Learn to Live in a Low Energy World

If you've been reading Dave's posts on Peak Oil while chewing off various body parts as you segue farther and farther into paranoia, you might like to know that there are others out there who are not just worrying - they are actually organizing to do something about this grim future prospect. The Post Carbon Institute is a group I love, their motto is "Learning to Live in a Low Energy World," and their goal is to help us do just that.

From their latest newsletter, here are two upcoming events - both of them East Coast, but there will be others in other places, I promise - that offer light in this darkness. The first is coming up very soon, in New York City. Billing itself as "The Woodstock of Oil" and "The Mother of All Peak Oil Conferences," the conference is Local Solutions to the Energy Dilemma, April 27 to 29, 2006, to be held at Cooper-Union. Over 30 leading experts in energy, agriculture, economics, engineering, geology, politics, and sustainability will gather during the final week of April to address the local impact of what is viewed to be the impending crisis in world affairs. Some of the featured speakers are: Matt Savinar, James Howard Kunstler, Michael Klare, Faith Morgan, Steve Andrews, Catherine Austin Fitts, and Geoff Lawton.

If you miss that one, the next one up is in Washington, DC May 7 to 9th: Peak Oil and the Environment, hosted by The University of Maryland’s Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology Program. To be held in the Marvin Center on the George Washington University campus, this event will investigate the future direction of energy, environment and society. It also has an astounding array of speakers and panelists, including: Richard Heinberg, Roscoe Bartlett, Kenneth Deffeyes, William Catton, James Hansen, Bill McKibben and Julian Darley.

Now, if you don't recognize a good handful of those names from both conferences, you'd do well to start boning up on your reading. These will be our guides on this road through the middle of our lives, and like Dante on his journey, we will need all the help we can get.

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