James Samuel

1
Peak oil, climate change and transition towns

• James Samuel
• National Facilitator
• Transition Towns NZ Aotearoa
• www.transitiontowns.org.nz

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Agenda

• Peak Oil and its effects
• Climate Change (brief)?
• 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

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Peak Oil official numbers

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

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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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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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Climate Changethe 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 temp's 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 Changeweather extremes
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Fossil Fuels, Carbon, and Economic Growth
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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

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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?

• Myths of today
• Technology will solve all our problems
• There is no alternative
• Civilisation is the pinnacle of human achievement
• 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
• If our water comes from a tap, and our food
  comes from a supermarket
• We will defend the systems which sustain us

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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
Post Mad Max Collapse
Pre-industrial culture
Historical Time
Future Time
Industrial Revolution
Baby Boom
Great Grand Children
Agriculture 10.000yrs BP
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Whos doing creative, orderly energy descent?
43 Towns at last count
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How are they organising?

• Transition Model
• Understanding
• PO CC The end of business as usual
• Adaptability, Creativity
• NOW
• 7 Buts
• 12 Steps
• Transition Network

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Peak Oil Climate Change

• Climate Change mitigations must
• reduce emissions (reduce oil usage)?
• Peak Oil mitigations must
• build local resilience
• Which means doing it closer to home -
  re-localisation
• consumption
• production
• work
• play

18
Our choice

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