Pioneering Welsh town begins the transition to a life without oil

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2051912,00.html

There is, as the ads say, no Plan B. The age of cheap oil is drawing to a close, climate change already threatens, and politicians dither. But the people of Lampeter, a small community in the middle of rural Wales, gathered together earlier this week to mobilise for a new war effort. They decided to plan their "energy descent".
It was in fact the biggest public meeting in Lampeter anyone could remember. West Wales has a long tradition of alternative living, but the scale of this was different. More than 450 people filed into the hall in a place where the total population is just 4,000. They had come to turn themselves into a Transition Town - one of a rapidly growing network of places that have decided not to wait for government action, but to prepare for life after oil on their own.

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By now the people of Lampeter, from ageing hippies to young activists, were shifting in their plastic seats (made with oil) and drawing anxiously on their water bottles (made with oil) if not reaching for their medicines (made with oil). Hopkins told them they were likely to experience a range of common symptoms that accompany initial peak oil awareness.

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r hours into planning their energy descent and over bowls of local cawl broth the crowd in Lampeter were considering what they would like to happen - a ban on advertising that encourages consumption; turning the local supermarket into a giant allotment - and what they could they could actually do - install a community wind turbine; encourage low-energy buildings using sheep's wool for insulation; swap skills.

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There was plenty of inspiration from pioneer towns.

Transition Totnes has introduced its own currency with notes that can only be spent in local shops. Its businesses are being audited by an accountant who provides a wake-up call by identifying parts of their operations that become unprofitable as oil prices rise. The town is planting nut trees which can provide emergency food and timber for construction while also acting as carbon sinks.

Lampeter decided emphatically on a show of 450 hands that it would meet again to plan its next stage. And then its people spilled out on a clear spring night into the car park and, just this one last time, drove home.
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people taking matters into their own hands and not waiting for the suits

...the phrase about agriculture having become a means of turning oil into food is one that ought to be repeated loudly and often.

It is good to know that some towns are taking action; I understand that Portland, OR has just released a master plan to prepare for peak oil. I know that Sacramento--my home--just presented a master plan for sustainability to the city council.

I try to be optimistic.

People who don't consume don't provide them any income, thus they have no profit motive.

Whenever I think of that in America, I inevitably end up in a place like Vermont.

http://www.transitiontowns.org/

A friend sent me there yesterday and I forwarded the link to my Mayor. Excellent resource.