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Peak Oil - The Challenge, The Opportunity - July 3, 2009

with the availability of viable oil thought to peak before 2012 we need to act - now!....

Had Enough Of Bad News? Being Positive Could Be The Answer - June 27, 2009

positive psychology can drastically improve your life!....

First E-see Meeting Was Brilliant - June 27, 2009

so much energy and passion....

Peak Oil - The Challenge, The Opportunity
July 03 2009

 We all know about climate change and how we need to reduce our carbon output, but how many of us understand peak oil? This doesnt mean that oil will run out - it will always be there. Peak oil is when we reach the point that it becomes too expensive to extract the oil. When we use more energy to get it than it gives us. In other words, when there is no profit any more.

It is predicted that peak oil will be reached by 2012 (what an Olympics!!) and so we need to start thinking how this will affect us. Obviously if we continue in the same way life would be a disaster, and so we need to change our mindset – and soon!!

The good news is that this change could actually be beneficial to local communities

How can that be? I hear you ask!!

As a research scientist, I have been doing my own research and the findings are quite surprising!

Did you know that 90% of businesses in the UK employ less than five people, 70% do not employ anyone and of those, a third work from home (courtesy Jeanne Booth). But when the Government wants to determine how well businesses are doing, guess which ones they look at? For those that guessed the smallest percentage (10%) you were correct. Why is this? It is because the only figures that are considered to be of any use in determining growth wellbeing and benefit to communities are turnover and numbers of new employees per company over a period of time.

Although, at first glance, this may to sound ok to many of us (more jobs in an area for example) the reverse is actually true. Consider how many new jobs would be created if more small businesses were given the funding that large companies may receive. Five new businesses started in a community, employing four staff each – twenty. Do you get that many jobs created at a large supermarket?

In addition, research from America shows that the money received by those large companies (that are often chains) does not benefit the community as much as smaller local businesses. The revenue is not ploughed back into the community but is used to grow and develop elsewhere!!

Look at the following studies (for full versions see this link to the Balle website)

Chicago. October 2004, by Civil Economics
• Every $100 spent with a local firm leaves $68 in the Chicago economy; $100 spent at a chain store leaves $43 in Chicago.
• For every square foot occupied by a local firm, the local economic impact is $179, versus $105 for a chain store. 

How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Never-Ending Growth, May 2004, by Good Jobs First
• Wal-Mart has received in excess of $1 billion in economic development subsidies from state and local governments across the country. Taxpayers have helped finance not only Wal-Mart stores but also the company’s huge network of distribution centers, more than 90 percent of which got subsidies.

County-wide poverty.
• After taking other factors that influence poverty rates into account, the study found that U.S. counties that had more Wal-Mart stores in 1987 had a higher poverty rate in 1999 than counties that started the period with fewer or no Wal-Mart stores.

So, local communities are being given advice on how well their community is doing based on skewed statistics (only using turnover, only using numbers of employees and only using 10% of businesses!!) and even these may, in some cases, be detrimental to that community on many levels. 

Local shops, buying local produce, supporting local communities, providing a hub, providing a place that is accessible to all (by foot or local bus) may be the way we used to do things, and it may have been bulldozed by big stores and supermarket chains, but peak oil may result in  a revival. Indeed, local food production and supporting your local farmers market or companies buying from a local market gardener may not just be a nice thing to do, or good for food miles, or even taste better – with peak oil, it may be a necessity, and this applies to other businesses too, not just food.

So, to link climate change, reduction in carbon output and peak oil, you could say the following:

■Climate change makes carbon reduction essential
■Peak oil makes it inevitable
■Transition to ‘buying and producing locally’ seems to make it possible, viable and attractive

So how can our community respond to these challenges and opportunities?

There is a very real way that we can all lead this change!!

The Sustainable Communities Act (Local works) became law in October 2007. Local communities and their local authorities (including county councils) can now reverse community decline and promote local sustainability.

Government has a duty to ‘reach agreement’ with councils and their representatives regarding these proposals so the Act has real teeth.

How the Act works and how you can use it

1. Central government must invite local authorities (including county councils) to submit proposals for new government action. This happened on 14th October 2008 and the deadline for proposals in the Act’s first round is 31st July 2009, so you need to insist that your council responds to this invitation and submit proposals to central government as invited. It is not compulsory for councils to do this and so it is vital that local people lobby their councillors to do so.

2. When your council has decided to use the Act they must set up a panel of local representatives. These panels take ideas from residents and put them to the council. Find out from your council exactly how you can put a proposal forward. You could even put yourself forward to be on the representative panels if you wish.

3. Build your case and seek support from other local organisations, groups and individuals.

4. Present your proposal to the panel of representatives and seek its formal support.

5. Remind the council that there is a duty on it to ‘reach agreement’ with the panel, not just consult it.

6. Insist that the panel push your idea strongly so that it becomes a proposal that the council will then make to government.

7. If you can, liaise with other groups – if many councils propose the same plan it may hold more weight

8. If you don’t get the required action first time round, you can still try to get it included in the next round.



How can we make it work for our community?

You could suggest a proposal (to your local councillor) for the Government to:

• Require councils to encourage and protect street markets and farmers’ markets

• Give councils the power to limit the number of fast food shops or prevent this food being sold close to schools

• Develop a local products strategy to increase production of, and markets for, locally produced foods

• Require Regional Development Agencies to fund regional food hubs, where local farmers can send their produce for distribution to local stores

• Allow councils to promote initiatives in schools, for example:
- Subsidise and encourage after school cookery clubs
- Use food grown on site
- Improve the nutritional standard of school meals
- Provide better pay and training for school dinner ladies and provide fully equipped kitchens

• Encourage the use of allotments:
- Initiatives and funding to increase capacity and preservation of allotments
- Law stating that a new allotment site has to replace a closed one, at same size
- Give start up fund to local communities/council for allotments
- Alter planning rules and encourage use of derelict/unused land for allotments

• Allow councils to charge for out-of-town supermarket parking (and parking for other retail outlets here) and use the money to fund local shops or food producers, possibly allowing a reduction if the supermarket/store sources some of its produce locally

• Enforce the Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative (which encourages the public sector to procure food locally) in your area

• Insist that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) provide grants for rural enterprise, local organic food and community groups to promote local food initiatives

• Require the council to plan where healthy food shops go. Include community gardens in local parks and make sure that fresh food is available within walking distance, accessible for everyone

• Fund and encourage Primary Care Trusts to map healthy shops and provide them with funding for security measures, lighting and stock

• Introduce measures to reduce food miles

LOBBY YOUR COUNCILLOR TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Information courtesy of Local Works. For more information on local initiatives visit the Local Works website