"What We Can Do About Peak Oil"

What can we do about peak oil?  A lot of people are asking that question.  What follows are brainstorming ideas and probably won't make much sense unless you're part of our group.  (And may not make sense even then.)  

On January 17, 2007, our group met and brain-stormed some ideas from a variety of points of view.  They seemed to fall in five general categories.  At subsequent meetings we plan to discuss each area in more detail.  Links to other articles on this site are included where further research has been done.

These broad sections sometimes overlap considerably, and none of this constitutes anything approaching an "official" position of "Denver Energy Awareness," they're just ideas or thoughts.  

1. "Local preparedness"

Be a sustainable community
Individual action
Local currency, barter
Sharing
Localize

More specific ideas added Feb. 15:
Transportation:
Car Pool
Ride Shares
Bus
Hitchhiking
Car Co-ops

Housing:
Zoning
Size limitations on houses (e. g. on "McMansions")
More urban density
Better insulation / Solar PV
Site-based taxation

Food:
Vegetarianism
Conserve water
Community-supported agriculture
Gardening

General:
Carbon taxation
Renewable everything
Local currency
Population control
Consumption control

2. "Political action"

Revolution vs. reform
Contact power people (Ritter)
Proselytization / political action -- Greens, Democrats, Republicans
Scale, allocation, distribution

August 23:
Is there a weak point in the status quo (which currently totally ignores peak oil) which we could exploit to promote the idea of peak oil?
1. Peak oil will lead to disaster (thus when disaster hits we're vindicated)
2. Coal plants are unpopular, so is "mountain topping"
3. Status quo sensitive to adverse publicity
4. Large groups of people assembled in one place (demonstrations)
5. We need a movement based on the survival of civilization -- could piggy-back on the global warming idea
6. Friendly politicians -- Ritter, Hickenlooper, Gore, Mark Udall?  Kucinich, Richardson?
7. Katrina is the "wave of the future," the response of nature
8. Our objectives seek to break an addiction
9. We can appeal to concern for others 
10. We can appeal to concern for future generations
11. We could take over a town by getting a large number of people to move there!  (Should have a library, a natural foods store, and a nearby hot spring)
12. We should change the infrastructure, not confront the ideology of the status quo
13. Current system can't cope with disasters like Katrina
14. Yurts / alternative housing / cobb housing / straw bale housing are popular alternatives 

3. "Economic and social factors"

Constraints -- time and scale
Population
Consumption
"Scale, allocation, distribution"

Additional items mentioned May 24:
Ideal population -- 1.5 billion?
Delusional answers: that there is one "answer" to the problem, or making the current lifestyle the definitive parameter for any solution
Agriculture:
     Work animals, solar-powered tractors, or human labor?
     Bees -- commercial bees not returning to hives as of Nov. 2006
     Toads and frogs in decline
     Tomato blight
     Wheat blight in Africa, could spread to U. S.
     Reduce energy in agriculture
     Vegetarianism
Zero-energy houses
Read William Catton's book "Overshoot"
Read book: "How Many People Can the Earth Support?"
NAFTA / Immigration
Superinsulated retrofit: interior or exterior insulation?
Join the aboriginals, they'll be the ones to survive the coming disintegration
Challenge the dominant paradigm
Get rid of cars (private cars)
Telecommute
Close the airports

And June 21. . . 
Read George Monbiot, "Heat" (on global warming, but has obvious peak oil applications)
Workable communes or cooperatives or co-housing
Avoid social chaos akin to Germany in the 1930's
Find jobs for people currently in the tourist trade, retail workers, auto industry
Public transit
Carbon quota
Learn to can, knit, and garden
Develop rail network
Organic agriculture
Solar cooking
Cold frames (gardening)
Do things by hand

4. "Spreading information"

Educational action
Other groups -- ASPO-USA, Post-Carbon Institute, Bioneers

5. "Energy efficient technologies"