Past the Peak: How a small town plans to beat the coming crisis

Since at least the 1970s, the promise of a simpler life has lured a large number of Bay Area hippies, alternative types and other societal dropouts to the woods of Mendocino and Humboldt counties in what came to be known as the “back to the land” movement. These so-called ecotopians, many of whom are still around today, sought to escape what they saw as the pollution, corruption and dehumanization of modern urban life. Here in Willits, they battened down the hatches and waited for the end of the world.

It took a little while, but it appears that the end of the world has finally caught up to them.

A boyish 37-year-old with a Ph.D. in biology, Dr. Jason Bradford only relocated to Willits from Davis with his wife, Kristin, a medical doctor, and their two children last August. Initially interested in energy issues while studying climate change in the Andes several years ago, Bradford didn’t really know what he was getting into when he decided to sponsor several screenings of The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream just two months after arriving in town. Hosting a film that proclaims human civilization is going to run out of oil and is therefore doomed doesn’t usually guarantee a visit from the welcome wagon. But then again, Willits isn’t most towns. Bradford’s initial invitation to view the film has blossomed into a popular movement that aims to, in the words of one member, “reinvent the town.”

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