Charlbury after Cheap Oil (Debate)

Sun 21 Aug 2005, 19:08

Wadda we gonna do? I've been toying with getting a project going - perhaps with the kids, primary and secondary, and us older lags who've a bit of time.

With Peak Oil probably upon us this year or next - anyway not long now - the effective price of oil is going to go through the roof, moneywise. Or lifewise if the USA intends to take "their oil" by force of arms from wherever (and is Blair's sycophancy towards the Bushcists in the hope they will let some leftover drops dribble our way?? I think he reads the Christofascist American Right wrong if he really believes that will sustain the UK).

Anyway, Peak Oil, as I was saying ... things are going to change. Where then our casual hopping in cars for shopping or trips to work? Where will our food come from, seeing it is grown in a puddle of oil, transported on a river of oil, processed in a vat of oil, and then brought to us on a stream of oil?

What work will there be when the corporates that overwhelmingly employ most of us, don't?

Will our trains still run, and buses, or will they be priced out of existence as part of the austerity measures to reduce oil consumption, that reserved only for the rich?

Wadda we gonna do? At least we'll be out of the water over most of the town, though looks like it could be Charlbury on Sea (or fiord). But then how do we keep the 20 million around us from wanting to sit on our island too? Shoot them all at the barricades? But that's a problem for the next century, probably. Our more immediate one is for 10-20 years time when oil becomes priced into effective scarcity as far as ordinary people are concerned. How do we wind the clock back to the energy use of the 30's?

One idea is rebuilding or new places along ecological lines, like sustainable communities. Great for places like the USA where land is not a rationable resource like it is here. Still, the paper I paste in below is worth a read for the more pure approach a clean start can bring about. All quite feasible and there are places being built in Germany and Holland very similar to this, I am led to believe.

But what can we do to retrofit a mix of Ye Oldes and 70's-90's little boxes on the hillside? And reconstruct a mutually employable community that can get enough resources in from the outside to lift us beyond starvation level? (Take back the land for a start, eh, seeing as most of it was stolen by force of arms from the Saxon commoners or more recently by the enclosures).

Anyway, have a look at this:

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The Agraria Proposal

Now that pump prices have gotten the attention of more consumers, and the geopolitics of war and national debt are approaching consciousness levels with more voters, here is a partial reading list on The Post Cheap Energy Age and a sample of one Community Solution, called The Agraria Proposal, for an actual township in Ohio.

If you are interested in more references to Peak Oil, please contact me or watch this 45 minute presentation by Colin Campbell courtesy of PressBox http://www.pressbox.co.uk/detailed/Society/Free_Peak_Oil_presentation_made_available_online_34360.html

Saudis warn of shortfalls as oil hits new high (Financial Times) http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e0cdc282-ee47-11d9-98e5-00000e2511c8.html

Big Oil warns of Energy Crunch (Financial Times) http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7af6dc38-050c-11da-97da-00000e2511c8.html

The Twilight Era of Petroleum (Klare) http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=10216

Eating Fossil Fuels (Pfeiffer) http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

The Second Great Depression (Campbell) http://www.energybulletin.net/newswire.php?id=5944

The Long Emergency (Kunstler) http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7203633?rnd=1113403451890&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1059 and http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0413-28.htm

How to live without oil (Lovins) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8769620/site/newsweek/

The Next Petroleum (Newsweek) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8769619/site/newsweek/

Think Global, Eat Local (LA Times) http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-localfood31jul31,1,755689.story?coll=la-headlines-magazine

Summary:

· Oil production in the non-OPEC world is likely to peak within a few years and then begin an irreversible decline.

· Oil peaking is caused by unavoidable geologic factors. It happens to all oil fields and can't be stopped just by spending more money.

· There isn't enough oil left elsewhere in the world to make up for the decline in non-OPEC supplies. A global peak, followed by a steady decline in production, is likely within the next ten years, though some predict earlier. Natural gas will likewise decline subsequently.

· As bad as this is, there's something even worse that's happened already: the world has run out of spare pumping capacity. The result is likely to be steadily rising prices and frequent oil shocks, leading to increasing global instability, a turbulent economy held permanent hostage to terrorists, unstable dictatorships, natural disasters, and inevitably resource wars.

· There are things we can do to manage the approaching oil peak, but we need start now, taking aggressive precautionary measures to address both supply and consumption.

There is a plethora of literature on energy future, both science fiction and political science-based. You might think of the era of Energy Decline as the secular, geological and environmental version of Armageddon, or the end of life as we know it in the West. Although it would be callous to dismiss the many who will not survive due to economic and environmental calamity, not all the changes we should anticipate in a post-petroleum future will be negative ones. Many people profess to welcome a return to more community and neighborhood-centered lives, less consumerist “simple living” where the phrase It takes a village will have truer meaning than it does today.

Here is one Community Solution for the those times ahead of us, an Era of Energy Decline that hopefully is balanced by a Second Industrial Revolution with new technology and energy alternatives. I want to point out the obvious, that the physical scientists et al in the Post-Peak Oil movement are working with the social scientists et al of the sustainable local economies movement to project and design what is possible for the future. By way of example, if you want to know what authors Richard Heinberg (Power Down) and Michael Shuman (Going Local) are doing next month, check out this conference http://www.communitysolution.org/.

More importantly, if you are interested in sustainable communities, read the proposal for Agraria here and the sample neighborhood design http://www.communitysolution.org/agraria.html.

What do you think? KwC

Samples from The Agraria proposal

I. Introduction

"Agraria" is intended to be an innovative Low-energy Use, Small, Sustainable Community. The Low-energy Use designation comes from the knowledge that global oil production will peak soon, followed by natural gas, and ultimately by coal and uranium. Low-energy, in the context of this document, implies a goal of using one-fourth of the current average energy used per capita.1 Sustainable implies a community that can operate, to the extent possible, without inputs (particularly of fossil fuels) and outputs (such as trash and sewage), but also of other materials. Small is a designation based on the founding principles of our organization, Community Service, Inc., that states smallness itself is a value for positive social organization. And finally Community implies a way of living together and is also based on the principles of our organization which views a cooperative way of life to be preferable to current competitive ways of living.

Agraria is planned to be an attractive low-energy community that will serve as a model for similar development across the country as a response to Peak Oil. (Peak Oil refers to the point in time when global oil production reaches its maximum and begins to decline. According to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas this may occur as early as 2007.2 Read more here). The organic gardens, low-energy building techniques and other aspects of the neighborhood-community design will be strong educational tools and even sources of income for some of the neighborhood' residents.

III. General Description

Probably the three most significant aspects of the current American, consumer-oriented, high-energy-use lifestyle are, large homes; large, low-mileage automobiles; and fossil-fuel-based, long-distance food supplies. Agraria addresses these directly. Agraria homes will be clustered with paths replacing roads, leaving over half of the land for gardens, orchards and recreation. The Agraria neighborhood will not be completely "car-free" – that does not appear possible at this time. However, it will not be "car-focused". Agraria will not include garages, driveways and roads for cars. Thus cars will not be driven directly to each residence, but will be relegated to parking areas on the edge of the development, requiring one to walk or bike to their residence. However, due to the cluster concept, parking will be relatively close to the houses.

Homes. American homes are extremely wasteful of energy, both because of their size and because of current construction techniques. The goal of Agraria houses is to use one-fourth of the energy of a typical new house built in the U.S. in 2004. The first step in achieving this will be to reduce the size of the house from the current average of 2,272 square feet (2004)3 to a size of approximately 1000 square feet (average house size in 1950 was 9834 and the average house size in most of Europe today is 926). Much higher insulation requirements for walls, floors, ceilings and roofs will double the savings of conventional building practices. The two combined will result in a 4 to 1 or higher improvement in energy efficiency.

Today's typical 2300 square foot house on a 1/4 acre lot, when including garage, driveways, walkways and roadways, might cover 3200 square feet of land.5 The rest of the lot, about 4500 square feet, is typically covered in grass (sometimes referred to as "biological pavement"), that requires fossil fuels and pesticides for upkeep. An Agraria development might have three homes on one-eighth of a 1/4-acre lot, each one taking 1100-1200 square feet for house and pathways. This would essentially have much higher density, but would leave more land available for farming, gardening, woodlands and recreation.

Major energy savings will also be possible with appliances. Flash water heaters or solar water heaters will replace conventional water heaters. Heating the houses will be provided by single source heaters rather than a forced air system and will use multiple fuels – wood, coal, natural gas. Heat pumps may also be used, possibly powered by PV solar cells. Air conditioners and clothes dryers will not be available in Agraria houses. Refrigeration will be replaced or reduced by the use of SunFrost (or equivalent) thick-walled refrigerators and freezers. Root cellars may be part of the house design, depending on soil conditions. Community laundry facilities will provide extremely energy efficient and low water use clothes washers.

Automobiles. The American car averages about 21 miles per gallon, is driven 15,000 miles per year, and typically carries 1.1 occupants per trip.7 Car covenants will encourage all Agraria residents to drive cars that average 50 miles per gallon or greater. The community may provide such vehicles with a surcharge that encourages more people per-vehicle, per-trip and participation in the car-sharing program. The community aspects of Agraria will encourage people to work locally, by having office and shop spaces available as part of the development. Local work and recreation facilities within Agraria will significantly reduce the miles traveled per year. The goal is for Agraria residents to use 1/4 of the gasoline of the average American.

Food. Since Agraria homes will be clustered on the lot and will have minimal yards, more land will be available for gardening and farming. Larger Agraria developments will include community structures for food production such as greenhouses, barns, storage sheds, root cellars and, when appropriate, retail areas. The community buildings will include food preparation and dining areas. Sustainable approaches, such as Permaculture and organic growing, will be the basic methods of gardening and farming. Animal traction will eventually be used as oil and gas become more expensive. Long term food storage facilities will be provided.

Sewage and Trash.One way to help achieve Agraria's goal of a low-energy lifestyle is to reduce loss of "energy" through loss of resources. One of the greatest losses of resources with the American high-energy lifestyle is trash and sewage. Agraria will take an aggressive stance on recycling. This will begin at the input level by trying to reduce excess packaging coming into the community. It will continue by direct recycling of metals, plastics, and glass and by developing creative uses for waste (such as crushing and polishing glass into "sand" to be used as an inorganic mixer with compost). At the far end of the process, Agraria will compost much of its organic wastes, will cycle its greywater for use in gardening, and will biologically process its blackwater, possibly to produce bio-gas, greywater, and compostable sludge.

XI. Cultural Values

A low-energy lifestyle is not simply a question of economics. High-energy-use living has not only changed the way we live – it has also changed our values, beliefs and attitudes toward life. One can view the high-energy lifestyle as humankind's highest level of development or as an aberration that could possibly destroy life on the planet. A low-energy-use lifestyle can also be viewed either positively or negatively. It can be considered as a way of living with extensive cooperation and social interactions as the basis for happiness. Or it can be viewed as a lifestyle which represents a terrible defeat for mankind. We prefer the former view:

1. Emphasis on relating not competing

§ Face-to-face instead of face-to-tube

§ Conversation as an art form

§ Learning from each other

2. Emphasis on people, not possessions

§ joy of belonging rather than having belongings

§ learning and development as life purpose

§ staying home a lot – not leaving for excitement or entertainment

§ reading more

§ walking and biking – not hopping in a car

3. Community values not consumer values

§ learning from ways of intentional communities, co housing, eco-villages...

§ pleasure in working with ones hands and outside

§ convenience and comfort are not high priority values

§ living without the addiction to electronics – use only as tools

§ less TV/VCR

§ Community support, interconnectedness replaces isolation

XIII. Leisure and Recreation

Our current industrial culture enjoys its large homes, its powerful – high-energy-use automobiles, and an industrial food system that provides cheap plentiful foods, which rely on cheap fossil fuel and often the exploitation of Central American labor. The Agraria philosophy is contrary to this world view. In modern time our culture's media supports the addictive desires for these products. More than any country in the world and any country in the past history of the world, the American culture is determined by the various forms of media. Thus media now "mediates" our experience.

The verb form of media is "mediate" and its definition is: a-acting through an intervening agency; b-exhibiting indirect causation, connection, or relation. Thus Americans gain their view of life, their values, and their cultural mores by observing myriad forms of media. To many, life is principally what is shown on TV and read about in magazines. Yet this very media is controlled by the car, house, and food industries which universally define a lifestyle based on heavy consumption of fossil fuel.

Today the average person watches TV four hours per day and spends approximately another four interacting with some form of electronic screen either at work, at leisure or at home – much of this being the famous "surfing" of the Internet. Americans have less and less face-to-face interaction. Some parents and their children interact by "instant messaging" from different rooms. Just as in the beginning of TV, which was supposed to be a phenomenal educational tool and ended up being a stupefying experience overall, so Internet surfing may soon prove to be equally deleterious to community life. Agraria will offer an alternative to the electronic alienation that increases with each release of software and new chip.

Arthur Morgan, the founder of Community Service, put recreation near the top of the requirements for a successful small community. The Agraria ideal places a strong emphasis on various forms of recreation, including physical recreational activities which improve physical health and teamwork. Recreation in all its forms, including sports, games, lectures, studying, music, learning and social interaction are vital to a strong community. Time for these activities will come at the expense of the time spent fixated on the media screens.

This view is not based on the issues of wasted time, advertising, sex and violence, or other aspects of electronic media. Rather it is based on a concern that a community oriented low-energy use way of life will be difficult to achieve and one of the greatest difficulties will be to change the value we currently place on a high-energy use way of life which is supported by electronic media interactions. The antidote will not be forced limitations but the creating of a powerful recreational program which will draw people into more healthy interactive forms of entertainment.

XIV. Conclusion

This document is a preliminary description or specification for a low-energy neighborhood-community which will use energy in the limited amounts that are likely to be available in the next few decades. Agraria is intended to be an addition to the existing community of Yellow Springs, Ohio. It is offered as a strategy to enhance the community and to offer an option for a truly sustainable healthy society. This development will provide "homecoming" places to which those currently living in non sustainable cities and suburbs can move.

Please see Appendix 2 for FAQ’s http://www.communitysolution.org/agraria.html#appen2