Transition Town members in action at the Moera Community Garden Transition Towns Lower Hutt branch launching a learning and planning centre in Alicetown, and want the space to be a mine of information about how to thrive in a world without abundant, cheap oil.
By Jamie Melbourne-Hayward
Local Transition Town organiser Natalie Hormann says the centre will house displays, and a resource library, because ?we need to organise locally now?. ?One of the first indicators of peak oil is massive fluctuations in prices, which we are seeing now. ?There won?t be direct results from the crisis straight away, but all the predictions point the same way, that oil will go back up. ?Imagine what will do to an already slow economy,? she says. The Transition Towns model provides a framework for communities to adapt and decide its own priorities and responses to the global energy crisis.? ?It?s quite funny, because Peak Oil may be the best thing to combat climate change. ?It will force people to look at other ways of living, and we need to get into gear now to make changes,? says Mrs Hormann. One of the movement?s core values is the adoption of lower energy lifestyles, and focusing on how people can make changes themselves. Learning about Peak Oil ?turned the tide? for Mrs Hormann, as climate change is now taken for granted in the mainstream. ?Peak Oil means the systems we have now will not hold up for much longer, it will not happen everywhere at the same time, but it will happen. ?The Swine flu is like this, same as an earthquake or flooding, it?s good to be prepared for future hiccups,? she says. One aspect of her planning concern is around supply, an issue highlighted by the empty supermarket shelves after a three day truck driver strike in Australia. ?It took three days for their supermarkets to be emptied.? ?New Zealand doesn?t have the infrastructure to deal with a loss of cheap oil,? she says. Speaking in broad strokes she says change needs to occur through all section of society, not from above or below. ?At the Copenhagen conference to reduce carbon emissions by 40 per cent before 2020, and they are well intentioned, but what they are saying is you have to wait for the government to change our ways of living. ?These things need to happen in parallel, from the grassroots and at the council levels. ?Why wait for the regulations?? she says. The movement is currently setting up a trust to help fund their schemes, which will work to invest locally, and invite the community to attend a talk on 7 July at the Alicetown Community Centre, 8-9.30pm, 38 Victoria St. Info box: Transition Towns upcoming meeting Technology alone will not solve all our problems ? but effective solutions will include some interesting technology. Evan Rayner will be talking about some of the new technologies that will help us in a lower energy future. Mr Rayner is group manager of Emerging Products at Black Diamond Technologies Ltd a Lower Hutt based, NZ owned company specialising in energy efficient appliances. Their mission is to reduce energy consumption and emissions.
