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By
Rob Hopkins
Traveller,
there are no roads. Roads are
made by travelling. (Spanish
proverb)
There is an emerging consensus
now that we are either very
close to or have passed the
peak in world oil production.
As someone who has been involved
in environmental issues for
16 years, and permaculture for
13 years, I have to ask myself
how I didn't see this one coming
(although I know some of you
did!). The implications are
profound. No longer is it in
any way appropriate to say 'we
need to recycle,' when the processes
of recycling require transporting
recyclable waste long distances.
We have to look much deeper
at the whole waste question.
An excellent recent report by
Tim Lang and Jules Pretty, 'Farm
Costs and Food Miles: An Assessment
of the Full Cost of the UK Weekly
Food Basket,' argued that
food could only be called sustainable
when it is grown and consumed
within a 20-mile radius. We
have to build a local food economy
from an almost totally non-existent
base. There has been no time
in history when anything less
than 70% of the population were
involved in some way in the
production of food. Nowadays
it is more like 6% (here in
Ireland, for example), and of
those, a high proportion would
have lost much of that knowledge.
"Green" building that
relies on imported "ecological"
materials from other countries
will no longer be viable, leading
to our needing to rethink how
we will actually construct energy-efficient
shelter in a lower energy near
future. We are looking at the
need for a rapid process of
re-localisation, of looking
at what is essential to our
lives (food, warmth, shelter,
water) and rebuilding the local
economy in such a way that it
is actually able to supply these.
The process of dismantling our
diverse and complex local economies
over the last 50-60 years was
a disastrous one. It was easy
to take apart but it will be
incredibly hard to rebuild.
The recent award winning film
The End of Suburbia
(reviewed in the Activist issue
#58) takes a very sobering look
at the whole peak oil issue.
It makes very clear that the
problem is of a scale that is
almost unimaginable, and that
the solutions are really not
in place at all, or indeed anywhere
near being so. We are so dependent
on oil for every aspect of our
lives, that its gradual (or
rapid, depending on who you
listen to) but steady disappearance
from our lives will force us
to redesign everything about
our communities and our own
lives. We need to relearn the
skills that sustained our ancestors:
crafts, local medicines, the
great art of growing food. This
is the biggest challenge.
Becoming
Aware
My introduction to all this
came through meeting Dr. Colin
Campbell. He lives in Ballydehob
in West Cork, where I was living
until recently, and sets up
and runs the Association for
the Study of Peak Oil. He worked
in the oil industry for more
than 30 years, and since his
retirement has devoted himself
to researching the real picture
in terms of oil availability
(how much is left, where it
is and so on) through the vehicle
of the Association for the Study
of Peak Oil (ASPO), which he
founded. It is Colin who has
really brought the awareness
of Peak Oil to the world's atten-tion,
tirelessly travelling the globe,
lecturing governments, invest-ment
bankers, energy experts, telling
them all the same thing, "We
are about to peak, and you need
to re-evaluate what you are
doing, because it is going to
change everything." His
life story and his case for
peak oil are set out in his
latest book, Oil Crisis.
A
definitive measure of the limits
of oil presents modern society
with an ultimatum of profound
gravity. Helps break denial
of the energy crisis. Extremely
important.
The
world is about to run out of
cheap oil and change dramatically.
Within the next few years, global
production will peak. Thereafter,
even if industrial societies
begin to switch to alternative
energy sources, they will have
less net energy each year to
do all the work essential to
the survival of complex societies.
We are entering a new era, as
different from the industrial
era as the latter was from medieval
times.
In
The Party's Over, Richard Heinberg
places this momentous transition
in historical context, showing
how industrialism arose from
the harnessing of fossil fuels,
how competition to control access
to oil shaped the geopolitics
of the 20th century, and how
contention for dwindling energy
resources in the 21st century
will lead to resource wars in
the Middle East, Central Asia,
and South America. He describes
the likely impacts of oil depletion,
and all of the energy alternatives.
Predicting chaos unless the
U.S. -- the world's foremost
oil consumer -- is willing to
join with other countries to
implement a global program of
resource conservation and sharing,
he also recommends a "managed
collapse" that might make
way for a slower-paced, low-energy,
sustainable society in the future.
Last September Colin came into
Kinsale FEC where, until last
June I taught the Practical
Sustainability course, the first
two-year, full-time permaculture
course in the world (as far
as I know), which I set up in
2001. He came to talk to my
second-year permaculture students,
who had seen The End of
Suburbia the previous day.
Colin gave them an introduction
to petroleum geology, how and
where oil forms, and then went
on to look at how much is left
and where it is. His presentation
was so thorough and well founded
in his deep knowledge of the
oil industry that his findings
were compelling. It was a real
eye opener for me and for the
students and a great topical
and practical enhancement to
the permaculture curriculum.
I met a friend the following
week who asked, "What did
you do to your students? They
all looked ill for the rest
of the week!"
First
Steps
This led on to our planning
of the Kinsale Energy Descent
Action Plan project. The term
'Energy Descent' was originally
used by ecologist Howard T.
Odum in his book, A Prosperous
Way Down, and was picked up
and used by David Holmgren in
his Permaculture
Principles & Pathways Beyond
Sustainability. It
refers to the time beyond the
peak, the downward trend in
energy availability. Holmgren
makes the point that we need
to plan for this descent, rather
than simply allowing it to unfold
in a series of random and chaotic
events. This point is also made
by Richard Heinberg in his book
Powerdown: Options and Actions
for a Post-Carbon Future,
in which he calls for a planned
descent, an international response
to peak oil on the same scale
as a wartime mobilisation, to
begin building a low energy
future.
 PERMACULTURE:
Principles & Pathways Beyond
Sustainability
by David Holmgren
Co-Originator
of the Permaculture Concept
2003,
286pp, $29
This
book builds on the extraordinary
success of the permaculture
concept and global permaculture
movement (over the last 25 years),
to provide a more cerebral and
controversial contribution to
the sustainability debate. David
Holmgren is an ecological pioneer
destined to have a major influence
on permaculture's evolution.
"If
the 'Permaculture Principles'
that David Holmgren discusses
in this extremely important
book were applied to all that
we do, we would be well on the
road to sustainability, and
beyond." Professor Stuart
B Hill (Foundation Chair of
the Social Ecology University
of Western Sydney)
Are
there ways to live within nature's
limits while providing a secure
future for our children and
justice for everyone? We think
so. Read this book.
A cross-section of community
members invested a day planning
energy descent for the next
16 years in Kinsale, Ireland.
Another inspiration for me around
this time was a talk I went
to by a woman from a very dynamic
community development group
for a small town in decline
in the north of Ireland. They
felt farming was dying, and
they wanted a new direction
for the town with a sustainability
focus. What they did was bring
in a sustainability "expert"
who told them that they needed
to develop 'eco-tourism', and
that that would be a sustainable
replacement for farming. I was
horrified by this; it seemed
to me to be taking all the community's
eggs out of one basket and putting
them into another, which was
somehow better because it had
an "eco-" tag on it.
Also, all the ideas had come
from the "expert"
rather than the community itself.
I thought that actually a lot
more would have been achieved
by running a permaculture design
course for the people in the
village and letting the ideas
come from them.
As the students and myself started
looking around at the books
available on the subject we
decided that what was lacking
were examples of towns that
had actually started to look
at this issue. Had anyone actually
started to design pathways down
from the peak for a settlement
anywhere in the world? Cuba
is an often-cited example, but
we have to remember that Cuba
was forced to localise by circumstance
(the Russian oil that had supported
the country until that point
being no longer available),
and a friend who visited there
recently expressed a feeling
that there was no great enthusiasm
for it among many people.
 The
Power of Community: How Cuba
Survived Peak Oil
53
minutes, DVD or VHS, 2006, $20
The
need to bring agriculture into
Havana began with the fall of
the Soviet Union and the loss
of more than 50 percent of Cuba's
oil imports, much of its food
and 85 percent of its trade
economy. Transportation halted,
people went hungry and the average
Cuban lost 30 pounds.
Due
to the continuing US embargo,
but also because of the loss
of a foreign market, Cuba couldn't
obtain enough imported food.
Furthermore, without a substitute
for fossil-fuel based large-scale
farming, agricultural production
dropped drastically.
So
Cubans started to grow local
organic produce out of necessity,
developed bio-pesticides and
bio-fertilizers as petrochemical
substitutes, and incorporated
more fruits and vegetables into
their diets. Since they couldn't
fuel their aging cars, they
walked, biked, rode buses, and
carpooled.
The
goals of this film are to give
hope to the developed world
as it wakes up to the consequences
of being hooked on oil, and
to lift American's prejudice
of Cuba by showing the Cuban
people as they are. The filmmakers
do this by having the people
tell their story on film. It's
a story of their dedication
to independence and triumph
over adversity, and a story
of cooperation and hope.
There
are also some very interesting
comparisons with the period
immediately before and during
the Second World War in the
U.K. and elsewhere. This was
a national powerdown on a huge
scale, with 10% of the nation's
food being grown on allotments
and private gardens. Although
much has changed since then,
there are some very important
lessons that can be learned
from it. What we wanted was
to create an example (as we
were unable to find one in practice)
of a town looking at what peak
oil will actually mean to them,
and to vision how they want
a low-energy future to be. As
there was no pathway for this
in place, we had to make one
up.
Starting
from Scratch
The first thing we did was to
visit a number of good permaculture/organic
projects in the West Cork area
for ideas and inspiration, but
also to talk to their proprietors
about what they saw as being
practical responses to energy
descent that they felt were
tried and tested. That proved
to be very interesting, and
gave us some useful insights.
We heard about the practical
realities of making a living
growing organic vegetables for
local markets and how a changing
economy would make that more
viable. We heard about the realities
of living off the grid, and
the financial implications of
doing so. We saw the practicalities
of people trying to put the
first building blocks in place,
and their visions for how things
might change. We began to envision
a three- to four-year process
of community consultation, education,
and awareness-raising, combined
with practical implementation
of projects on the ground and
the formulation of a timetable
plan for making this transition.
This plan was christened the
Kinsale Energy Descent Action
Plan. The idea was that this
year's second year students
would produce the first draft,
which would then be put out
to the community for consultation.
Then the following year's students
would revise the document and
update it. We felt that it would
take about three years to produce
something nearing a definitive
document, although there would
always be a need for the plan
to adapt to developments, to
be "tweaked."
We had brainstorms on each of
the different areas we identified
for the Action Plan. These included
food, youth & community,
education, housing, economy
and livelihoods, health, tourism,
transport, waste, energy, and
marine resources. Future years
may add new categories to this,
but it seemed a good starting
list. We made mind maps of the
issues raised and possible solutions
to them. We also invited speakers
into the class who had a lot
of knowledge on some of these
topics.
Kinsale
2021
On Saturday, February 12, 2005
we held an event in Kinsale
called 'Kinsale in 2021 - Towards
a Prosperous, Sustainable Future
Together', which took place
at Kinsale Town Hall. The event
was presented as a "community
think-tank" in order to
hear the community's ideas about
how energy descent would affect
it and what might be done in
response. Before the event we
sent personal invitations to
the people in Kinsale whom we
had identified as being the
movers and shakers in the town,
drawn from the sectors identified
above. We also left the event
open to the public and put posters
up around the town. From the
60 people invited, about 35
turned up on the day. The event
itself was opened by the Mayor
of Kinsale, Mr. Charles Henderson,
who spoke of the importance
of energy as an issue and how
it affects all aspects of our
lives and our economy. This
was followed by a screening
of The End of Suburbia.
After the film, Thomas Riedmuller,
who teaches community leadership
at Kinsale FEC, introduced the
concept of open space as a tool
for facilitating such events.
Open space is based on the idea
that the most productive discussion
and idea sharing at any event
happens during the tea breaks.
Open space is, in essence, a
long tea break, where groups
are formed to discuss certain
issues, and everyone is free
to move between discussion groups,
based on the four principles
of open space: Whoever comes
are the right people; Whatever
happens is the only thing that
could have; Whenever it starts
is the right time; and When
it's over it's over. Those assembled
took to the open-space model
with great enthusiasm, and it
was extremely productive. People
were invited to identify the
specific problems and issues
that the film raised for them.
These were then recorded on
large sheets of paper and pinned
up on the wall. These were then
collated into subject areas,
and each of these became the
basis for a discussion group.
The groups covered the following
subjects: food, rebuilding communities,
youth group/education, business
and technology, tourism, and
renewable energy.
The groups came up with a wealth
of ideas and possibilities that
were then fed back to the rest
of the participants afterwards.
The feedback after the day was
very good. We learned a few
lessons from the event that
would be helpful for people
doing it again. First, a lot
of people sent apologies that
they would have liked to have
come, but they were just too
busy to give up a whole day.
We found it difficult to come
up with another model though,
because for us it worked very
well to show the film and then
have the discussions straightaway
while the feeling of urgency
that the film engenders was
still fresh in our minds. We
were able, thanks to the generosity
of many cafes and restaurants
in Kinsale who sponsored the
event, to put on a sumptuous
spread for lunch, which people
loved, and which kept the energy
of the event high. We wondered
if it might have been better
to have had a few screenings
of the film in the community
first, so some people could
have seen it in advance one
evening, and thus wouldn't have
had to give up so much of their
time to attend the discussion.
We found open space an excellent
tool for getting people talking
in a relaxed and informal way.
The
Action Plan
After the event, we collated
the information that had come
in from the day, and pairs of
students selected from among
the different subject areas.
I supplied a wealth of reading
material for background research,
and the students did a lot of
Internet research of useful
ideas and examples from around
the world. The final result
is the Kinsale Energy Descent
Action Plan - Version 1.2005,
which is our first attempt at
a year-by-year plan for the
town. Each section of the report
begins with a section called
"The Present". This
attempts to summarise the problem
now, in 2005, with regards to
the subject in question. This
is followed by "The Vision",
which is written in such a way
as to give the reader an idea
of how Kinsale could be, if
all the recommendations up to
that point had been implemented.
Part of the challenge with permaculture
is how we convey to people the
concept that a lower energy
future could be preferable,
more fulfilling, and more abundant
than the present. This section
aims to do that, so that people
can see in their minds' eye
what it would look like.
This is then followed by a list
of suggestions and recommendations
in chronological order. These
are meant to be ambitious but
also achievable, given a good
deal of motivation and support.
Each section is then rounded
off with a collection of resources
and Internet links. The last
section of the Action Plan is
a proposal for a Kinsale Sustainability
Centre. The idea is that the
Centre would be formed with
the brief of implementing the
Action Plan. The Sustainability
Centre would act as a focus
for the work, running courses
and training, but would also
provide a service, offering
initiatives such as an urban
market garden. (A pdf of the
final report can be downloaded
from www.transitionculture.org).
Next
Steps
Our intention is for this year's
second-year students to take
the Plan as it is and develop
it further. We hope to set up
a series of think-tank events,
like the Kinsale 2021 day, but
which are more specific to different
areas of the Plan; for example
one on health, where they would
invite all the people in Kinsale
working in the field, and another
on education, inviting teachers,
parents and other people with
an involvement. These events
would be based around what has
already been proposed in the
Plan, but getting feedback as
to how practical our suggestions
might be. These events would
serve a dual purpose. First,
they'd act as an essential community
sounding board for the Plan's
ideas, and second, they would
open doors into the community
for the project. All kinds of
new practical projects would
be proposed and contacts made.
They would also serve to bring
this work to the community,
rather than expecting it to
come to us, or sitting around
thinking "Why is no one
doing anything?" The great
thing about being based in a
college doing this work is that
you can call on 30 pairs of
hands if the feeling is to go
and build a garden somewhere.
Thirty pair of hands get a lot
done!
Final
Thoughts
The Kinsale Energy Descent Action
Plan has been very well received.
Reviewing it for Permaculture
Magazine, Patrick Whitefield
described it as a "remarkable
piece of work" and continued
to "recommend their plan
to people everywhere who would
like to see some positive action
happen in their own community."
Despite its not been conducted
by professionals or by a respected
research organisation, it has
touched a chord and excited
lots of people with its possibilities.
It had no external funding other
than the ability to use the
college facilities. However,
I think what was created in
the Plan is a very important
and far-reaching piece of work.
It does something that I think
is very bold and powerful. It
invites people to look beyond
where we are now, and beyond
simply allowing events to unravel,
and to look towards where they
would like to be. It allows
people to dream, but not in
a woolly, ungrounded way. It
is rooted in practicality; we
are creating the building blocks,
and we can't put the second
one in place before the first.
In the same way that in permaculture
design we aim to make our mistakes
on paper first so as to avoid
costly mistakes in the landscape,
with the Energy Descent Action
Plan we aim to clarify a step-by-step
way down, so as to best focus
our energies.
I also think it is important
to be realistic. For example,
I don't imagine that anything
approaching a majority of the
population would embrace this
approach yet. However, what
we can do is start putting in
place the infrastructure that
will be needed (seed saving
clubs, protecting a certain
proportion of land in urban
areas from development, preserving
skills and knowledge, teaching
skills to younger people, creating
community compost schemes so
we have a resource of compost
for growers). When people say
"but where will our fruit
come from?", we can say
"from the five-acre orchard
over there that we planted seven
years ago." We can begin
to build systems around people.
At the same time we need to
engage them as much as possible,
and see our work as being of
service. This is fascinating
work and should be started in
every settlement. It is big-picture
thinking, town-scale permaculture,
and needs to be rolled out across
the country as a matter of great
urgency.
New
Pathways
The Action Plan was completed
and printed in June 2005. Around
that time we held a conference
at Kinsale FEC called Fuelling
the FutureÑthe Challenge
and Opportunity of Peak Oil.
It was very successful, and
brought together speakers such
as David Holmgren, Richard Heinberg,
Colin Campbell, Richard Douthwaite,
and myself. It looked at peak
oil, but also at the solutions.
As well as the main speakers
there were a number of smaller
breakout sessions on permaculture,
food, energy, building, local
economics, and so on (all of
the main speakers can be heard
at www.fuellingthefuture.org).
Many people said they had never
been to a conference on peak
oil that they had left feeling
so positive. Two of the students
who graduated from the permaculture
course at Kinsale are looking
to set up a consultancy called
Transition Design, working with
communities and councils to
set up energy descent action
plans. Their idea is that towns
are helped to work through certain
criteria to earn the accolade
of being a "Transition
Town." Work has also begun
on Version 2 of the Action Plan.
And me? After ten years living
in Ireland I handed the 2006
permaculture course over to
colleague Graham Strouts and
returned to Devon in the UK
to pursue a Ph.D. on this whole
topic. It feels to me like the
most essential work I can be
doing at this point in history.
Also I feel it is important
to counter some of the more
lurid catastrophe scenarios
being put out by some in the
peak oil movement. I see peak
oil as the great opportunity,
the chance finally to create
the world we have been talking
of for years. In my research
now, I am putting together a
book (as well as the Ph.D.)
which will explore what I call
the head, the heart and the
hands of energy descent. The
head means the factual understanding
of peak oil, what it is and
what it means, as well as the
economics and politics of localisation.
The heart refers to an area
pretty much unexplored in the
peak oil literature: how do
we tell people and communities
about this stuff without them
retreating further into fear
and denial? How do we present
something so potentially catastrophic
as a positive choice and opportunity?
Some of the answers to this
question can be found in eco-psychology,
some in the works of Joanna
Macy, Ken Jones, Tom Atlee,
and others, people exploring
the area of turning trauma into
action, despair into empowerment.
I feel it is an essential part
of this work, as giving people
bad news and expecting them
to do something has clearly
not worked for the environmental
movement in the past. We need
a new approach.
The hands refers to the practical
work of grassroots led responses
to peak oil. Energy descent
action planning could be the
model, but the Natural Step
and the Global Action Plan have
something to contribute as proven
methods for inspiring communities
to change their practices. Also,
how much food will the settlement
need and where will it come
from? What structures are best
for promoting energy independence?
Once you start to think about
them, the practical implications
and the list of questions are
huge. What I hope to do is produce
a set of principles and a toolkit
of techniques that can be used
anywhere. The focus of the work
will be the designing and undertaking
of a transition process for
the town of Totnes, in Devon,
where I now live. As part of
this work I have set up a website,
www.transitionculture.org,
where I will post findings,
links, ideas, and references
as I proceed with this research.
The site also has archives of
other useful information. I
hope to have the book finished
by next Autumn. The Totnes process
will begin around the same time,
once the process has been carefully
designed.
The advent of peak oil offers
those people who have long envisioned
a more sustainable world the
opportunity to step forward
and start building the world
of their dreams. To retreat
into an attitude of "Well
it's not worth it, we're doomed,"
is to deny our own potential.
In the speech that Nelson Mandela
gave when released from prison,
he said, "Our deepest fear
is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we
are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us."
Energy descent action plans,
or whatever approach to this
challenge we ultimately devise,
offer us a vision for embarking
on a great journey and for unleashing
both permaculture's and our
own untapped potential. It is
time now that we roll up our
sleeves.
For
more information visit www.fuellingthefuture.org.
References
Atleee, T. (2003) The Tao
of Democracy.
Campbell, C.J. (2005) Oil
Crisis. Multi Science Publishing.
Heinberg, R. (2004) Powerdown:
Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon
World. Clairview.
Holmgren, D. (2003) Permaculture
Principles & Pathways Beyond
Sustainability. Holmgren
Design Services.
Macy, J. & Brown, M.Y. (1998)
Coming Back to Life: Practices
to Reconnect Our Lives, Our
World. New Society Publishers.
Rob
Hopkins is a permaculture designer
and teacher. Founding Director
of The Hollies Centre for Practical
Sustainability (www.theholliesonline.com),
and creator of the Practical
Sustainability course at Kinsale
FEC, he has long been at the
forefront of practical approaches
to sustainability in Ireland.
He has now returned to his native
England, where he is pursuing
a Ph.D. on energy descent action
planning at Plymouth University.
He runs www.transitionculture.org,
a
resource for people interested
in this work, and also a place
where The Kinsale Energy Descent
Action Plan can be downloaded.
He can be contacted at robjhopkins@gmail.com.
Plans are afoot for Fuelling
the Future 2 in late June 2006.
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