Reduce reliance on fossil fuels

What will we pay when the supply for cheap energy begins to dwindle and peak oil production starts to decline? The cost for maintaining Mad Max vehicles, heating homes, food production and distribution in a hostile environment, where a big percentage of the workforce will not have jobs because the price to live is too expensive. In a surreal landscape where ideas for movies are born, the economy will be driven by the increased cost and low supply of oil and natural gas that could turn the future of mankind into a catastrophe if something isn’t done to prevent it from happening.

TCLocal is a research effort developed by the U.S. Department of Energy, carried out by Science Applications International Corp., a Fortune 500 company that specializes in engineering and scientific analyses for the U.S. military and other government agencies. Formerly known as the Tompkins County Relocalization Project, TCLocal is comprised of a group of citizens who believe a worldwide economic crisis due to irreversible increases in the price of oil is likely to happen within the next 25 years and could be as early as 2010.

In an effort to continue the community dialogue about ways in which Tompkins County can reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, becoming more self-sufficient in the process, TCLocal is sponsoring several events in the upcoming months. Most recently, there was the screening of a new film The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, held at Ithaca College on June 22, according to Bethany Schroeder, TCLocal contributor.

“Between the Soviet Union cutting off the imports of fossil fuel along with our embargo with Cuban ports, they lost a considerable amount,” Schroeder said. “As a result, they were no longer to power their equipment or travel around the island or even fertilize their crops because fossil fuels does all of these things. Within a matter of months, using all of those techniques – perm culture and bio-intensive gardening – they were able to begin feeding their people themselves.”

Ithaca Times