Green World Trust

Peak Oil means that we have used up more than half of what appears to be available; and that what's left will cost more and more to extract. Global economy has come to depend on oil. But we cannot continue using our familiar sources for very long.
One gallon of petrol drives a car for 20-30 miles;
pushing it that far is several weeks' labour.

Peak Oil says that we have no alternative but to plan for a "lean energy" future where we will use far less energy altogether. It is perhaps healthy to think like this. Alternative energy sources can only meet part of our present demand, likewise hydrogen, coal, and bio-fuels, which have other problems as well; and even if the waste problems were solved, nuclear energy is not a sustainable alternative in its present form. However, there may be other possibilities, known in potential to Science or to so-called "pseudoscience". All today's Science was once "pseudoscience".

Climate Change - there are two very different views, stirring a lot of "hot air". One view (the "scientific consensus") says that global warming from our growing CO2 emissions will cause sea level rise and extreme weather patterns, droughts, hurricanes, and floods. Others (the "skeptics") say that CO2 always follows temperature changes, that the oceans and biosphere are the great regulators of CO2, that human CO2 emissions are tiny by comparison, are totally beneficial to, and absorbed by, plants, that the current fears arise through deliberate stirring-up of anxiety, and that the IPCC science is misreading the evidence of a few decades during which solar activity has been significantly high. Is the hot air real?

The Big Melt - far more serious than Government figures show? The Big Melt says there is far more ice melting than IPCC predicted. Hansen says that melting Polar ice means that sea levels may rise considerably - 5 metres or more. IPCC are revising their estimate upwards. But...

Many capable scientists say that there is no threat of manmade global warming, that Al Gore's film is almost all untrue or misleading, that there are many navigators' stories of less ice in the Arctic than today, that carbon dioxide has always followed temperature both now and in geological times, that the Sun's unusual activity over the last century has been the prime cause of the high temperatures reached, that we've had even higher temperatures in recent historical times, that temperatures are now falling globally, that newspapers sell scare stories, that "global warming" gets research grants, that IPCC has a political, not a scientific, agenda...

Transition Towns are developing creative ways forward, where ordinary people can participate. We can plan energy descent, to cope with "worst case" scenarios. We can plan to relocalize - which also re-empowers us as individuals. We can do an "oil vulnerability audit" or similar, for our business.

Build resilience to cope with future energy shocks. Recognize our creative abilities. Relearn old skills. Keep bees. Grow vegetables. Research alternatives. Learn Science. Support each other. Seek help from the highest sources.