Transition Village Wrington – Facing the challenge of Peak Oil

Last year I wrote a brief article on the subject of Peak Oil, the point at which world oil production stops growing and goes into a permanent and irreversible decline. A short time after this point, maybe as few as 2 or 3 years, the supply of oil will become a real problem and prices will inevitably rise permanently.

There are strong indications that we have already reached the peak and we are faced with two simple choices.

* We can ignore it, and pretend it will go away. This will not happen and sooner or later we will have to deal with the consequences. The longer we leave it the harder this will become.

* We can face up to it now and start changing our lifestyles to become less reliant on oil and other fossil fuels. (yes, Peak Gas is not very far behind either)

On the 29th May, 35 people came to see the documentary “The End of Suburbia” and joined in a discussion and “”Ideas Factory” afterwards as to how we may deal with this challenge.

Another solution that is proposed is the Transition Town Movement, developed recently following a project in the small Irish town of Kinsale. This has already spread to over a dozen communities in the UK, including Bristol, and offers a positive and exciting view of the future after oil.

Transition movements engage everyone - individuals, organisations, businesses and interest groups - to find every possible way of changing the way we live and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, eventually developing an Energy Descent Action Plan for the whole community.

The first stage is to inform as many people as possible about what Peak Oil really means, why it is important to recognise the likely effects and how to change our community to deal with it.

On Monday July 2nd we will be showing another film, “The Power of Community” that shows how Cuba coped with their own “Peak Oil” event when the Soviet Union collapsed and imports of oil and oil based products dropped by over 80%. This film has a very positive message and everyone is welcome. We want to see at least 100 in the hall this time, so please come and join in.

This problem belongs to us all, the solutions will be found by us all

For more information please call Phil Neve on 01934 862810.

See also Transition Village page