PLACE: nn-Mmm-08

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Peak oil, climate change and transition PLACE

• PLACE nn-Mmm-08
• Ben Brangwyn
• Co-founder, Transition Network

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Agenda

• Peak Oil and its effects
• Climate Change
• Responses at different levels
• global, national, local, personal
• PO CC ? business as usual
• What is a transition town
• Examples and achievements so far
• QA discussion

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Peak Oil fields, regions, world

• well never run out of oil
• were running out of cheap, plentiful oil
• oil underpins
• industrial development
• agriculture
• economics
• population
• about ½ way through it
• its going to decline

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Peak Oil discovery

• before you extract it, you have to find it
• US discovery peaked in 1930s
• production peaked in 1971
• UK discovery peaked in 1975
• production peaked in 1999
• world discovery peaked in 1960s
• production will peak in 20??

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Peak Oil official numbers

• EIA - Energy Information Administration
• IEA - International Energy Agency

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Peak or Plateau?

• Existing fields decline 4.5 Peak in 2015

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Peak Oil vs Peak Exports

• Oil producers getting richer
• Developing their own economies
• Middle East growth 5-6 pa
• Russia growth 7 pa
• Increasing their domestic consumption of oil
• fuelled by subsidised prices
• Less available for countriesthey export to. Like
  us

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Peak Oil whats it like?

• terminal decline
• demand destruction
• examples
• 1990s North Korea
• 1990s Cuba
• 2000 UK fuel crisis
• Now Poor countries

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Cuba and food

• A U.N. food expert hailed Cuba as a world model
  in feeding its population, some 18 years after
  the collapse of the Soviet Bloc ravaged the
  island's economy and sparked widespread hunger.
  (Nov-07)
• Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations'
  independent investigator on "the right to food"
  since 2000, spent 11 days in Cuba on a
  fact-finding mission

10
Peak Oil happening now (if youre poor)

• Asia
• Nepal
• Pakistan
• Bangladesh
• Sri Lanka
• Philippines
• China
• India
• Vietnam

• Africa
• Uganda
• Zimbabwe
• Ghana
• Nigeria
• Senegal
• Kenya
• Gambia
• Philippines

• Americas
• Argentina
• Nicaragua
• Chile
• Costa Rica
• Dominican Republic
• Middle East
• Iraq
• Iran

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Peak Oil happening now (if youre in Argentina)

• Argentina
• worst energy shortage in nearly 20 years
• collapse of both the power grid and the fuel
  supply system
• electricity supplies have been severely
  curtailed, plunging entire districts into
  darkness and causing the layoff of industrial
  workers
• shortages of compressed natural gas, which powers
  many Argentine cars and 90 of the capital's
  taxis, are common
• can no longer meet peak electricity demand.

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Climate Change the end of the debate
The 4th IPCC report, 2007 states

• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal
• Most of the observed increase in globally
  averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century
  is very likely (confidence level gt90) due to the
  observed increase in human greenhouse gas
  concentrations

Upsala Glacier, Argentina
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Climate Change weather extremes
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Fossil Fuels, Carbon and Economic Growth
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Climate Change moral issue or personal interest?

• Some regions will be more affected than others
• The Arctic (ice sheet loss, ecosystem changes)
• Sub-Saharan Africa (water stress, reduced crops)
• Small islands (coastal erosion, inundation)
• Asian mega-deltas (flooding from sea and rivers)
• coastal aquifers will be contaminated by sea
  water
• Some ecosystems are highly vulnerable
• Coral reefs, marine shell organisms
• Tundra, boreal forests, mountain and
  Mediterranean regions
• 20-30 of plant and animal species at risk of
  extinction
• Scotland?

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Peak Oil Climate Change

• PLANNED RELOCALISATION
• local resilience
• carbon reduction
• consume closer to home
• produce closer to home
• play closer to home
• decentralised energy infrastructure
• the Great Reskilling
• localised food
• energy descent plans
• local medicinal capacity
• local currencies

• CLIMATE CHANGE
• (a la Stern et al.)
• climate engineering
• carbon capture and storage
• tree-based carbon offsets
• international emissions trading
• climate adaptation
• improved transportation logistics
• nuclear power

• PEAK OIL
• (a la Hirsch et al.)
• coal to liquids
• gas to liquids
• relaxed drilling regulations
• massively scaled biofuels
• tar sands and non-conventional oils
• resource nationalism and stockpiling

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What can be done?

• Global
• Oil Depletion Protocol
• Contraction and Convergence
• Kyoto
• National
• TEQs (energy rationing)
• Community
• Transition Towns, cities, villages, rural
• Personal
• The work that reconnects
• lessons from addiction counselling
• getting Gaiaed

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Can we respond?

• Going up the energy slope, we used
• ingenuity
• creativity
• adaptability
• cooperation
• Going back down
• if were early enough
• if were cooperative
• the future could be a whole lot better

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Whats stopping us? (1)

• Myths of today
• Things are getting better
• We must keep shopping
• Technology will solve all our problems
• There is no alternative
• You cant stop progress
• Living standards are rising
• New, better, faster, shinier ____ are just around
  the corner
• Humans are selfish and greedy by nature
• The market will solve it
• Were all doomed

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Whats stopping us? (2)

• Cognitive Load Theory (fruit salad experiment)
• Short term vs long term thinking
• rational vs emotional, neocortex vs mammalian vs
  reptilian
• Belief in authority figures
• electrocution experiment - 65 gave lethal dose
• obedient children survive
• Sunk cost, or investment in the present
• its difficult convincing a person of something
  when his job depends on him not believing it
• Optimism
• an optimistic outlook is neurochemically
  self-fulfilling
• Left brain, right brain

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Where are we going?
Techno-Fantasy
Peak Energy?
Green-Tech Stability

• Energy Resource Use
• Population
• Pollution

Industrial Ascent
Creative Descent (Permaculture)
Earth stewardship
Pre-industrial culture
Post Mad Max Collapse
Historical Time
Future Time
Great Grand Children
Industrial Revolution
Baby Boom
Agriculture 10.000yrs BP
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Whos doing creative, orderly energy descent?
Official Transition Initiatives

• 400 mullers
• UK
• Ireland
• USA
• Spain
• Italy
• New Zealand
• Australia
• France
• Israel
• Canada
• Mexico
• Norway
• South Africa
• Sweden
• Uruguay
• Argentina

• Totnes
• Penwith (Cornwall)
• Kinsale
• Ivybridge
• Falmouth
• Moretonhampstead
• Lewes
• Stroud
• Ashburton
• Ottery St Mary
• Bristol
• Brixton
• Forest Row
• Mayfield
• Glastonbury

• Forest of Dean
• Lostwithiel
• Nottingham
• Wrington
• BrightonHove
• Portobello (Edinburgh)
• Market Harborough
• Sunshine Coast, Oz
• West Kirby
• Llandeilo
• Bro Ddyfi
• Whitstable
• MarsdenSlaithwaite
• Frome

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How are they organising?

• Transition Model
• Understanding
• PO CC ? business as usual
• Adaptability, creative
• NOW
• 7 Buts
• 12 Steps
• Transition Network

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Transition Model 7 buts (1)

• we dont have funding
• they wont let us
• no enemies apparently
• turf wars with other green groups

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Transition Model 7 buts (2)

1. no one cares about the environment
2. its too late anyway
3. I dont have the right qualifications
4. I dont have the energy to be doing that

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Transition Model - Step 1

• Set Up a Steering Group and Design Its Demise
  from the Outset
• atrophy
• personal agendas
• humility
• stages 2-5
• reforms from subgroups

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Transition Model - Step 2

• Awareness raising
• allies and networks
• prepare community
• movies
• talks
• events

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Transition Model - Step 3

• Lay the foundations
• other groups
• existing projects
• official bodies
• businesses
• collaboration

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Transition Model - Step 4

• Organise a Great Unleashing
• coming of age
• powerful, passionate, informative, inspirational
• timing
• content
• making connections

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Transition Model - Step 5

• Form working groups
• starting new groups
• bringing in existing groups
• guidelines
• training
• working groups and the steering group

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Transition Model - Step 6

• Use Open Space
• shouldnt work!
• requirements
• preparations
• World Café
• Harrison Owen - Open Space Technology A Users
  Guide
• Peggy Holman and Tom Devane - The Change
  Handbook Group Methods for Shaping the Future

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Transition Model - Step 7

• Develop visible practical manifestations of your
  project
• not a talking shop
• chose carefully
• lure in fence-sitters
• team building potential
• getting dirt under your fingernails

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Transition Model - Step 8

• Facilitate the Great Reskilling
• Grandma, what was it like when you were a kid?
• repairing, cooking, fixing bikes, natural
  building, loft insulation, dyeing, herbal walks,
  gardening, basic home energy efficiency, making
  sour doughs, practical food growing (the list is
  endless)
• eg WWOOFing

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Transition Model - Step 9

• Build bridges to Local Government
• becomes crucial
• dont wait too long
• open door
• Community Development Plan
• elections!

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Transition Model - Step 10

• Honour the Elders
• elders as a community resource
• 1930 to 1960 moving from oil scarcity to
  abundance
• oral history
• community infrastructure
• not about going backwards

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Transition Model - Step 11

• Let it go where it wants to go
• focus on the questions
• unleash the community
• any sense of control is illusory

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Transition Model - Step 12

• Produce and start to implement the Energy Descent
  Action Plan
• assess current situation
• create 15-20 year vision for all key areas
• integrate with community plan if possible
• identify steps needed to get there
• start the work

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What have they achieved so far? (1)

• Lewes
• school workshops
• grow your own food courses
• rug making course
• mending course
• Lewes non-plastic bag
• library books on sustainability
• many events, talks and films
• Penwith
• many films and talks
• food and farming day with Soil Association
• reskilling composting toilets and reedbeds

• Totnes
• 8 films, 11 talks, 7 events
• 10-week skilling up for powerdown course
• seed sharing days
• oil vulnerability auditing
• Estates in Transition
• local food directory
• local currency (phase 2)
• oral history archives
• nut tree capital of Britain
• transition stories
• lobbying (food and sustainable building regs)
• community plan engagement
• Totnes Renewable Energy Company

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What have they achieved so far? (2)

• Brixton
• green mapping / urban agriculture project
• permaculture design course
• films and talks
• presenting to school boards on peak oil and
  climate change
• urban food growers network day
• Bristol
• many films, talks and events
• transition training 2-day course
• city orchard (central buying of trees for
  productive planting by individual homeowners
• guerilla gardening
• photo exhibition and competition of living more,
  using less

• Stroud
• CSA, local food festival
• tool share
• textile courses, visits to hemp manufacturers,
  fashion show
• planning Stroud Hemporium
• Heinberg meeting with council
• Transition think tank with local council
• many events and talks

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Transition Training

• Totnes 18 to 19-Oct-07
• 17 people (Birmingham, Lostwithiel, Exeter)
• Bristol 20-Nov-07
• London Dec-07
• Scotland?
• Wales?
• North

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Our choice

• Well be transitioning to a lower energy future
  whether we want to or not. Far better to ride
  that wave rather than getting engulfed by it.

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Transition Initiatives

• Thank you
• Ben Brangwyn

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Peak Oil addicted society (3)

• growth economics
• debt
• interest
• confidence
• no replacement for oil

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Peak Oil whos peaked (1)?
Top 20 - 85 of all oil extracted worldwide Top 20 - 85 of all oil extracted worldwide
Peaked Not yet peaked
47 of world 37 of world
United States, Mexico, China, Norway, Canada, Venezuela, United Kingdom, Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Indonesia, Oman Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Kazakhstan
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Peak Oil whos peaked (2)?
Top 20 - 85 of all oil extracted worldwide Top 20 - 85 of all oil extracted worldwide
Peaked Not yet peaked
57 of world 27 of world
Russia, United States, Mexico, China, Norway, Canada, Venezuela, United Kingdom, Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Indonesia, Oman Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Kazakhstan
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Peak Oil whos peaked (3)?
Albania Croatia Japan Serbia
Argentina Czech Republic Jordan Slovakia
Australia Denmark Kyrgystan South Africa
Austria Egypt Mexico Spain
Bahrain France Morocco Surinam
Bangladesh Gabon Myanmar (Indonesia) Syria
Barbados Georgia Netherlands Taiwan
Belarus Germany New Zealand Tajikistan
Benin Ghana Norway Trinidad Tobago
Bosnia Greece Oman Tunisia
Bulgaria Guatemala Papua New Guinea Turkey
Cameroon Hungary Peru UK
Chile India Poland Ukraine
China Iran ?? Romania USA
Colombia Israel/Palestine Russia ?? Uzbekistan
Congo Kinshasa Italy Senegal Yemen
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Peak Oil reserve growth

• OPEC
• quota system
• Kuwait jumps
• others follow
• no change!
• Kuwait back- tracking in 2007

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Peak Oil Gas ASPO estimates

• Regular
• peaked in 2005
• Heavy oil, deepwater, polar and natural gas
  liquids
• estimate peak around 2010

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Peak Oil Climate Change

• Climate Change mitigations must
• reduce emissions (reduce oil usage)
• Peak Oil mitigations must
• build local resilience
• Closer to home
• consumption
• production
• work
• play

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Peak or Plateau?

• Existing fields technology enhanced decline of
  2 Peak in 2018

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Peak or Plateau?

• Existing fields - sharp decline of 8 Peak in
  2010