Peak Oil in the news - can we move on please?

Yesterday oil hit $135 a barrel; up $5 it was the biggest daily hike in 60 years. The price of oil has doubled in a year, increased 10 times over in 10 years. Opec predicts that oil will reach $200 a barrel by the end of this year. Peak oil hit the headlines big time this week, including the front page of the FT – this animated short http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1488655367?bctid=1568084747 was on the Daily Telegraph’s website for example. It’s great that peak oil is now mainstream. Once people get over the shock of what it’s going to mean to our economy, we can get on with the work that really interests me – what are we going to do about it?

This transition period is not going to be straightforward as the solutions are divergent: there are those who will want to keep the economic growth show on the road, using coal to liquid, GM and other high-carbon, earth unfriendly technologies. That, and a run on nuclear, could be suicidal. The environmentalists will strengthen the call for low-impact earth-repair solutions and clashes will certainly ensue as the two paradigms go head to head. I’m reminded of the transition phase of labour; that’s when you tend to say, fuck off, I don’t want to do this any more. But it’s also the time just before you start to actually give birth to the gorgeous new, long-awaited baby.

Meanwhile, a good part of the economic ‘crunch’ (a lovely polite sounding word, that) is underpinned by the markets’ realisation that the party’s over. That’s reflected in the fact that the oil future prices are now higher than before. The price of oil, as Norman Baker said this week on Radio 4, is not going to come down again.

Having seen all this ahead a while back, I’m now pretty familiar with the range of possible futures, and look forward to the time when we’re all on the road to creating the better future with less fossil fuels. Transition Town Lewes is designed to help people through this – the faster we get on board, the gentler the transition. As the management guru Peter Drucker famously said, The best way to predict the future is to create it.

Breakdown to Breakthrough

Can you know whether you’re living through a time of great change when you are in it? Or is it one of those things you can only see in the rear view mirror? Lately there’s been some talk of the period before the last World War, when the majority of Britons believed in appeasement. Apparently there was a minority who believed that war was inevitable. These people, engineers, scientists, created the blueprint for the Spitfire, and when war broke out there were many other strategies – political, social, practical - in place for Britain to be swiftly galvanised for war.

Not that we are in a wartime situation. But a great change is afoot and deep down we know it. Our initial response is fear, but I also sense the fresh wind of relief, as though from addiction. Do we really want to continue to create a society where our greed for driving is more important than other people’s need to eat (the grain it takes to fill a 25 gallon SUV tank can feed a person for a year – Lester Brown, Earthwatch Institute).

The headlines lately have been dire – and not just the Guardian, but the FT, the Mail and all. Our leaders reassure us that the financial, food and oil crises are just temporary market aberrations, but perhaps we are entering a time of long-term turbulence as we figure out how to change from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining society. Resistance is futile. But I am optimistic. I hope we can even welcome this Breakdown to Breakthrough.

The Great Turning

A group of us took the 4.20 to London on Monday to hear Joanna Macy talk. It was the first warm evening of the year, and walking through St James’s Park at dusk, we breathed deeply the first scents, and were dazzled by the thick white cherry blossoms. Even the pigeons were nuzzling each other romantically. It was magic to experience natural wellbeing in the middle of a city.

Macy is an 80 year old deep ecologist. We are, she said, living in an extraordinary time: our generation is participating in the necessary and unavoidable transition from an Industrial Growth society to a Life Sustaining society. And like so many life ventures, like sowing seeds or giving birth, it’s not certain we’re going to make it.

There is, Macy says, a taboo about talking of such things, and people often say, don’t worry; it will be all right. But, she says, that’s because so many of us are afraid of the feelings that might come up on accepting the problem. It is totally appropriate to feel both deep gratitude for and connection with all that is, as well as the great sadness of the earth. Having powerful emotional responses can help us move out of overwhelm to discover untapped sources of creativity, courage and power, says Macy.

Let us start to listen to the voices of all beings. Let us listen to the voices of our ancestors, who lived embedded in the web of life; they are speaking to us now and we are hearing them. If we were to listen to the voices of our children seven generations ahead, what choices would they want us to make now?Joanna Macy calls her approach the Work that Reconnects. That for me sums up the Transition Towns work and the emotional place I live in order to remain sane and effective during this extraordinary Great Turning.

For more information about a weekend in Sussex woodlands exploring the Work that Reconnects please see www.changingworlds.info/courses