Political parties are made up of myriad people such as myself and clearly each person comes with different hopes and fears and there are often differences across a spectrum within a Party.

As part of a political party I welcome TT as there is widespread apathy and disengagement with the existing political process. I also think TT is quite a lot about self-responsibility and community empowerment and that this is something that the ‘State’ tends to take from us as individuals, so if TT represents a shift back towards more self-responsibility and empowerment then that is a welcome thing.

Rupert – “Peak Oil makes the need for a cap to be placed on carbon emissions and for most fossil fuels to stay in the ground MORE urgent.” Or maybe it changes where campaigning needs to be focused. Here in the UK, we should not be building any more coal power stations and we should be getting as much renewables capacity up and running as possible.

Given that peak oil appears to be happening now and the gap between supply and normal demand is growing now, I think it’s unlikely that any political process will be able to curtail use faster than it will be curtailed anyway through depletion.

UK politicians have no influence on how much more of the tar sands are dug up. My only hope is that nature will take care of it sooner rather than later, as tar sands production is rapidly draining Albertan aquifers and their remaining natural gas.

Coal is the real biggy, as there is sufficient of it left to take us to a place we really don’t want to be climate wise. Here, is where climate change campaigners should focus their efforts and where politicians should direct policy change.

Thanks to you and to Rupert for this discussion. I don’t need to continue this debate but started it here as I think that the transition movement does itself a huge disservice if it becomes political – which I saw happening within this forum and therefore felt I needed to raise my voice.

Clearly lots of us will have strongly held views but I think for Transition concepts to work we get the best results if we work across our usual divides – that way we really get creative. And also to help us learn from and understand eachother, which I think is a big part of Transition ethos.

Thanks and best wishes.

There is now and will increasingly be an imperative for politicians to work on a cross-party basis if today’s “debate” between the parties is not to become a meaningless irrelevance.

David (16.2.08:4.48pm), yes, exactly, I was trying to say “(Jevon’s Paradox) doesn’t apply in a world of with a contracting energy supply”. It is one of the givens that no longer apply as it does now. It will be in people’s personal, selfish interest to reduce their energy use.

The only things that will detract from this are:

1. most people don’t know when/how they use energy and therefore don’t know how to reduce their consumption effectively. These people will blindly either go on consuming unnecessarily or they will go without and suffer more than necessary.

2. most people believe they have an entitlement to use and waste energy. They will be angry at those who try to take away their “energy rights”.

Both these phenomena are already evident but they will both intensify greatly post peak.

We need to cut coal, marginal oil use quickly enough to avoid runaway climate change; and conventional oil and the regional gas quickly enough to stay ahead of their depletion curves. Therefore, we need as high a percentage of the population as possible to reduce their energy use voluntarily, we need a policy framework, supported by all the major parties in what may well be a government of national unity that promotes “common purpose”. Without this national political framework, we will have a situation where Transition Towners and other concerned people are working towards a managed energy descent and others are struggling to maintain BAU.

Rupert – I have the feeling you still see peak oil as a political threat that undermines campaigning on climate change rather than a physical reality which further complicates and constrains our responses to climate change. Have you read the Heinberg essay on bridging peak oil and climate change activism? One of the key quotes for me is “our goal must be to deal with reality (rather than merely our preferred image of reality), and reality is complicated.”

Human beings, by their nature, are efficient; they take the path of least resistance. This creates a problem for the 3 main parties, because if, say, one proposes petroleum rationing, the others look more attractive, even though the rationing option may be the best for the country.

The only way forward I can see working is the cross-party approach, such as the work done by the APPGOPO (The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas):

http://www.appgopo.org.uk/

I wholly believe in the power of the state and regard its use as essential in the current face of climate change, however it is what we do that I am trying to tease out. So I think we are in agreement that we need the State to provide the strong framework within which actions such as those that TT seek become universal. What I’m trying to tease out from you is how the Green party plan to do it as what I see are strong ‘mega-state’ tendencies and a somewhat naive approach to practicality. I also see quite a bit of reactionary ‘smash the toffs’ type rhetoric which seems less than constructive. As I live in a 5 bedroom home am I a toff? Or because my hubby grew up with an outside toilet until age 11 are we ‘not proper toffs’… seems a bit oversimplified to me. We are all vastly materially rich in the UK compared to most of the world’s population.

Ps I actually think true independents have the best of it politically and maybe the shame of it all is that you and I are each taking party sides and not heading off into ‘independent’ land…..

A Vision for Somerset as a Sustainable Community has just been published. This seems a ground-breaker, like Kinsale EDAP was. And yes, it’s political, relevant urgently now. It arose directly out of the despair several Climate Action people felt, when their agenda, after having been courteously heard and agreed at the local council meeting, was not even mentioned in the feedback. The Local Area Agreements talks-in-progress across the UK right now are simply missing the facts of Peak Oil and the cutting-edge of Climate Change, to the point of grave, dangerous irresponsibility.

“A Vision for Somerset” states (a) the bad news, that the dangers are greater than most people think (with articles from New Scientist etc to back up the info of dangers) (b) the good news, that many more groups are arising in response to the awareness of these dangers than either the media or the government are so far aware, and (c) practical issues grouped as Policy, Lighting, Heating, Transport, Community, Food, Construction, Empolyment, and Local Energy Generation. I’ve put some of this on the website, with hyperlink to the pdf-file.

I see an opportunity here. Can we study this document and work together to improve it and produce an agreed template to correct or even supersede the LAA? It seems this is not too dissimilar to the Kinsale document in scope, but it’s directed to the political work-in-progress. It will surely also help Transition groups build collaborative EDAP’s in all localities. I’ve posted it on our website and rebuilt the forum so that people can post comments there. It’s therefore not just a local project and risks problems of size. I’m willing to give it a go, and work with what arises… But what comes first is the fearful waking-up that nobody wants to face – No Business As Usual Any More – or hopefully we can engender something more like, “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to an end. We are entering a period of consequences” – Winston Churchill, 1936.

But I’m not sure that material and economic growth are the same thing. Should you advise me about say giving a speech on a street corner, and I in exchange give you a Shiatsu massage, we could either both pay eachother for the priviledge (and hence ‘increase’ economic growth), or we could swap (and not make any impact on ‘economic growth’ whatsoever). Neither way of conducting the exchange would have any carbon related impact whatsoever (except in the mere fact that you and I exist and consume resources to live outside of this exchange), but both ways can increase our utility / happiness/ wellbeing – however you like to look at it. So there is a way of non material growth that can be very good and I welcome it.

I think that it is in this oversimplification of ‘economic growth’ that we may find space to argue, but I suspect both being TT supporters we probably have quite similar views on where we want to get to, just maybe different ideas about the best way of getting there? And hence my repeat query about how the Green party thinks it is going to get to this better end state by the tools of state. To my mind we can only get there through political will to change coupled with a very efficient economy to deliver a level of wellbeing – both through material and non material things – in the most environmentally sustainable way. I think Cameron gets it though sadly haven’t had the opportunity to personally question him – but everything I see coming from him resonates in the right way. The Quality of Life review that produced the Blueprint document certainly got it – if you read it you will find that they do indeed say that very thing – we cannot have constant material growth. I don’t think the entire Conservative party gets it yet – just as I don’t yet think lots of people or the media get it. But I see us each spreading a message through our own networks that swells the chorus – and that way we will see cultural change.