The Transition Movement From Oil Dependence to Local Resilience - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Transition Movement From Oil Dependence to Local Resilience Climate Summit April 2011

THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT: From Oil Dependence to Local Resilience

Agenda  Climate Change  Peak Oil and its effects  Economic contraction  PO + CC + EC ≠ “business as usual”  What is a transition town  Examples and achievements so far  Q&A discussion --------------------  RESILIENCE

Melting Ice Caps and All the Rest Polar Science Center Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington

Peak Oil  we’ll never “run out” of oil  we’re running out of cheap, plentiful oil  oil underpins – industrial development – agriculture – economics – population  about ½ way through it …  it’s going to decline

Peak Oil & Climate Change

What can be done?  Global  Oil Depletion Protocol  Contraction and Convergence  Kyoto  National  TEQs, Cap & Share (energy rationing)  Community  Transition Towns, cities, villages, rural  Personal  “The work that reconnects”  self directed re-education

Can we respond?  Going up the energy slope, we used – ingenuity – creativity – adaptability – cooperation  Going back down … – if we’re early enough – if we’re cooperative – the future could be a whole lot better …

What’s stopping us? What are the dominant myths stopping us?  Things are getting better  Tomorrow will be like today, but bigger and shinier  Economic growth is good  We must keep shopping  Technology will solve all our problems  There is no alternative  You can’t stop progress  Living standards are rising  Humans are selfish and greedy by nature  The market will solve it  We’re all doomed anyway, so …

What are our stories for the Techno-Fantasy future? Peak Energy ? Green-Tech • Energy use Stability Creative Descent • Resource use (Permaculture) • Environmental degradation • Pollution Industrial Ascent Earth stewardship Post Pre-industrial Mad Max culture Collapse Historical Time Industrial Baby Great Grand Future Time Agriculture Revolution Boom Children 10.000yrs BP

When the Crunch Comes... ...What’s it like?  terminal decline  demand destruction  examples:  Now: Poor countries  1990s: North Korea, an example of non-resilience  1990s: Cuba, the 1st Transition Country

Segment from “In Transition, the Movie”

Who’s designing a creative, positive energy descent? (Europe and beyond)

Who’s designing a creative, positive energy descent? (Aus/NZ)

Segment from “In Transition, the Movie”

Peak oil, climate change, food and the Scottish parliament  Unanimously passed motion  “…Parliament expresses its concern at the potential for global food shortages; … food price inflation now exceeding 6%; calls on the Scottish Government, Her Majesty’s Government, the European Union and other relevant bodies to … seek solutions that take account of the growing pressures on agriculture from both climate change and the rush to biofuels as well as the peak in oil production … ensuring the long-term capacity and capability of our food supply ; … encourage the development of local supply chains through public procurement, address the imbalance in power between the big supermarkets and our food producers....” (June 2008)

Monteveglio council, Italy Oil and fossil fuel depletion is this administration’s priority, to be implemented through  an Energy Descent Plan to turn Monteveglio into a “Post Carbon” City. Strategic partnership with the Association Monteveglio Città di Transizione [Transition  T own Monteveglio] with whom this administration shares: a view of the future (the depletion of energy resources and the significance of a limit to  economic development) methods (bottom-up community participation)  objectives (to make our community more resilient, i.e. better prepared to face a low  energy future) an optimistic approach (although the times are hard, changes to come will include great  opportunities to improve the whole community’s quality of life).  Begin a participative and institutional process to promote Monteveglio as a Transition T own, with the direct participation of the whole community and a final statement by the City Council.  Define CO2 emission measurement tools and containment policies well beyond EU targets and in line with the global objective of 350 ppm. excerpt from Monteveglio “Decree”