I'm honored to be here. I represent The Community Solution, small organization with growing national reputation. Our focus is not just oil but peak oil and we are charged with the mission of educating people about oil depletion and its implications for our economies and communities. We also teach people how they can personally prepare for peak oil and to advocate for preparations and responses at the community, grassroots level.

What's the solution to the energy crisis in just a few words? Conservation and curtailment. It is the first and most important action anyone can person can take, and it must be taken at the community and national level.

Today I will talk about peak oil and why it's relevant to all of our campaigns; I will talk about the alternatives to oil, both renewable and nonrenewable, and why there can not substitute for oil. I will emphasize why lifestyle changes are the most important, and finally I will share with you my organization's vision for a post-oil world, a world of decentralized local communities.

Peak Oil is not a myth, not a theory. It is an observable geologic reality, and it is happening around the world. The U.S. experienced peak oil in 1970. Today we're down to half of our production, despite advances in technology and higher prices. So we import more than half of the oil we consume. There are now 55 oil producing nations in decline, most oil producing nations in the world.

The peaking phenomenon is observable in every oil well, field, nation, and eventually, in the world. Peak is more important than when we "run out" because what matters is not reserves but how much we're producing and how much we're consuming. Right now we consume about 85 million barrels per day.

Peak oil refers to the point in time when oil production reaches its maximum and begins to decline toward exhaustion. No matter how much we want to consume after that point, we can only consume what's being produced, so if production falls, then consumption must fall as well.

Whereas for the past 150 years we lived in an era of cheap and abundant oil, we are entering a period of scarce and expensive oil. Peak oil represents a dramatic change in the conditions that have allowed economic growth, globalization, urban sprawl, and the development of industrial agriculture and virtually everything in our modern society.

While virtually all parties, including oil companies and government agencies agree that there is eventually a peak, the leading geologists and petroleum scientists as well as investment banks are saying that we are at or near peak, with a growing consensus on the year 2008.

Our perspective is that Peak Oil is the turning point, and how we respond to peak oil will determine the future of humanity. This is where the connection between peak oil and global climate change comes in. The easiest, most convenient solutions to peak oil, the solutions that are already being set up, is the increasing use of non-conventional oil and other fossil fuels. This will spell disaster for the climate and the environment.

As Dumbledore said to Harry Potter: "Dark and difficult times lie ahead. We must choose between what is right, and what is easy." What is right, for us and for future generations, is conservation, the implementation of renewable energy, and decentralization into more self-sufficient regions and communities. This is the only way to avert the worst of global climate change, and ensure not only a habitable future, but to ensure a cleaner, healthier, more equitable, and more fulfilling future.

Peak Oil also is an opportunity to create a new culture that is life-nourishing instead of life-destroying, cooperative instead competitive, based on generosity instead of greed, and preservation rather than consumption.

So peak oil is important, and conservation is the most important solution. I'd like to emphasize this by looking at the alternatives to oil.

Complete freedom from oil is an ambitious and daunting task. Oil is modern society's most important energy source. It represents 40% of all energy used and 95% of all energy used for transportation. Oil is the most dense energy form and the best energy for transportation.

Can alternatives replace oil? There is a lot of information in the press that alternatives can fully replace oil on a one-to-one basis. Even the literature of this event reads, "The technology exists now to safely transition away from the fossil fuel paradigm." This implies there is a techno fix, and that people don't have to take action.

This is a dangerous and irresponsible message. People have to be told that they have to conserve. So let's look at the alternatives, starting with liquid fuels, because that's what we need to replace.

Non-conventional Oil
This includes tar sands, specifically up in Alberta and in Venezuela, and oil shale out West. The key with non-conventional oil sources is that more pollution per unit of energy generated, and there is a lower net energy balance, because of the amount of energy it takes to extract and refine these resources. This is not to mention the horrific pollution, immense amount of water and natural gas needed to extract, and the damage to local communities.

Other Fossil Fuels
Coal and natural gas can both be turned into a liquid form to be used to replace oil. We hear much about how abundant coal is, especially in U.S. Yet even when you liquefy coal with carbon sequestration to make it "clean," the resulting liquid has the same amount of CO₂ as the equivalent amount of gasoline.

Ethanol and other Biofuels
These replacements are often "renewable," despite the fact that they result in the depletion of natural gas (fertilizers), topsoil, and water. In addition, the industrial necessary to grow them is dependent upon petroleum. Whether or not there is a slight gain on its net energy balance, the difference between biofuels and conventional oil is huge, giving us only slightly more than 1 unit of energy per unit of input energy in contrast to oil's 10 energy unit output for each unit of energy input.

Wind and Solar
Wind and solar can't substitute for oil because they are not liquid fuels. Some say that hydrogen will solve this, but its increasingly looking like hydrogen is a smokescreen. Most hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels, its storage and distribution methods are still unresolved, and it would take 20 years minimum to change our entire infrastructure anyway. What about the pluggable hybrid electric vehicles? People say that you can get 500 mpg, without including the coal burned give the energy. If we went PHEV, we'd be building more coal plants.

Nuclear
Nuclear is also often called "renewable." However, uranium is finite. And we still have the waste issue to be resolved.

In conclusion, no combination of alternatives can substitute for declining oil and will allow us to continue increasing our energy consumption at two percent per year. So while the move to renewable energy sources is important, it has to be done with a drastic reduction in overall energy use. Otherwise people will think there is a technological solution, and not take action.

After the question of "Can alternatives replace oil?" we must ask, "Do we want alternatives to replace oil?"

Global climate change is now a big worry, and the use of non-conventional oil and other fossil fuels to cover oil slack will push us over the tipping point.

And even if the alternatives were available, even if a trillion barrels of oil were discovered on the moon, does that justify our excessive, wasteful use of energy? Is all of this energy consumption really making us happier? More healthy? More fulfilled? Is it making our communities stronger and safer? Is it bringing about a just and equitable world?

I would say that mostly the opposite is the case. Our focus on consumption and materialism, made possible by cheap, abundant fossil fuels, it is making us less happy, more isolated, less healthy, and less fulfilled. It is destroying local communities and local economies. It is the cause of increasing global inequity and geopolitical tensions.

We are really addicted to our lifestyle. Perhaps we are not addicted to oil, as Bush said, but addicted to what oil does for us. If we were free from oil but dependent upon another form of energy to maintain our high energy lifestyle, then we would not be free.

To be free, we need to re-assess how we use energy, to what end we use energy, and how our social, economic, and cultural goals are considered within the ecological framework of our planet. Then we need to develop decentralized, locally-controlled renewable energy production for uses that further our vision of a just, sustainable world to hand down to future generations. This is freedom. Anything else is dependency.

Freedom from oil really means freedom from the system we have created with oil. Systems like industrial agriculture, a global economy, and an economy based upon infinite growth. The implications of this freedom are profound, and represent the next chapter in the evolution of humanity.

This is not easy. We are all deeply entrenched in the dominant system - our incomes, our bank accounts, our increasing standards of living. We must first make the change ourselves, giving up our attachment to these unsustainable pursuits. Then we must work to create a new system, so that others can disengage from the dominant unsustainable, destructive paradigm, and connect into the new creative, sustainable, life-nourishing paradigm.

Thankfully, there are examples. Local economic development, alternative economics, local currencies, decentralized energy generation, community-supported agriculture, cooperative social models, permaculture, and ecovillages are just a few.

The first step is to dramatically reduce our energy use at the individual, community and national level. Opportunities for decreasing waste and increasing efficiency are everywhere. Downscaling our economic activities to the local level will also save massive amounts of energy, especially in food production and distribution. At the same time, a commitment to the values of conservation, frugality, and simple living are needed.

This requires a cultural shift. We can start a movement to make conservation "cool." Someday, instead of comparing the size of our houses and cars, we'll be comparing ecological footprints and average annual energy use. We'll be showing off our gardens and canned foods. Talking about how our lives have been so much better since we started living with less.

Cuba is one country that has already gone through peak oil, and created a more sustainable society in its wake. We just finished a documentary film on this.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba lost 50 percent of their oil overnight. So they developed organic agriculture, now 85 percent of all agricultural production, and urban gardens. They are growing food where people are, even raising animals like rabbits and chickens on rooftops and back patios. Cuba also decentralized their energy use, developed small wind, solar, and hydro systems at the community level.

When the crisis hit, the government didn't say that they'd solve the problem. Instead, they told the Cubans to come together and address the challenges within their community. There was a huge campaign to conserve energy. Most recently the government is going to every Cuban household and giving the people more energy-efficient appliances, including compact fluorescent light bulbs. They have decentralized the universities and municipal governments, and are developing a country-wide railroad to reduce car use.

The Cuban story is a model and an inspiration to a world on the verge of its own oil crisis. I hope that we in America can respond as effectively as the Cubans did.

If we keep our vision of what we want a post-oil world to be, if we make it clear that alternatives will not replace oil, and if we empower people to take action in their own life by conserving energy and living more locally, we will have a world worth handing down to future generations.

Thank you.

– Megan Quinn Bachman is the outreach director of The Community Solution, a program of Community Service, Inc.