Recall the old jingle: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Power Down is the kind of Reduce that no one today likes to think about: reducing our energy consumption. It’s the ultimate global warming solution. And it’s our very real future.

As mainstream media begins to pick up the story of global warming, we’re becoming aware that somehow we’ll magically have to reduce that intangible, distant, amorphous concept called “greenhouse gas emissions.” But what does lower carbon emissions really mean? As in, how is it going to affect my life?

There’s another half to the story, and this part mainstream media has been much slower to mention. It’s called Peak Oil. Peak Oil is the term for the fact that we’ve recently crossed over the half way point of the planet’s oil supply.

The planet makes more oil very, very slowly. And humans are currently using it up very, very quickly–lots of it, and our consumption rate is still on the increase. Meanwhile, new discoveries of oil haven’t amounted to much since the 1970s. We’ve now crossed the half way point of oil production, and that means we’ve used up the easy-to-get-to stuff.

The term Peak Oil is also used to describe the end of cheap oil. If you filled your gas tank this week, particularly if you’ve been driving and filling gas tanks for a decade, you know the end of cheap oil is already here.

So what? What does that mean? Realize that oil fuels not only every car you see on Los Angeles freeways, but also every semi-truck that brings your groceries, every tanker that hauls your cheap fashion clothing from China, every airplane that takes you hop, skip, and jump around the planet whenever you want. Our society currently runs on oil. It is everything plastic you touch. It’s used in conventional agriculture, when petrochemicals are spread on the fields. Most of our medical devices are made from it, and some of our medications. It hauls our building materials, and makes many of them. The enormous economic growth we’ve experienced over the past 100 years is all based on cheap, abundant oil. And we’re soon going to run out.

Biofuels won’t replace oil. Hydrogen won’t do it. Nuclear is unthinkable. Natural gas faces the same depletion issues that oil does, over a slightly different timeframe. And coal and natural gas exacerbate our global warming problems. A combination of clean energy sources such as solar, wind, and biomass will help ease the transition, but these sources do not have the energy density of the fossil fuels to which we have become accustomed. In short, the only answer is the one we don’t want to hear: power-down, decreasing the amount of energy we use.

Right now, we teach our children that when they grow up, life will be globalization and computers and sleek, powerful engines and the kind of transportation that was dreamed up by the SciFi writers of the 1960s. We’re kidding ourselves. And we’re short-changing our children to raise them with such expectations.

We are currently living at the very peak of an energy glut. Because we and our parents were born within this glut, we think of this as “normal.” But when we view our time within the entire course of human history, we get a different picture. Freeways and air travel and globalization and rocket ships are not normal, and they won’t continue very long into the future. They can’t. That means we need to get used to the power-down idea, and get on with it. We need to change course, and prepare for life in an era beyond oil.

Coincidently (isn’t it amazing how this works) when we talk about lower-carbon lifestyles for solving global warming, the answers are basically the same: We must power-down our habits. Global warming simply ups the ante. Scientists tell us that 350 is the magic number, 350 ppm of carbon dioxide concentration in the upper atmosphere. We’re currently at 385 ppm and if our present overshoot is not brief, we’re seeding irreversible catastrophic climate change. Ahh, so we must power-down and in a hurry.

I’ll change when I have to. Change is hard, especially when you’re used to a certain way of doing things. You’re comfortable in your habits. But “have to” is now. Over the next ten years. And it includes every person alive and active today. That means you.

Powering down means changing our lifestyle habits, our industries, our commerce, so that we use less energy. We’re becoming familiar with energy conservation measures–eliminating waste–to get the same job done more efficiently. But powering-down goes far beyond that. Powering down means changing the underlying way we get jobs done, and rethinking which jobs we expect to get done. Switching from Hummer to Prius is eliminating waste. Switching to a bicycle is powering down. Changing our expectation of the distances we expect to cover in a single day is powering down.

Transportation: The name of the game here is “Relocalize.” Become more local, in every way you can. * Reduce your transportation circles. Reduce the radius over which you do your weekly errands. Reduce the distance over which you haul yourself and your family. * Buy local. Reduce the distance over which the foods and goods you use are hauled. Select food grown closer to home. Seek domestic brands. Why buy the bottle of wine hauled halfway around the globe from Australia, when the one produced less than 200 miles away is perfectly fine? * If you’re in charge of business decisions, join the new trend toward “insourcing,” using resources here at home. Eliminate air travel. Encourage telecommuting, and promote human-powered transportation like walking and bicycling. * In the long term, as your family experiences big changes–job changes, moving houses, kids off to college–think locally. Take these life change opportunities to reduce the distance you will have to travel on a regular basis. * Rethink whether you really need to make that trip. Could you combine this errand with tomorrow’s outings to the same plaza? Could you carpool with a fellow traveler? How could you arrange to leave your car at home, one day a week, then two days a week? Over time, adjust your choices and your habits.

Food: * Eat local foods. First, they require far less fossil fuels to get to your dinner table. That means using less oil, creating less greenhouse gas emissions, less participation in the human cost of oil wars. Second, eating local foods means fresh foods, in-season. Fruits and veggies ripened on the vine have far more nutritional value than ones “ripened” in warehouses and trucks pumped full of special gases to mature and preserve them. Eating locally supports small local farming operations, close to the place where you live. That likely means you’re supporting family businesses instead of filling the pockets of monster agri-businesses. That means you’re supporting open agricultural spaces near your hometown, where people can experience fresh air, and birds and wildlife can flourish. * Eat organic when possible. Organic means the petrochemicals can’t be involved in the production of your food. We have to get used to farming this way again. Talk to the farmer at farmers’ markets and ask how they grow. Be aware that smaller farms might be doing the right thing–using organic techniques or being responsible about using less chemicals–but they might not be able to afford the “certified organic” labeling process. Supporting local farms like this means you’re voting with your dollar for less illness and hardship on farm workers, and less airborne chemical sprays near your hometown. * Eat more plants. Raising vast quantities of animals for meat requires enormous amounts of land and water resources; it is a poor fit for a power-down future. In many traditional cultures, meat is used as a condiment–a special addition to a diet that is mainly plants. Eat real food. Processed “foods” require enormous energy resources to make them that way, and in the end they’ll require enormous energy resources to medicate the poor health they’ve generated in your body. If your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food, it isn’t food! * Become a label-reader. Learn what goes into your food and where it came from, and select the best you possibly can. In an age of global warming and peak oil, going blindly with the mainstream flow means you’re endorsing climate change and social upheaval.

Stuff: Reduce it. Plain and simply, we’ve got to cut back. The per capita “fair share” of earth’s resources for each human being on earth equates to about 4.5 biologically productive acres. North Americans consume an amount equal to about 24.7 acres. That’s FIVE TIMES our fair share. * Buy less. When we walk the aisles of WalMart or the shopping mall or even the new mega Whole Foods, rather than oohing and ahhing in amazement, the plethora of stuff should be nauseating. This is rape of the earth, laid out in visual panorama. Refuse to participate. * Learn to distinguish between your “needs” and “wants.” Is this something your family needs for basic survival, or does it simply enable your addiction to excess? Sure, we all enjoy a special something here and there, but as a society we’ve taken this concept overboard. “Special” should be precious because it’s infrequent. * When you do buy, buy durable. Don’t participate in a use-it-once disposable attitude toward the earth’s materials. Seek things that can be repaired so they don’t need to be replaced. Choose simple, mechanical items which don’t require batteries, electricity, or other power. * Just say “no” to corporate advertising that tries to trick you into “needing” opulence. Saying “no” to TV and magazines will help. Just say “no” to peer competition to have the latest hot new gadget. Rise above it, and live in accordance with what you know is right–for you, for the planet, and for future generations.

Adjust Expectations: We’ve already explained how the future can’t be a continuation of the trajectory of the past 100 years. Help create culture change. * Teach your children the ways of the future. Help them learn how to plant a garden to grow healthy, local plants to eat. Empower them with knowledge: how to fix a bike, how to knit a sweater. Help them to see that these–rather than faster, smaller iPods–are the direction of their future. * Appreciate the right stuff. Rather than expressing awe over the latest muscle car, recognize it as an anachronism, a dated bit of the faded past which no longer belongs amid the planetary awareness we now hold. Rather than awe over a friend’s world-tour vacation, understand its blatant waste and excess. Applaud greener moves your friends make, like walking to work or bicycling to the library. Celebrate green successes such as community-based gatherings that get neighbors working with neighbors. In a reLocalized, power-down world, our neighborhoods are our future.

by Joanne Poyourow for Environmental Change-Makers

Resources:

Information about peak oil www.energybulletin.net/primer.php

California impacts from global warming www.climatechoices.org/ca/site/our-changing-climate.html

“Transition Towns” Network of neighborhoods using the Transition Model for responding to the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change http://transitiontowns.org/
Articles about ReLocalization, Local Foods, Edible Landscaping, the Low Carbon Lifestyle, and many more power-down topics are available at www.LegacyLA.net/articles.htm