January 2010 was the coldest in Dublin for 45 years. The snow brought transport, pedestrians and businesses to a halt, the threat of low gas supplies and then water shortages with the thaw – one snap of bad weather and we are all reminded of how reliant we are on our infrastructure systems and networks to live our lives in comfort and how vulnerable we are when they break down.
For me, this past month brought into sharp focus everything I’d learned whilst participating in the ‘Community Powerdown’ course run by the Cultivate Centre in Dublin, last year – an exploration of the challenges we all face as the supply of carbon-based fuels like oil and gas run out.
From 'Energy & Power' - a 1971 oil use projection
The phenomenon is known as ‘Peak Oil’, coined by M. King Hubbert in the 1950′s as he investigated the rate of oil production over time – the bell-shaped graph above is a typical projection of how oil production will fall off sharply, as resources become exhausted. Since Hubbert’s time, world population has grown; technology is more advanced and prevalent and, as a result, our energy demands have more than doubled.
Schools of thought vary on the timing of Peak Oil but whether it is in our near future or our near past, we have reached a turning point where the resources we are reliant upon for our current way of life will steadily become more scarce:
- more difficult to access,
- more likely to cause friction and aggression as competition to find and control dwindling resources increases and, of course,
- more expensive as supply drops and demand increases.
To put this into perspective – in 2008, 80-90% of total worldwide energy consumption came from burning fossil fuels.
As part of the ‘Community Powerdown’ workshops, each week a dozen of us, from different age groups, backgrounds, interests and awareness of environmental issues sat down to look at how Peak Oil would affect us and what measures we could put in place to make our lives more resilient to this kind of change.
Reading this, you may think changing your heating to something more sustainable like wind power, a couple of solar panels or a wood-chip boiler, in the future, will take care of the problem – as I did before I embarked on the course – but the impact of Peak Oil goes far beyond the question of how we heat our homes.
'Leavin' on a jet plane... don't know if I'll be back again'
Without oil, how do we travel? Cars, buses, motorbikes, mopeds, trains and planes all rely on carbon-fuels and the impetus isn’t there to develop alternatives whilst these fuels are perceived to be in plentiful supply.
Who made your lunch today?
What will we eat? It takes ploughs, tractors, sowers, reapers to tend the land in this time of large scale industrial farming. Ingredients have to be transported to factories, which have to be heated and whose machines have to be powered and whose products then have to be transported around the country and the world.
One of the facts I found most startling is that our current food chain is only 3 meals deep – if anything were to disrupt the flow of supply and demand, we have only enough food to last 3 days before serious problems occur. Think about the lorry drivers strike in the UK a few years back or the snow we’ve just experienced – this is how easy it is to disrupt the systems we rely on.
'Life in the fast lane...'
Where and how will we work? In their book, ‘Microtrends – Surprising Tales of the Way we Live Today’, Mark J. Penn & E. Kinney Zalsne identify not one but two trends around the commuter lifestyle – Commuter Couples whose jobs dictate almost separate lives and who are reliant on travel just to spend time together and Extreme Commuters who travel at least 90 minutes each way daily to get to work. There’s even a Mega-Commuter trend, especially in Europe, where people are reliant on flying to and from work.
Without cheap independent transport, the long-distance work commute, a reality for many in Ireland who could not afford to buy boom-time housing in locations where they worked, becomes completely unsustainable.
'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo...'
Where and how do we live? The construction industry is one of the largest contributors to carbon dioxide emissions in the world and that’s before we move into our homes and face the challenges of heating, lighting, powering TVs, DVDs, X-Boxes, computers, printers, washing machines, dryers, fridges, cookers, dishwashers etc.
Here today, gone tomorrow?
What kind of communities will we have to create? These are huge problems and whilst each of us can change our behaviour as individuals, there is also a need for us to come together and agree changes that will work at a larger scale – sharing of resources, reduction of waste, sustainable living systems.
At a time when we prize our independence so highly, these are frightening prospects. But it is much more frightening to have change thrust upon us than to look ahead, anticipate a new set of circumstances and start planning for it ourselves.
If you’re interested in learning about these issues, Cultivate are running the course again as ‘Community Resilience – 10 Active Learning Lessons’, on Tuesday evenings from 16th February to 27th April at the Greenhouse, 17 St Andrew’s Street. To book or find out more, contact Cultivate at 01 674 5773 or on the web-site – it costs €180.00 for 10 weeks and there are 2 free places available to those who are passionate about or active in sustainability or resilience development.
In the past 2 years, we’ve seen all too clearly what comes of short-term thinking – there is always a price to pay. Our current thoughts and actions create the world we live in tomorrow – so take a moment and ask yourself, what kind of future am I making today?
If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in:
The DIY Energy Efficient Home
Dublin Open House: A-Rated House by FKL Architects
Is Your Home BER Ready?
Do you have any any pet peeves about housing or home design? Please leave a comment with your thoughts on this subject or any other home improvement or design issues you’d like to read more about.
Readers Comments: