You are now entering an oil-free zone

Close your eyes and imagine your life without oil. Impossible? Well, according to the people behind the emergence of so-called “transition towns”, it may not be too far away. The first town in the UK to embrace a future without the black stuff was Totnes in Devon in September 2006 and since then others, including Falmouth and Stroud, have joined it. However, it is not just traditional rural towns that are keen to embrace this do-it-yourself movement. Forest Row in Sussex has become the first transition village and Bristol and London’s Brixton district are taking the idea to cities.


It was all started by permaculture guru Rob Hopkins and is based around community projects that prepare for life after oil. The message is that we are on the threshold of “peak oil”, the year when oil extraction peaks, after which we will all have to manage with an oil ration that will drop by 3% every year. The cumulative impact of this is a 50% reduction in oil by 2030. Given that it is estimated the world currently consumes 84m barrels of oil a day and that the International Energy Agency predicts this will rise to 116m barrels by 2030, you can see that the numbers don’t add up. “We rely on oil so much, it is obvious that life will have to change dramatically when it starts to run out,” says Hopkins.

And for all those who think that by the time the oil dries up we will have developed new sources of energy, Hopkins and the transition townies believe that there isn’t time to wait and find out. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil says that of the 65 largest oil-producing countries, 54 have passed their peak of production. It is estimated there are only around 1 trillion barrels of oil left and the world currently consumes around 29bn of those a year.

The Guardian