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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!!
Lobby your local Councillor and ask them to reverse community decline by putting forward proposals to government before 31 July with the new Sustainable Communities Act
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