First paragraph (Teaser):

 
Peak Oil and Permaculture explains the dynamics of the impending peak in global oil production and the implications for Australian society. Declining energy availability will spell the end of global economic growth and the consumerist culture it supports.

Rest of the text:

 
Permaculture is introduced as one of a number of related, radical cultural alternatives that can be adopted for the transition to a post-consumer world.

Peak oil: you may have heard the term a few times lately or this may be a first, but it is unlikely to be the last time you come acrossthe idea that global oil production is about to start its terminal decline. In the last two or three months this issue has left the confinesof a small but committed community of peak oil analysts and leapt into the mainstream press. Analysts are warning that peak oil willbe the defining event of this century, that it will rival climate change as the focus of sustainability, and that the world as we know itwill change beyond recognition in a very short period of time. How could an event of this magnitude have remained outsidemainstream awareness for so long?

If you think back to the first time you heard about global warming, it probably didnâ??t register all that highly on your list of impendingglobal catastrophes. But, once the concept was explained as the â??Green House Effectâ??, where increasing concentrations ofindustrial gases like CO2 turned the atmosphere into a gigantic hothouse, it probably became a little clearer. Peak oil, the dark twin ofclimate change, has no such easy metaphors, however it does require understanding a few unfamiliar concepts.

The first concept to understand is that our whole way of life is dependent on cheap, abundant hydrocarbon energy sources, mostly oiland natural gas. Not only are many of the things we take for granted made from oil and natural gas feed stocks, but more importantlyalmost everything we depend on contains high amounts of â??embodied energyâ?? sourced from these hydrocarbon fuels. Embodiedenergy is the amount of energy it takes to make something. The materials we take for granted in modern industrial economies, likeconcrete, steel, plastic, rubber and the products we make them into like cars, roads, factories and houses all take extraordinaryamounts of energy to produce, transport and operate. Thanks to fossil fuels, we are now living in an era of enormous energyavailability, embodied into historically unprecedented amounts of material wealth. This state of affairs is a recent development, butalready it has become the norm and expectation of nearly everyone in the industrialised world and the desire of increasing numbers inthe developing world.

The second thing to understand is that global oil production is about to peak and then forevermore slowly but inevitably decline.Shortly after, so will natural gas, the only other widely available energy source comparable to oil. It took the dedicated work of a smallnumber of retired oil geologists and industry analysts to expose the impending peak in global oil production. Up until they startedpublicizing their work, the conventional oil industry wisdom was that supplies could continue to grow at 2-3% per year, just like theyalways had, for many decades to come. It turns out that this conventional wisdom is getting harder and harder to justify. The peak oiladvocates are increasingly seen as being accurate and the figures coming out of organizations with vested interests in helping big oilcompanies protect their image as good investments are increasingly seen as unreliable and unlikely.

Both the US Geological Survey and the International Energy Agency have used suspect methodologies to make predictions consistentwith oil industry expectations. Highly regarded retired oil geologists like Colin Campbell of The Association for the Study of Peak Oil (

www.peakoil.net) have taken years, accessing the best data available, to painstakingly demonstrate beyond doubt that the peak in oilproduction will come much earlier than expected. It could even be happening now, and will most certainly occur within the decade. Partof the reason for the interest in peak oil lately is that financial markets are looking for reasons for the high price of oil. If its supplycan be increased, why is the price staying so high? Increasingly now the interpretation, even by large conservative financialinstitutions, major banks and Wall Street investment houses, is that global oil production is indeed reaching its peak.

What about alternative energy sources? Canâ??t we just switch over to solar or wind or even nuclear power? This is the most difficultconcept in understanding the importance of peak oil. Not all energy sources are created equal. What makes oil and gas so attractive isthat they have very high â??energy returned on energy investedâ?? or energy/profit ratios. Every energy source requires aninvestment of some energy to make it available. Oil needs to be located, drilled for, pumped, refined and delivered to the petrolstation to be a useful form of energy. All this activity takes energy. Oil has historically had a very high energy/profit ratio. Untilrecently, it took roughly 1 barrel of oilâ??s worth of energy to make over 20 barrels available at the petrol station. This is an energyprofit ratio of over 20:1. The reason for this is that oil and gas are very concentrated forms of energy. Essentially they are fossilizedsunlight in the form of dead plants, concentrated into hydrocarbons by the work of immense geological pressure and temperature overlong periods of time. The energy profit ratio of oil is now dropping sharply as the biggest and easiest deposits are being depleted. Theenergy profit, or â??net energyâ?? availability, determines the potential material wealth of a society, not the technologies which burnthat energy.

I recently saw an ad for a device promising â??free energy from the sun.â?? It costs $1000. I already have one--itâ??s called a solarpanel. I have invested in a â??free energyâ?? machine for my house. The catch is that I have to â??investâ?? in a technology thattook an awful lot of fossil fuel energy to produce. The universe is full of free energy, but we must always invest some energy tomake it available. Itâ??s like the old business adage: â??you have to spend money to make money.â?? If I spend 100 units ofenergy to make my solar panel and over its 40-year life it pays me back 400 units of energy, then the solar panel has an energyprofit ratio of 4:1. Solar energy is abundant, but diffuse, and so are other alternatives like wind and tidal power. After 30 years ofresearch and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, solar energy has not increased in efficiency by more than a marginal amount. Ineconomic terms, if we were to switch to solar power tomorrow it would be like taking an 80% pay cut.

It takes 1500 regular-sized solar panels to provide the energy needed to power my four wheel drive utility at full speed for one hour. Ittakes less than 15 litres of petrol to do the same. One barrel of oil (200 litres) contains an amount of energy equal to the energyexpended by 60 people working every day for a whole year! Wind and solar currently provide less than a ½ of one percent of theglobal energy mix and even at record growth rates they are not predicted to grow at more than 10% per year. The International EnergyAgency recently issued a report stating we must start creating an alternative energy infrastructure 20 years before the onset of peakoil to avoid severe economic dislocation. Things do not look encouraging.

In 2020 there will be the same amount of oil available as there was in 1985. This doesnâ??t sound like a catastrophe; however,economic growth is dependent on energy growth. If peak production takes place within the next five years, then by 2020 it is clear thatenergy descent will be well under way. The corporate global economy cannot function without economic growth- the whole system isdependent on growing energy availability to support growing material wealth to support growing money supply. When oil and gasproduction peak, total global energy availability will start its terminal decline and so will the global economy.

As long as we can adjust our consumption then things could be all right. Studies show that people are happiest when they have enoughwealth to meet their needs and a few of their wants, but no more. Energy descent may not be so bad, if it removes a few of thethings that are making us unhappy, while leaving us in a position to meet our needs. The challenge lies in learning to change ourexpectations and take on a whole new set of understandings and behaviours necessary during the coming era of decreasing energyavailability.

This is where permaculture comes in. Permaculture is the only discipline that has been created to deal with the energetic aspectsinforming sustainability. From a permaculture point of view, peak oil marks the end of the growth phase of global industrial society.This is a natural part of the life cycle of any dynamic system. First there is a growth phase, and after the concentrated, high-graderesources have been used up and total resource availability starts to drop, the system starts to decline. Permaculture is about learningthe principles and practices that allow us to work with natural energy flows rather than relying on fossil fuels.

Permaculture is only partly about growing food and living more self-sufficiently. Permaculture is a design science that uses thepatterns of nature to mimic ecological systems. Natural systems have evolved for millions of years to maximize the energy availablefrom the sun. If we are to live well in the post-fossil fuel world, we will have to learn to do the same. Permaculturists have organicgardens because it is a way to grow good food on a low energy budget. They use clever design to make life easier and agriculturemore productive. When the oil is gone, permaculture will offer some of the best strategies we know of for maintaining high levels ofwell-being. Permaculture is undergoing a renaissance as a set of principles and practices for the post-oil world where individuals andcommunities can learn to live well while we ride the downside of the energy availability curve.

How far off are the major effects of peak oil? It depends on a number of factors, but it is very unlikely to be farther out than adecade. One could argue that we are feeling the effects now, itâ??s just that we are telling ourselves a different story about why wewent to war in Iraq, why we are bullying the Timorese over offshore gas fields, why people try to bomb us and why we have to workharder and harder to stay afloat financially. If peak oil is the story then a lot of these events start to make more sense, and then wecan start to understand how to prepare in order for the â??energy/cultureâ?? transition to be a much more positive experience. Inevery challenge there is opportunity.

Tim Winton is the founder and managing trustee of The Permaforest Trust, a not-for-profit sustainability education centre on the farnorth coast of New South Wales, Australia. The Permaforest Trust offers Austudy-approved Certificate 4 and Diploma level programsin Accredited Permaculture Training.

More information
Tim Winton
i...@permaforesttrust.org.au
www.permaforesttrust.org.au

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Sustainable Technologies for eradicating Hunger and for Real economic Progress:
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/92735.php

Eliminate Hunger:
http://www.thrive.org.uk http://www.greenthumbnyc.org http://www.yesmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=576 http://www.

communitygarden.org http://www.permaculture.org.uk http://www.camphill.org.uk http://www.neemfoundation.org http://www.

treesforlife.org http://www.livingnutrition.com http://www.carbon.org http://www.growingsolutions.com http://www.emnz.com http://

www.acresusa.com http://www.growbiointensive.org http://www.tilth.org http://www.naturewise.org.uk http://www.echonet.org http://

www.biodynamic.org.uk http://www.healthmasters.com http://www.wattsgardenclub.org
http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/ppatch http://www.seattletilth.org http://www.greengridroofs.com http://www.ecoroofsystems.

com http://www.miller-roofscapes.co.uk http://www.zinco.de

Organic Farming will Feed the World:
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/92739.php

Organic Technology for Gardeners & Farmers:
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/92738.php

Waste not, Want Not:
http://www.wormwoman.com http://www.zeri.org http://www.oceanarks.org http://www.wolvertonenvironmental.com http://www.

emtech.org http://www.bokashi.co.nz ..

Allotments UK:
http://www.organicallotment.co.uk http://www.allotments-uk.com http://www.allotments4all.co.uk http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~tpl/

allotmentkids.html ..

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA):
http://www.cuco.org.uk/index.php?page=3
http://perth.indymedia.org/?action=newswire&parentview=11328
book- Farms of Tomorrow: Community Supported Farms, Authors: Trauger Groh and Steven McFadden http://abebooks.com
book- Rebirth of the Small Family Farm, Authors: Bob and Bonnie Gregson http://www.acresusa.com

Please support LOCAL Organic FAMILY farmers. Thank you!!!
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/92737.php
http://www.localharvest.org

Renewable Energy:
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/92743.php

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Please use sustainable technology and renewable energy. Please help disabled people, older people and poor people to grow their ownorganic food using permaculture gardening methods. Thank YOU!!!