Peak oil actions

peak oil actions

Many people are working on partial solutions at various different levels, but there probably is no cluster of solutions which do not involve some major changes in lifestyles for the global affluent. Peak Oil presents the potential for quite catastrophic upheavals, but also some more hopeful possibilities, such as a return to simpler and more community oriented lifestyles.

=Awareness=


 * Peak Oil Action

A grass roots awareness raising network helping people meet up and discuss peak oil. Join or start a meet-up in your neighborhood.


 * http://oilawareness.meetup.com

=Action Infrastructures=


 * [www.postcarbon.org The Post Carbon Institute Outposts].

The PCI is a think tank devoted to exploring the implications of energy descent. They write, “the most important initiative of the Post Carbon Institute is working with groups of concerned citizens to prepare their community for the Post Carbon Age. These groups are Outposts in the sense that they are community-based extensions of the Post Carbon Institute; they operate autonomously yet receive guidance and electronic infrastructure from the Institute. Outposts work cooperatively in their local community to put theory about living with less hydrocarbons into practice while sharing knowledge and experiences with the global network of outposts.”


 * The Community Solution to Peak Oil.

"The Community Solution is a program of Community Service, Inc. Community Service is dedicated to the development, growth and enhancement of small local communities. We envision a country where the population is distributed in small communities that are sustainable, diverse and culturally sophisticated."

=Energy Descent Action Plans=

These plans have been modeled after the Kinsley Energy Descent Action Plan. The Kinsley Energy Descent Action Plan is One community's attempt at designing a prosperous way down from the peak.

=Permaculture=

David Holmgren, one of the co-originators of the permaculture concept has written a book called Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability which deals explicitly with the peak oil problem. Permaculture principles work towards re-designing cultural and agricultural practices for an energy descent world. By doing a course locally or with a bit of study, you can start applying permaculture principles on a suburban or rural plot.


 * 


 * 

=Local Currencies and Steady State Economics=

Local Currencies
Richard Douthwaite, a 'reformed economist', has proposed a number of alternative monetary systems to deal with energy decline and the associated monetary crises which might arise post-peak. Local currencies like LETS are in operation around the planet already (although LETS itself is somewhat problematic). Experiment now with local currencies to help survive economic crises.

The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability (FEASTA) has some of Richard Douthwaite's publications available for free online, including entire books as well as masses of other excellent research and articles by other writers, relating not just to economics and local currencies, but to various aspects of sustainability.

See also: http://www.communitycurrency.org/resources.html

Steady State Economics
The Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy(CASSE) promote alternatives to the ecological insanity of growth based economics. Read their position paper here:

www.steadystate.org/PositiononEG.html

Contraction and Convergence

 * Global Commons Institute, which campaigns hard for an approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions known as Contraction and Convergence, based on moving to equal emissions entitlements per person everywhere around the globe.

"what (Professor) Lovelock Lovelock is predicting will come true if we carry on as we are. To stabilise the rising concentrations, emissions must contract to nearly zero within ... 50 years."

=Intentional Communities=

Intentional Community (IC) is an inclusive term for ecovillages, cohousing, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives and other related projects and dreams... ICs represent one of the sanest ways of dealing with energy peak.


 * http://www.ic.org


 * http://gen.ecovillage.org


 * http://www.cohousing.org

=Surviving Peak Oil=

A good collection of essays edited by Dale Allen Pfieffer on "what measures can people of limited means undertake to ease their transition into a post-petroleum world."

www.survivingpeakoil.com

=The Depletion Protocol=

The Depletion Protocol, previously refered to as the Uppsala or Rimini Protocol, is an ethical global political framework for sharing the world's remaining oil reserves more equitably than free market forces would allow, to avoid resource wars and profiteering.

Help promote it:

Introduction to the Depletion Protocol by Colin Campbell (Word .doc format)

How to avoid oil wars, terrorism, and economic collapse by Richard Heinberg

=Lobbying=

Lobby governments to spend now on renewable energy and improving agricultural practices. Many facts are summarized in the following 'convince sheet' by Bruce Thomson: greatchange.org/ov-thomson,convince_sheet.html

=Online Discussions=

Got questions? Want to talk with like-minded people? See these links:


 * www.peakoil.com - online news and forum


 * http://www.peakoilaction.org - meet people on and offline


 * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EnergyResources - original peak oil focused email list


 * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpy2 - a more solutions focused list


 * http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EnergyRoundTable - a group emphasizing discussion

There are numerous local mailing lists too, many on yahoo can be found at this link:


 * http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=peak%20oil&ss=1

See Also:


 * Peak oil primer


 * Peak oil links