We held an ‘internal conference’ recently on the theme of climate change. These internal conferences give us an opportunity to meet together for three or four days a couple of times a year to consider matters of importance that face us.
During this most recent conference, it felt like the scale and urgency of the climate change crisis really landed within the community. In particular, a film of George Monbiot’s Schumacher Lecture based around his book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet Boiling, had an electrifying effect. True to the spirit of this place, the predominant mood was one of excitement at the scale of the challenge rather than depression. 
Anyway, I was asked to give a presentation on the likely impacts of climate change for the work and operating methods of the community. I began by describing the various ways in which we as a society have developed structures – for the provision of food, clothing, building materials, in fact just about anything you can think of – that are entirely dependent on the availability of cheap energy. Fine, except that the age of cheap energy is ending before our eyes, caught between the rock of climate change and hard place of Peak Oil.
Then, keeping a straight face with some effort, I provided a stern introduction to the images I proposed to show to illustrate the world that I suggested we are about to move into. “Scramble for the remaining oil… resource wars… starvation… armed gangs purloining food at the barrel of a gun…”
Some of the images I would show, I suggested, were so disturbing that those of a nervous disposition might choose to avert their eyes. But I defiantly declared myself unapologetic about being the bearer of truths that might be hard to hear.
What followed was a slide-show of happy people working and playing together in community. “We will have no choice but to learn to live without chemically produced food shipped in from the other side of the world” – images of people working in our food gardens. “No more processed, ready-made meals” – pictures of community members happily working in our kitchens. “No more coal-fired power stations” – shots of our wind turbines and solar panels.
“I am sorry, but we are going to have to learn to survive without traffic jams” – photos of folk cycling and working in the myriad small-scale enterprises we have around the community. “No more pouring our shit out into the sea” – an image of our Living Machine biological waste treatment plant. “No more lonely nights in front of the television!” – shots of people here singing, dancing and creating theatre.
The talk had its desired effect as we opened to the possibility that a lower carbon lifestyle might just have its upsides.
Does this mean that the transition before us will be pain-free? Of course not. The point is that it is still very much within our hands whether that transition will be seeped in blood and suffering or will involve the restructuring of society along simpler, more decentralised, equitable and convivial lines.
There are now countless community initiatives around the country that are preparing themselves for life post-cheap energy. I am part of a team putting on an international conference to be held here next Easter that will showcase many of these. It is called: Positive Energy: Creative Community Responses to Peak Oil and Climate Change.
One of the presenters at that conference, Richard Heinberg, has this to say about the times that lie before us:
“Let us accept the current challenge – the next great energy transition – as an opportunity to re-imagine human culture from the ground up, using our intelligence and our passion for the welfare of coming generations and for the integrity of nature’s web as our primary guides.”
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