Towards a leaner future

Introduction: Depending on how we react to the threats of climate change and peak oil, we are on the brink of either a disaster…

Introduction:Depending on how we react to the threats of climate change and peak oil, we are on the brink of either a disaster or an adventure. So we can choose to go over the edge screaming or we can get educated, get prepared and do this thing together, writes Jane Powers

In times of crisis I attempt to comfort myself that my worries are written so minuscule on the face of the earth that they are meaningless. I'm just like a tiny ant in a field, making no difference at all to the big scheme of things. This insignificant-ant-person idea is certainly a consolation, and is a fine device for getting past life's sticky patches, but it doesn't take into account our capabilities as human beings. As humans we have built civilisations beyond the wildest insect dreams, by harnessing the earth's resources to the twin engines of science and technology. For the past century those engines have been driven mainly by fossil fuels, and for the past 50 years almost exclusively by oil. Our hydrocarbon-powered journey has raised us higher than we would ever have expected. The introduction to the 1969 Whole Earth Catalog - an educational and inspirational guide for environmentalists, hippies and proponents of sustainability - noted: "We are as gods and might as well get good at it."

Thirty-eight years after those words were written, it is a moot point as to whether we ever got good at it. Oil's near-magical energy has allowed us to produce more food than we ever would have thought possible, and (in the time since the publication of that issue of the Whole Earth Catalog) to almost double the population of the world. It has given us mobility: 95 per cent of transport is powered by oil, propelling us to the farthest corners of the earth - and to the supermarket that is just a little too distant to be reached on foot. It brought us the products on that supermarket's shelves, from hundreds or thousands of miles away. It fuels industry, and runs and heats (or cools) our homes, our hospitals, our schools, our places of work. Oil - so cheap, so convenient, so powerful - has driven our lives for the past few decades. From one point of view we are indeed as gods, living in a golden era.

All eras have to come to an end, and our age of oil is no exception. We may be in our glory days now, but peak oil - the point at which we have less oil left in the ground than the amount that we have already taken out - is either here already or will be upon us within the next couple of years. (The experts, who include erstwhile oil executives among their numbers, give different predictions, but all are near enough to put a stop to our gallop pretty soon - or at least to have some of us thinking about reining in.)

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Peak oil doesn't mean that the stuff will run out in the near future, but, because we've already consumed all the easy-to-get-at stocks, it means that the second half of this resource will be harder and harder to extract and thus more and more expensive. At a certain point it's better, both environmentally and economically, to just leave it in the ground.

That's the oil situation, and it will take all our wit, inventiveness and intelligence to ensure that our descent down the far side of the peak is a smooth one rather than a painful crash.

We have another urgent motive to stop squandering oil: climate change. We all now know that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are emitted when we burn fossil fuels, causing the average global temperature to rise: we've seen an increase of 0.6 degrees in the past century. And while we in the comparatively chilly north of the planet may welcome the idea of growing grapes and figs outside, the effects in the south are already calamitous. Floods, erosion, desertification and crop failure threaten the existence of our fellow human beings.

The poorer nations in Africa and Asia are now bearing the brunt of our love affair with oil combustion. And it's only a matter of time before the adverse effects here will be apparent to even the thickest of sceptics. It's no coincidence that our summers are drier, that our winters are wetter and that floods are more common. Just imagine this: add another degree or two to our newly balmy temperatures and rain forests will die, sea levels will rise disastrously (thanks to melting polar caps and glaciers) and millions of people will be displaced all over the world. Surely that is enough to drown out the denials?

Or maybe it's not. Climate change and peak oil may be rumbling relentlessly towards us like a pair of runaway buses, but we can't actually see them, so it's easy to pretend that they're not there. We have to make a leap of faith. As George Monbiot compellingly writes on climate change on pages 16 and 17 of this issue, we have to realise that all the figures and graphs and projections that are generated by scientists actually pertain to our ecosystem. The ecosystem: that's planet earth, the place we live, my home and yours, and of all our children. If an out-of-control bus were crashing through our walls we'd grab our kids and run like hell - or, if it were too late for that, stand in front of the bus ourselves, to protect the next generation. But there is no bus; it's just a metaphor for a catastrophe waiting to happen. So instead we strap the children into the car and drive them the kilometre to school.

No one wants to change, and, even more so, no one wants to change first. We all know the argument: "Why should I stop driving the kids to school - or stop taking weekends in Paris or Prague, or start turning down the thermostat - when your man across the road drives a four-litre Range Rover and flies to Dubai or Cape Town or New York at the drop of a hat?"

Here's one answer: because those climate-change and peak-oil graphs give us undeniable evidence that we have to. And here's another: because it's less painful and less stressful to make changes voluntarily now rather than desperately and resentfully later. And here's a third: because it's better to do it while we still have some relatively cheap and accessible oil.

With this oil we can fabricate the framework for a leaner future. In the coming era we will have to lead our lives in a more efficient and sustainable way. We will need to make modifications to our transport networks, to our houses and buildings, to our electricity generating systems, to our industries, to almost every imaginable sector. We need to spend the oil of today wisely, in order to secure our tomorrows.

Different voices say that we must cut our carbon-dioxide emissions by varying amounts in order to avoid a calamity. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change suggests a 25 per cent cut by 2050, with an ultimate figure of about 80 per cent, while Monbiot, in his book Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning, suggests a 90 per cent cut by 2030.

The figures are academic to a lay person, but they indicate the same thing: it is time to power down. Some of our needs are already being met by renewable energies, such as solar, wind and water power, and by geothermal pumps, which tap into the relatively steady temperature just under the earth's crust - providing heating in winter and cooling in summer. Yet none of these have the potency of oil. Biofuels - either in the form of biomass (solids such as woodchip and miscanthus) or as liquid ethanol or biodiesel - will, in the future, power more of our transport, heating and electricity generators. But such crops need fuel for processing, and, more importantly, their cultivation could occupy valuable space required for growing food. Nuclear power is sometimes suggested as a solution to our coming energy deficit, but I'm not alone in never wanting to see a nuclear power station in Ireland, for many, many reasons.

Which brings us again to the inescapable conclusion that we have to cut our energy use dramatically. We already know the obvious: turn off the lights; turn down the heating; insulate our houses; walk, cycle or take public transport instead of driving; fly less; recycle and reuse; compost our waste. These are no-brainers, and many of us have already incorporated them into our lives. Yet these energy-conservation measures will not, on their own, ensure a bearable and sustainable future. Depending on how we react now, we are on the brink of either a disaster or an adventure. We can choose to go over the edge screaming and clinging to every single comfort and meaningless luxury we've grown used to in the past couple of decades or we can gird our loins, make plans, get educated, get prepared and do this thing together.

I know, I'm a little embarrassed by the rallying cry too, but having a common purpose makes this project 100 times easier - or, if everybody felt the same on this island, about six million times easier.

The internet is available now in almost every house, and contains a lifesaving treasury of information on how we might move into a slimmer and more oil-free future. The Post Carbon Institute (www.postcarbon.org), the Community Solution (www.communitysolution.org) and the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability (www.feasta.org) are just three starting points. The last of these was co-founded by Richard Douthwaite, who writes about energy and the economy on pages 30 and 31 of this issue.

Our lives and the lives of future generations depend on our learning about climate change and peak oil now, on our taking action now, on our lobbying our politicians now. Our future depends on our becoming more self-sufficient and learning to grow our food and repair our belongings. It depends on our valuing the possessions we have and not hankering after every little thing that we haven't. It depends on changing our mindset from a selfish one to one where we work together to save this planet and its resources - Mother Earth, who gives us everything we have.

The way to achieve much of this is right in front of our noses - and outside our doors. The more we can meet our needs within the immediate vicinity, the less resources we use, and the less waste and emissions we create. Buy local products, eat local food, do local things: that is, build a community.

We are facing the most serious crisis in our lives: one where we can, to go back to the beginning of this article, in fact, learn from the ants. One ant on its own is of little consequence and has little future. But when that ant joins with thousands and millions of others it helps to build interlinked, harmonious and long-lasting colonies.