Transition Town Farnham

A new group is being set up in Farnham. Part of the global “Transition Towns” movement, its aim is to find local responses to the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil.

Almost everybody knows about climate change, but very few people have even heard about peak oil. One of the first goals of Transition Town Farnham is to change that.

“Peak oil” is the name given to the time when about half the world’s oil reserves have been extracted. Prices start to rise dramatically. And because oil is a limited resource, they keep rising. Experts are divided about exactly when this will happen, but the general agreement is that it will be some time between 2008 and 2010. Some people believe it may have already happened.

Peak oil is going to change our lives forever. It is going to force us to become much more local in how we live, and how we work.

The transition town approach is about two things. It is about preparing for the changes that are coming, by building ‘resilience’ into local communities. And it is about seeing this as an opportunity to redesign our lives the way we want them to be: strengthening the sense of community, and realising that many of the things that cheap oil has enabled us to do (like spend 20 hours a week commuting) are not good for us or the environment.

Transition Town Farnham will be holding a launch event at The Maltings on Thursday 11 September, showing two short films. The first film is called “The End of Suburbia”. It explains peak oil in more detail and describes the effects it is likely to have on the way we live. The second film is called is called “The Power of Community”, and shows how Cuba responded when oil imports there fell by half following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Doors open at 7pm and admission is £5. To find out more visit www.transitionfarnham.wordpress.com or telephone Farnham 728409.