Peak and transition

With rising oil prices hitting home across Australia, I completed another Earth Matters radio show on Australian responses to peak oil. You can download the MP3 here and subscribe to the podcast here (host was experiencing website issues at the time of publishing, hopefully resolved soon)

Together with climate change and financial crisis, the phenomena of peak oil is one of many factors causing strains across the globe. It’s linked to everything from food riots in Africa to increased living costs in Australia’s mortgage belt.

Many analysts argue the recent escalation in oil prices is evidence we are close to a peak in global oil production which would bring the world into an unprecedented era of declining energy availability. In a society where everying from transport, food and consumer goods needs a steady flow of sweet black crude, the consequences are likely to be enormous.

Many people have Mad Max type visions when thinking about peak oil. But on today’s show we will explore some proactive responses at the government and local level. In fact, some of the strategies for dealing with peak oil and climate change lead to beneficial social and environmental outcomes.

Earth Matters first discusses the Queensland Government’s 2007 McNamara report, which was Australia’s first high level acknowledgement of the peak oil problem. The report calls for a “war-time mentality” to address the issue.

Elliot Fishman from the Institute for Sensible Transport warns of major vulnerabilities in Australia’s car-based social and physical infrastructure and raises policy alternatives being adopted around the world.

We then hear from Sonya Wallace, coordinator of the Sunshine Coast Transition Region which has joined the growing global “Transition Movement”. Sonya talks about creative and empowering strategies for developing community resilience in response to peak oil and climate change.

More information on the transition movement is available from http://transitionculture.org

Read an analysis of the McNamara report by Stuart McCarthy.

Quandongs for breakfast

This week I attended a fantastic community forum called Think Global: Eat Local in Byron Bay.

After a screening of the film Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, there was a panel discussion featuring Cuban permaculturist Roberto Perez, Robert Pekin from Brisbane-based CSA Food Connect and Russ Greyson from the Australian Community Gardens Network.

It was all very stimulating and exciting for people like me interested in the relocalisation movement.

But it was when the panel opened for questions from the floor that the evening climaxed.

An empassioned woman grabbed the mic with gusto and started to talk about the importance of growing your own food locally.

She talked from her own experience about how she’d planted hundreds of fruit trees in the rental houses she’d lived in over a twenty year period in the area.

“Living in a rented house and think you can’t plant trees? No excuse,” she said.

When she heard that the Government was handing out fines for people planting unregistered banana trees she started planting more and more banana trees than ever before.

On one occasion kids snuck into her front garden to secretly take bananas from a tree she had planted.

When she suddenly arrived back home, the startled youngsters started to apologise profusely for ’stealing’ her fruit.

She said to them, “don’t apologise, I planted it for everyone to enjoy”.

But the clincher was a story about something that had happened to her at the Woodford Folk Festival.

Part of the ticket price for the festival was directed to planting native trees to offset the festival’s environmental impact (and presumably to create a nice glowing feeling for participants).

But the woman said she didn’t want a native tree planted from her money. She wanted a fruit tree.

The guy said it was not possible.

An argument ensued but the festival representative was adament that only native non-food-growing species would be planted.

The woman drove her point home with a classic comment that really challenges us to think about whether planting natives really is the best strategy for reducing our environmental impact and improving the amenity of our public places.

“What did you have for breakfast?” she asked the young man, “Quandongs?!”

For those that don’t know a quandong is an Australian bushfood.

Quandongs have amazing nutritional properties and are being developed for commercial production.

But quandongs, like many bushfoods, are still not a core part of mainstream Australian diet. And you wouldn’t live for very long subsisting on them, even if you could afford going price of ninety dollars a kilo.

So until we have a nourishing and abundant bushfood cuisine, I wholeheartedly agree that we should be planting fruit trees and other edibles in our public place.

In the face of real food security threats from peak oil and climate change, planting fruit trees is a great strategy.

In confining food production in remote rural areas we become alienated from how our food is grown and depend on fossil fuel-based agriculture with its ineffecient transportation model.

This makes it easier for farmers stick with industrial farming and its toxic chemical dependency issues.

Bring the food home I say.

Quandongs anyone? You can get them here.