Wednesday, July 28, 2010

"Planning Ahead: Peak Oil and Climate Change"


Thank you to everyone who came to see Sally Odland talk tonight. She gave a wonderfully thorough presentation on the state of world-wide fossil-fuel production and depletion, and what that may mean for our society - which in the long-run means living more locally with less energy, and perhaps less of a carbon-footprint (unless we substitute coal for oil). What it means right now, is using the remaining oil to build alternative sources of energy, and using our own energies to prepare for a world with less oil in what ways we can - by influencing our politicians, investing in alternative appropriate technology, and getting the world out that we need to make these changes now.

There were many diverse perspectives and good ideas from the evening - from one member who's family is now in the third-week of what started as a one-week challenge to live using as little energy as possible, to thoughts about some technological approaches to combatting peak oil and climate change. This is not to say the transition will be easy - just that it will be multi-facetted. It will ultimately require change at the state and federal level, which, judging by their current pace of change doesn't seem likely to happen until it absolutely has to, but it will also involve change at the county and community level - and these are changes we can influence. Biking to work, or planting a garden, or talking to your neighbor about these issues may not seem like much, but they add up, and if more of us start doing these things, they can "snowball" into change that is greater than any one of us. This is what we can hope for, and help bring about. So tell someone about peak oil - or point them to a site with more information on the topic: http://www.theoildrum.com. It may take awhile, but everyone will become acquainted with the concept sooner or later, and the sooner the better!

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