Transition Chicago (TC)

Richard Heinberg continues his quest to prepare the U.S. (and the world) for Peak Oil with his new book Food and Farming Transition .   Heinberg has a piece in Peak Everything where he calls for 50 million farmers.  With the average age of farmers on the rise it’s now a good time for the young folks out there to take up a career that will put food on the table the rest of their lives.

It’s bizarre (or maybe refreshing) to see a major news source briefly hover over the idea of Peak Oil.   Today CNN ponders whether the West will learn from Cuba’s “special period” when it’s cheap oil supply collapsed along with the USSR.    If you want to see more, check out “The Power of Community:  How Cuba Survived Peak Oil“.

Re-creating community is a big part of what Transition Towns are about.  Being able to rely on the people around you will be a major factor in how pleasant the post-oil future will be.   It’s also more likely that a consolidated, central voice will get the message to our politician’s that massive changes need to be made.

But if American anger remains corralled on the Internet, into e-mail messages to Congress and in sporadic small-group protests, it is unlikely that the Obama administration will do much to assuage the anger of taxpayers. Administration officials certainly don’t seem concerned that rage will heat up and overflow; after all, anticipating unrest would mean a broad and intensive campaign to shore up housing, food and welfare safety nets.

Climate change will be a major factor in how each community comes together to rebuild.  Obama talks about how the floods in Fargo, N.D.  are just an early tremor of changes that will be coming.

“If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?’ that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously”

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year’s high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is. Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future

Gail at the oil drum posted this about the effects of peak oil on the financial crisis and the financial crisis on peak oil. Both are intertwined and Gail’s explanation gives a straightforward presentation of the possible scenarios we face. Of course, we could always be saved by a Deus Ex Machina of clean, infinite energy source but that is unlikely.