching both economically and socially. The cost of food, transport and essential commodities will increase dramatically altering our lifestyles.

Yet this is not the worst of it. As prices rise, people with the capacity to pay will continue to do so; others will struggle to manage their lifestyles and will have to find ways to do with less (of everything). This will be replicated on the international stage, where the vulnerable will suffer most.

It’s not the rising price of oil but the looming oil scarcity that will have the greatest impact, as demand outstrips production. This peak oil scenario, where production has reached a maximum and supply begins to decline, heralds a new era: the end of unlimited cheap fuel.

In the last 150 years, our societies and economies have used more and more oil each year. An extraordinarily rich part of earth’s bounty, oil has been squandered like a massive inheritance drunkenly spent. Within the lifetime of baby-boomers, we've used half of the easily accessible oil, and it is gone forever!

The affluence of the developed world had been underpinned by cheap oil. As the economic balance shifts and countries such as China and India expand, their appetite for fossil fuels will continue to increase, but oil is a finite resource. Price increases are inevitable, and we will have to do with less.

The good news is that our lives may actually be better off in regard to the things that matter. Despite our abundance of goods and services (and our enormous debt), we do not seem to be happier. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more cars but less people in them, more degrees but less sense, and more conveniences but less time.

The things that matter: our happiness, security, quality of work, access to healthy food, strength of connections to others and feelings of belonging are dependent on a sustainable, integrated community. For the first time these issues are being addressed in relation to both Peak Oil and Climate Change in a new movement from the UK.

As Robin Williams from the ABC’s ‘The Science Show’ says ‘We used to be hunter-gathers, now we’re shopper-borrowers’. In the Transition Town vision of times to come, our focus is not on mindless consuming: we are more producer/consumers. Our energy, our work, and food production will be more localised. We will be fitter and healthier, because the energy we use will be our own.

It’s a positive picture, but one relegated to fantasy unless we look at the world very differently. It is not just about adapting. The Transition Town Initiative educates the community about how peak oil converges with climate change issues, and how they must be addressed simultaneously. Fuel prices signal the inevitability of moving towards a post-fossil fuel world, and we need to find ways of using our collective genius and resources to create the world we would like to see. The Transition Town Initiative is intent on preparing our communities to face the coming challenges of low energy use by building their resilience. As we become more self-reliant and more connected, we also strengthen the local economy.

There has been great conjecture around many of these issues but several things are now clear. Rising fuel prices will continue. It's the supply/demand law of the jungle, and consequently fuel will be less readily available. Climate change is happening with all the impending added costs and burdens. Together these factors make an airtight case for acting now, yet with a positive vision of stepping towards something better, preparing our community to survive and thrive in the future.

To quote Arundhati Roy “ another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing”.

Transition Town Newcastle is on its way.

[Will Vorobioff is a CAN member and originator of Transition Towns Newcastle.]

Read more about Transition Towns at:

www.transitiontowns.org

www.transitionculture.org