Ashland, Oregon Presentation – Peak Oil: Crisis or Opportunity?

Ashland, Oregon

June 30, 2006

Introduction

Thank you, Mike for that introduction. It is an honor to follow in your footsteps, both literally this evening as well as in the peak oil awareness movement. Yet I keep in mind the saying “seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the wise, but seek what they sought.” What Mike seeks, I know, is the truth. And that is my quest as well.

People often talk about the “peak oil tribe,” which seems a fitting name. If we really are a tribe, then Mike is one of the warriors. As he well knows, the path of a warrior is difficult, for a warrior often faces death, in its many manifestations. Thank you Mike, for your courage in taking on this work. It is certainly an inspiration to me.

Hopi Quote

In that vein, I’d like to start this evening by sharing the wisdom of the Hopi elders:

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.

Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.

And there are things to be considered:

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships? Are you in right relation?

Where is your water? Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community. Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast.

It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.

They will try to hold on to the shore.

They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river

Keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.

See who is in there with you

And celebrate.

At this time in history we are to take nothing personally.

Least of all, ourselves.

For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!

Banish the word “struggle” from your attitude and your vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Indeed, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. At most conferences or events I attend I inevitably hear people lamenting who’s not in this room, who should be here. Instead, I ask us to be grateful for who is here tonight. Instead of “preaching to the choir” I think of it as preaching to the preachers.

There is tremendous value in coming together in events like these, and learning from each other. Tonight I will speak from my deep involvement in the peak oil movement — how peak oil has changed the way I see the world as well as my place in the world, and how I think we can all begin to prepare for the coming times. I will also share with you the tremendously valuable and relevant experiences of the Cuban people as they grappled with their own peak oil moment. I hope we all grow stronger, more committed, and more united by this event tonight, so that our work is more productive tomorrow.

Peak Oil Gift

We, all of us in this room, have been given a gift. A gift of understanding, of foresight. However we learned about peak oil, for however long it’s been with us, we all have been given the peak oil gift. It is hard sometimes to see that it is a blessing and not a curse. With the peak oil lens it’s hard to walk down the street without getting depressed, not to mention getting in a car or turning on the news. Perhaps we think about going back and taking the blue pill and returning to a life of ignorance. But then we realize that with this knowledge we’ve been given comes a great responsibility. Responsibility to ourselves, our loved ones, our community, and to future generations.

I know this responsibility can be overwhelming, but through this understanding I hope you’ve been able to glimpse a better, more fulfilling way of life. I certainly have. I have seen that money is meaningless, that a tomato I have grown is the most delicious thing I can imagine, that an open sky always beats a ceiling, the real quality of my life is not measured in mortgages and possessions, but relationships and human connections, that this absurd reality in which we live is not the pinnacle of human evolution…that we have a greater destiny to fulfill. These insights have been given to me through the peak oil gift. And I am grateful. Mike is certainly one of the people who have opened my eyes to this.

And likewise we can help other people to glimpse a more beautiful future. I hear often, “People won’t change until they’re forced to.” Well we are a powerful counter-example. Perhaps by looking at our stories we’ll be able to discover how we can best reach people. I’ve found that lecturing people, chiding them for their consumptive habits, or shoving articles in front of their faces aren’t very good strategies. Instead, I’ve found that being an example yourself, and sharing it with them, is more effective. Inviting people to participate in your transition, sharing your successes and continuing challenges, and encouraging them along on their journey.

I do understand that there are some people out there that just cannot be reached at this moment. Those people shouldn’t be our concern. At some point they will be open enough to our message, but until then, we should focus on that large group of people who feel a deepening disturbance in their lives. Who intuitively know that something’s wrong, but they do not yet know what it is or what they can do about it.

This is how we can share our gift of peak oil awareness. But at the same time it is critical that we use this gift, this head start, to prepare ourselves. The apocalypse is not just some abstract thing that will happen “out there in the world.” It is a personal apocalypse that all of us will have as well. It is not just the world or paradigm that is ending, that is dying, we are dying as well. If the centralized, materialistic, industrial, capitalistic, consumptive, competitive world is dying, then that part of us that is centralized, materialistic, competitive is dying as well. And just like I think that we shouldn’t try to “save the world,” but instead let it die, and nurture the new world being born, I don’t think we should try to save ourselves, but instead be prepared to let that part of ourselves die.

Now, we don’t know what the new paradigm will be. If we knew completely, then we would be there. If people in the Middle Ages new about the Renaissance, then it would be the Renaissance already. Most of us in this room have an intuition about the emerging paradigm and what it may look like, but still we cannot know the future. So when I think of preparation for the coming times, I ask myself: Am I prepared to give up everything that I have, everything that I am? Because we don’t know what we can bring with us into the new world, we must prepare to give it all up.

An ancient saying in China from the I Ching speaks to this, “When the Way comes to an end, then change – having changed, you pass through.”

So are we prepared to give up it all up? Are we prepared to give up electricity? If the grid went down tomorrow, what would we do? Could we give up oil? Are we prepared to give up traveling? To give up our books and movies? To give up all of our possessions? Our money, our assets? Our jobs? To give up our favorite foods? Who here’s ready to give up coffee and chocolate? Are we prepared to give up our future, the future we’ve been planning for our entire lives? Some of our friendships and relationships? Are we ready to give up the Internet?

More importantly, are we prepared to give up our ideas? Our beliefs about ‘reality’ and the way the world ‘works?’  Are we prepared to give up our theories, our definitions, our philosophies?

If we don’t prepare ourselves to give these things up, then we cannot know how we’ll react when we’ll be forced to. And because of this, we may not be able to help others. And if we can’t help others, I fear a very dark future.

Now, through these questions about personal preparation, I hope you have seen a pattern emerging. Clearly some are easier to give up than others. If I went cold turkey from chocolate, I could still survive, but without natural gas in the winter, or food in the grocery stores, I probably could not. This is where learning and practicing new skills, creating options and flexibility for yourself, changing your lifestyle, all comes in. I view preparation and training as similar, and I’m a martial artist, so training is important in my life. I think often of the saying, “We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.” When things become difficult in the coming years, what will we fall back upon?

Taking Responsibility

So I view this as taking responsibility for my life, for my sustenance. I once heard, “How you get what you need is how you are controlled.” So choose to take back control over your life. Because if we don’t choose, then choices will be made for us. The corporate and government response to peak oil is telling the American people that they don’t have to change, that they can continue consuming resources because there will be alternatives. In the meantime, we are commandeering the rest of the world’s resources and becoming more addicted to our lifestyles, and thus more under their control. So what’s really at stake here is our freedom, and ability of future generations to be free. For if we are dependent on them for our survival, we sacrifice our freedom.

So the direction I feel is needed is for each of to become more of a producer, rather than being just a consumer. This is most effective at the community level. I don’t think we should be striving for absolute individual self-sufficiency; after all, we are a communal animal. For most of our species existence, we  lived in small, mobile bands of gatherers and hunters. So this transition should be taking place in the context of small communities, whether in towns in the countryside or neighborhoods in the city. And this is the lesson that Cuba learned, and what they demonstrate so well in the film.

Cuba

Cubans faced a similar situation that we do. As we are depenedent upon the government and corporations, they were dependent on the Soviet Union for markets, food, and most importantly, their oil supply. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Cuban people didn’t hope for someone to save them, not even their own government. Instead, they took the initiative in their communities and survived, while at the same time, planned for the long term decentralization necessary.

We met many amazing people in our travels in Cuba. Nelson Aguila, an engineer turned farmer, who raises chickens, rabbits, and gerbils for the neighborhood on his rooftop. Carmen Lopez, a permaculture instructor, who teaches urban residents how to grow their own food. Miguel Salcines, who runs one of the dozens of urban farms in Havana, a city of 2.2 million people. We visited “Los Tumbos,” a solar-powered community in the rural hills, where household solar panels power radios and lamps, and larger arrays provide electricity to the school, hospital, and community room.

Throughout our travels, we saw and experienced the resourcefulness, determination, and endless optimism of the Cuban people. We often heard the mantra “Si, se puede.” Yes it can be done.

And perhaps the most powerful lesson that Cuba can teach is the lesson of Community. Amidst 16 hour daily blackouts, shortages of food, medicines, and basic materials – Cubans never stopped smiling, never stopped laughing, and never stopped celebrating.

Let me end with this thought from Margaret Mead: “Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn’t burn up any fossil fuel, doesn’t pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does dance.”

Thank you.



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Vermont Commons – The Renewed Activist

Published in Vermont Commons

As an environmental activist at the peak of industrial civilization I’ve always felt like the underdog. I’ve imagined myself as a street-protesting, petition-signing, door-to-door knocking David trying to bring down a money-wielding, corporate-clad, government-shielded Goliath.

With such long odds of victory, many environmental activists have either lowered their expectations or just burned out. We may have succeeded in convincing Goliath to paint himself green, but he still goes on destroying the planet and the collective future of humanity. And being thoroughly exhausted and frustrated at the daunting task before us, we have ended up defeating ourselves.

I’ve realized that this kind of activism really reflects the outraged, afraid, and vengeful part of all of us. The part that lashes out at evening newscasts, commiserates with friends over the state of the world, never hesitates to remind us that we’re just “preaching to the choir” and gives in frequently to the thought – “We’re all doomed.”

For my own physical and spiritual health, I am giving up this type of activism. I no longer want to “change the world” but instead nurture the new world being born. I want to create instead of fight. Most importantly, I want to do my work with joy and satisfaction.

With the peak – and permanent decline – of global oil production coming, energy prices soaring, geopolitical tensions mounting, and the planet warming, there is a lot of work to be done. It is increasingly clear that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, the fate of future generations is at stake.

Yet many of us are wasting our valuable energy on counterproductive activist pursuits. If, so the thinking goes, we can just convince the government and corporations to invest more money in solar and wind, if they can fill our cars with biofuels instead of oil, if they can just develop a hydrogen economy, then our fears of energy shortages and global warming will fade away and the problem will be solved. Our focus on reforming Goliath is akin to decorating our prison cell, and we forgo the opportunity for real change and real freedom.

Peak oil, climate change, and resource wars are not the problems, they are the symptoms. The real problem is our high-energy, over-consumptive way of life. The real tragedy is that while promising us happiness, fulfillment, and independence, this way of life leaves us stressed, empty, isolated, and addicted.

The solution, for both activists and the world, is to live in a more sustainable, cooperative, and compassionate way with our neighbors in our communities. We can replace fossil fuels with relationships in our self-reliant communities, and discover true freedom.

Not only do we become a model for others and contribute to the birth of a new culture, we get to have more fun and live a more meaningful life. We can have our garden and eat it too! And by being our vibrant, strong, and healthy selves and sharing our “produce” we can encourage others to join us. Who wants to be an overworked, edgy activist?

In my work with others I’ve found that indeed this is the best strategy. People don’t change when you shove frightening articles in front of their faces or chide them for stealing from future generations. They change when they see that there is a better way, for both themselves and for humanity.

Clearly not everybody is ready to change. We cannot reach them no matter how many press releases we issue or bumper stickers we display. Yet this should not discourage us. At some point, from a combination of internal disturbance and external pressure, such as rising energy prices, they will be open enough to see another possibility. We need to have the solution ready for them when they arrive at the awareness that they too must change.

That’s why we are not preaching to the choir, we’re preaching to the preachers. In fact, we’re creating a community of preachers that is pioneering a new culture. Our tool is a different kind of “demonstration,” one that doesn’t fight the problem but shows the solution. We are creating a social movement through example, not protest.

So David’s best strategy may be ignoring Goliath altogether. Instead, he can use his stone to lay the foundation of a decentralized, low-energy infrastructure that can actually be sustained and will, in fact, flourish into a post-peak oil era as long-distance transport and energy transmission decline.

In towns throughout Vermont and other pockets across the country and world, such demonstrations are being developed. From cooperatives and carpooling to community-supported-agriculture and permaculture, we are planting the seeds of a new way of life and declaring independence from the old as we move along a path toward sustainability.

Individuals and communities disengaging from a top-down-controlled global economic system is the most revolutionary act I can imagine. When we become producers instead of just consumers, we are taking back control over our lives and our future. When the food, water, and other resources we need to survive are supplied by ourselves and a circle of friends and neighbors in our community then we will understand freedom.

While corporations and governments tell us that we can continue to consume finite resources in ever increasing amounts because there will be alternatives, they are trying to maintain their mastery over us and the planet. When we are dependent upon them for our survival, we sacrifice our freedom. On the contrary, when we curtail, conserve, share, and make other changes we not only assure our freedom, but the ability of future generations to be free.

“Becoming the change we wish to see in the world,” that is, becoming a joyful, cooperative creator of a sustainable, self-reliant community requires an act of faith. Like jumping into a fast flowing river we must leave behind all we know, including the stubborn activist part of ourselves that wants to change the world. We must have faith that the river has its destination, even if we cannot yet envision the new world we are creating. And by confidently joining and enjoying the flow we can encourage others to take the leap as well.

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