New Book on Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change
The leader of an Ohio non-profit organization has authored a new book calling on all of us to return to community life and use far less energy as the human race braces for climate change and the peak and permanent decline of world oil production. Pat Murphy, executive director of Community Solutions in Yellow Springs, Ohio criticizes continuous economic growth triumphing over all and points to living in small, local communities as a way to make better use of energy and heal the planet.
Murphy presents four possible plans to respond to the threats of peak oil and global warming. Plan A is to do nothing by maintaining the status quo. Plan B is to use green technologies with the idea of sustaining today's consumptive lifestyles. Plan D means we are doomed as we have waited too long and it's everyone for themselves. And then there is Murphy's plan, Plan C, which stands for curtailment and community.
This is how Murphy explains curtailment: ". . . buying less, using less, wanting less, and wasting less. To curtail means to cut back or to downsize. Curtail reflects the seriousness of the current situation more than the politically acceptable word conserve. Conservation can imply a relatively small reduction in consumption: recycling, buying compact fluorescent lights or maybe a hybrid car. If conservation were used as a synonym for curtailment, it would be appropriate to preface conservation with some modifier such as radical, extreme, deep or rapid. Plan C people are conservers rather than consumers but they view current conservation efforts as insufficient. This plan implies permanent societal change . . ."
Murphy understands that most of us don't want to hear that, and he spends the next 100 pages demonstrating why he feels change has to be radical and deep, and the last 50 pages showing how it might be done. Here is just a short section on how he feels curtailment would work: "If we were to curtail to Europe's standard—a 50 percent cut in energy consumption—our cars would get 42 mpg instead of the American average of 21 mpg. Our average house size would be 1,000 square feet rather than 2,400. Instead of mostly single family homes, many houses would be multi-family—much more common in the rest of the world and a style that uses much fewer resources both in construction and operation."
But even this, Murphy agrees, is not enough. This scenario might represent the initial stages of curtailment. Several pages later he goes a little further and in this section demonstrates his holistic approach to these problems, looking at how one change can affect so many other areas: "For example, suppose every car owner immediately purchased the most energy efficient car possible—a 50 mpg vehicle—replacing his or her 22 mpg car. If we were to combine these purchases with lowering the speed limit to 45 mph (which would provide a further 25 percent improvement in fuel economy), per capita gas consumption in the U.S. could drop from 15.4 (barrel equivalents of oil per capita) to 4-5. A 50 mpg car would be half the size of a large car, so the energy expended in its manufacture would be reduced. This reduction would curtail the energy used to mine and smelt iron ore for steel. Driving more slowly would extend the life of highways. Better highway conditions would reduce government energy expenditures for road maintenance."
Murphy writes as if he were preaching to a group of already-in-the-choir students who need further ammunition to see how poorly Americans are prepared for—or are even interested in—moving towards a Plan C. And he tries to tell too many stories at the same time. While the charts and graphs are wonderful, too often the writing is not helpful. Treat this as a resource book.
For more information on Plan C or to purchase the book, visit www.communitysolution.org/plancbook.html.