NZ: When the oil runs out

James Samuel wants to see New Zealanders get off their couches, into their garden, and get some dirt under their fingernails.

Samuel is the national co-ordinator for Transition Towns, a movement pioneered in the UK in late 2006.

While Transition Towns essentially grew from the notion of permaculture an approach to designing human settlements, in particular the development of perennial agricultural systems that mimic the structure and interrelationship found in natural ecologies Samuel says its “main drivers” are peak oil and climate change.
Transition Towns is based on several key assumptions, says Samuel, who details the first one: “Life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable and it’s better to plan for it than be taken by surprise.”

“Our settlements and communities lack the resilience to enable them to weather the severe energy shocks that will accompany peak oil.”

Transition Towns aims to equip communities with the tools to prepare for life with an environment affected by climate change, and without cheap energy sources, particularly oil. Many oil industry experts believe the world’s oil production has peaked already, and that prices will continually increase as supplies diminish and eventually dry up the “peak oil” theory. It is gaining publicity worldwide as crude oil prices push above the $US100 a barrel mark. It has been the subject of the award-winning documentary film Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash and the equally compelling The End Of Suburbia.

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