I’m active with Greenpeace (Edinburgh) and while many individuals understand peak oil, it seems that Greenpeace as an organisation doesn’t like to talk about it. I’m not sure why and Greenpeace certainly are not alone. We won’t come up with good solutions by just trying to reduce ‘carbon’ – we have to reduce energy demand and discuss some uncomfortable truths, like population and localisation. Rather than go on at length here, anyone interested in the links between Energy, Economics & the Environment might like this – http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

I wonder if the climate change supporters worry that if people think that oil will run out that this will solve global warming. And I wonder if peak oil folks tend to advocate strategies generally complimentary to climate change, but sometimes so specific as to lose the big picture. Also, there is a certain feeling – oil is going to run out so lets benefit while we still can and turn it to something green … while I don’t think climate change ideology advocates this.

I have been working with the Campaign Against Climate Change for 4 years but in the past year I have come to realise the related but even more pressing problem of peak oil, a truly petrifying scenario.

Last week I visited Totnes in Devon UK the most advanced Transistion town in the UK with a view to moving there.

http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/

I, like you, live in a tiny flat with no land to garden. I don’t even have a porch.

You would be amazed at what you can do indoors. It is not a 100% solution but it is an amazing start.

I grow all of my own herbs, some of which are medicinals. Most of them have grown really well over the summer and I trust that many of them will continue into the winter.

Many of these also serve as teas, and even fragrant steams for baths.

I recently connected with an organic farmer who has agreed to help me expand my indoor plant garden.

So far, I am moving on to garlic and onion chives which will take care of my need for these, then arugula and lettuce. This means that I can also have regular greens.

Finally, it is worth sourcing out some local beans and lentils. You can sprout them and they serve as protein. This is very easy and cheap to do also.

While it will not entirely solve all of your food needs, it is a really good start. I take home much less now.

Good luck

Andrea

Rex Weyler responds:

This is an important point. Many useful products derive from oil, all the more reason not to squander this resource by excessively driving and flying around the planet. Plastics can be useful, but they also represent a huge environmental disaster in our landfills and in the oceans. Plastics are responsible for massive sealife destruction. A great deal of plastic use is wasteful, and could be eliminated or replaced with substitutes. Using plastics for throw-away packaging and bags is excessive and wasteful.

Oil is a fixed resource on the planet. As we squander and waste it, we deprive future generations of the use of this resource. If we were an enlightened species and wise civilization, rather than a fairly primitive and greedy one, we would presevere resources such as oil, copper, forests, and soil, so that future generations could make wise, sustainable use of them.

Our high-tech, consumptive culture represents a thin veneer over wild nature. As we erode and deplete nature, we risk everything we have achieved. Our computers and entire consumptive culture could unravel because of our excessive use of resources and destruction of the natural ecosystems that sustain us.

Human survival is a race between our natural genius and our ignorant greed.

rw.

Rex Weyler Responds:

With all due respect, this dream of “infinite oil” or any kind of infinite energy remains delusional.

There is no such thing in the known universe as infinite energy, and certainly not on this tiny planet.

The fact that hydrogen is plentiful in the universe does not imply more recoverable petroleum. I have heard such claims before, but I know of no credible evidence that these elements combine under pressure inside the earth into hydrocarbons. Oil is captured sunlight, pure and simple.

Furthermore, if oil was more plentiful, rather than extremely limited as we know it is, we would face a worse crisis, because we must burn less oil, not more, to reduce atmopsheric carbon-dioxide that leads to global warming.

Sorry, but this infinite oil claim is a hoax. Don’t get distracted. Humanity must learn to use less resources, not dream up schemes to use more.

rw.

Here‘s The Real Deal

1.There are certain countries that need aluminum and steel to support their military industrial complex.

2.In Trinidad and Tobago have gas; we have flat waters for ports, and we are strategically located.

3.We contract Alcoa, China and India to make aluminum and steel.

4.We use up our precious resources – sea beds, mangrove, fisheries, estuarine mudflats, sea grass beds, valuable port lands, lands designated for agriculture, forests, water producing dams, gas, underground water, health, communities, financial stocks in the Treasury, ambient air and climate quality, harvesting and hunting industries such as fruit farming, honey and milk farming, crab and mollusk gathering – to make steel and aluminum.

5.Countries like the United States, China and India gain economically; none of these countries will be using their own gas or land space, or destroying their communities or their ecosystem.

6.Trinidad and Tobago lose: vital resources are converted into aluminum and steel products, into a declining US dollar, a paper economy. It is an economic disaster. Financially, the rewards are negligible. The cost of producing one job in any of these industries is prohibitive.

7.We also lose opportunity costs. We pay the price for not investing diligently and comprehensively in food, fresh water, security and alternative sources of energy.

The raping of Trinidad and Tobago’s natural resources and the inevitable destruction of the natural environment is sold to the public using cute slogans such as, gas monetization, development, industrial progress, a vision 20/20. This system of atrocity is disguised with a mask of benevolence. It smells like development, tastes like development, walks and talks like development, but it is the very opposite: It is death producing deals.

The methods are heinous. The authorities tap into State resources – land, water, soldiers, police, legal officials, compliant public servants, money, gas, institutional capacity – pass these on to chosen cabinet colleagues, who then pass them on to their relatives, be it a brother, the head of an Energy Corporation, or the movers and shakers at Alutrint. Vast amounts of state resources are passed directly through cabinet, emasculating the Parliament, the Opposition Party, the ital public servant and technocrat. They are passed in abundance and with great readiness into the hands of souls who were never elected by the people.

What will be the end of all of this?
Trinidad and Tobago will become a lame, limp, sold country, with a sold people.

What must be done?
The people must not accept the current and impending emasculation. Equipped individuals must arise among the people and deconstruct this gas agenda.

We must save our country.

Dr.Wayne Kublalsingh
(Used with his kind permission)

Hello.
Please sign my petition to save our mangrove.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/957999809

Regards, Rhea Mungal

First of all, thanks, Rex, for having the courage to speak up about the issue that is at the core of this whole mess we’re in – overpopulation. It does seem that nobody in a position of influence wants to touch this one. I’ve never really wanted children, myself, but I know that the will to be a parent is a powerful emotional drive that people will do almost anything to fulfil, and now there is the technology to help them do it, against all odds. Do they want to hear someone saying “Have you ever considered NOT reproducing?” And to be honest, I’m pretty careful whom I speak to about this issue. It does spark some very strong emotions in people.

What I’d like to raise is this: for almost a year now, I’ve been reading about peak oil, ever since my husband sent me a link to “lifeaftertheoilcrash.com”. I’ve been vascillating between panic and disbelief for most of that time, trying to work out where in the world is going to be the best place for us to live, long term, and the best lifestyle (urban vs. country).

My husband and I live in a 2 bedroom apartment in the city of Mechelen, Belgium. It’s well insulated and double-glazed so our energy costs are low. But we are utterly dependent on the current infrastructure to bring us our food, as we don’t have a garden. Our balcony is only big enough for a couple of tomato plants and some herbs – not enough to sustain us at all.

We’d love to live in the country, and we have the means to do it, but as oil runs out, that’s going to be increasingly untenable, unless we can also work in the country (which would be ideal, but at the moment, maybe not realistic). We would need to buy a car, which we don’t want to do. (The air pollution in this country is a scandal, to which we don’t want to contribute.)

A lot of urban dwellers, however, won’t have the means to “escape the city”, and also, would we really want a mass exodus to the country? So my question is: what quality of life are they going to enjoy in the future?

I’ve heard the Cuba story, and yes, it’s somewhat heartening, but if I think of our own town, there isn’t any spare land around on which to build community gardens, even if the council would allow it. I know, because I’ve looked. If it came down to it, we could dig up the road islands and verges I guess, but how to stop the already out-of-control city youth vandalising it? Involve them, I guess.

Hmm. Seems like I might be starting to answer my own question.

Another thing I’d like to say is this: several peak oil commentators have predicted that the suburbs won’t be the place to be when the oil really has dried up. I’m not sure I agree. Even with just a small piece of land you can grow food, and fruit trees. People in the suburbs will be well placed to do it. Also, most suburbs have at least some transportation infrastructure. Maybe what’s needed is a change in thinking, to where a 15 or even 20 minute walk or bike-ride to the bus isn’t considered an insurmountable daily task.

I’m interested to hear people’s thoughts on the “what do urban dwellers do” question.

Heather King