LIfe without oil:Kinsale, in Co Cork, has been working out how it will cope when oil starts to run out, writes Emma Cullinan
I travelled home on the train with my head spinning and thinking that everyone should see this film," Graham Strouts says about watching The End of Suburbia. The documentary, which he saw at the Cultivate Sustainable Living and Learning Centre in Dublin looks at US dependency on oil and asks what will happen when the fossil fuel starts to run out, after its supply has peaked.
Strouts, who co-ordinates a course in "practical sustainability" at Kinsale Further Education College, in Co Cork, discussed the film with his colleague Rob Hopkins, the course's founder; Hopkins then asked some of his students to put together an "energy descent" plan for Kinsale, to map out how the town could gradually reduce its reliance on liquid gold. "We know that oil will peak soon," says Strouts, "and perhaps already has, which means we'll have to decide how we will live with less, or no, oil. It will take at least 10 years to prepare for that moment."
Kinsale's plan, which looks at how the town could become a low-energy community by 2021, is divided into areas such as health, food, energy, tourism, education and house-building. Its main aim is to localise products and services. "Peak oil will mean the end of globalisation," says Strouts. "Imported food is dependent on oil for travel, packaging and processing." And, as the plan explains: "We export butter and we import butter. We remove our native orchards and buy apples from the cheapest seller, wherever that may be around the world."
Kinsale's plan envisages that the town will produce much of its own food by 2021. School children will be taught how to grow food and, in woodwork classes, build casings for solar panels and wind turbines. The town will exploit developers' keenness to build housing in the town by laying down rules about how this can be done sustainably. People will trade their skills with each other, to reduce their reliance on money. They will also be taught how to treat as many ailments as possible with natural remedies.
Strouts acknowledges that the plan will prove too radical for some, but he has been heartened by the fact that Kinsale Town Council has helped to fund some initiatives, including a scheme in which people allow their gardens to be used to teach others in the community how to garden.
"It's not about saving polar bears and whales," says Strouts. "It's about looking after local natural resources. People don't realise how dependent they are on oil - although some have said that this report has opened their eyes. People won't adopt this until they ultimately have no choice, but if it all fell apart tomorrow we wouldn't have time to grow food. It would take years, which is why we should start now."
• Kinsale's energy-descent action plan is at www.transitionculture.org/?p=129. For more about low-energy cultures, see www.sustainable.ie/ powerdown and www.willitseconomiclocalization.org