Transition Town Asheville
This week saw the first public program that will, I believe, help define how Asheville and Western North Carolina moves into the century of what is being called “peak oil”, or more diplomatically and less dramatically is termed the end of cheap oil. You may wish to check out some of the links I have listed under this category on this blog page.
Transition Town Asheville speaks about this phenomenon and our rational response to it as an “Energy Descent Action Plan”. They used their first public presentation at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville to outline the problem, describe how some communities in the United States have begun to realistically approach the problem, and then began to organize into work groups.
It is amazing that there already has been systematic, organized thinking about this issue in American Cities as diverse as Portland, Oregon (over 500,000 population), to Sebastopol, California (population about 7,000), to Thompkins County (the whole county that includes Ithaca, New York).
One of Transition Town Asheville’s goals is to engage our City and County governments in this process.
The convergence of global warming and the consequent climate crisis and the end of cheap oil will challenge our ingenuity and basic assumptions of our capitalistic, hyper-individualistic, and global “free market” economic thinking.
Thanks to the wise and committed citizens who have studied the problem of energy descent. Please be on the lookout for more programming from them on our website or www.sustainableasheville.org/.