by Jennifer Murphy
14-02-06
Jan Lundberg, oil industry analyst, founder of Auto-Free Times and
www.culturechange.org came to Los Angeles to speak on the issues surrounding
peak oil. I attended the talk on “Petrocollapse and Food Security”, an
appropriate title for the location, the South Central Farm.
The farm may be receiving an eviction notice any day now, and in the light of
Jan’s talk, this makes no sense at all. The average distance food travels
between the farm and the dinner table in this country is 1,500 miles. Our city’s
food supply lines are dangerously dependent on petroleum-powered transportation
and petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides. Rather than destroy existing
vibrant, community-operated agricultural production we should be supporting and
expanding it to every neighbourhood in town.
Despite his gloomy message of petrocollapse, Jan opened with an upbeat song
called “Get up and change the world”. He accompanied himself with his guitar and
encouraged the audience to sing along.
The sound system for this event was bicycle-powered. A simple generator and
battery was hooked up to a bike on a trainer. It was created by Eric Einem of LA
Post Carbon. Audience members took turns quietly pedalling throughout the talk.
No alternatives
According to Jan, “Oil use is hard-wired into our culture”. The US has put
little effort into alternatives because we have a blind faith in technology,
believing naively that “they’ll think of something”. The problem with that is,
to adequately prepare for petrocollapse takes decades. We should have started 30
years ago.
Jan sees unavoidable changes coming. He calls these impending changes
petrocollapse, rather than peak oil.
“Peak oil is a single event, while petrocollapse covers the widespread impact of
that event.”
He went on to say, “Petrocollapse is a serious threat to our economy. Our
belief in unending growth and ‘the rising tide lifts all boats’ is bull. Peak
oil will terminate business as usual. New Orleans post-Katrina, writ large the
problems with depending on government to help in times of crisis. With
petrocollapse there is a good chance of a die-off of millions of people.“
Some people tout Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as the answer but there are many
problems with this, including the danger and expense of transporting it. Jan
says the answer is not in alternatives like biodiesel either. He asked us to
imagine how much additional arable land we would need to plant enough oil
producing crops to replace the 120 bn gallons per year of gasoline used by
American vehicles.
“Getting rid of Bush and putting up solar panels is not enough. We are
dealing with much deeper problems. Between petrocollapse and global warming we
have to look at food security. Here at the South Central Farm we have urban
farming. This is part of the solution. We can learn from Cuba as well, how it
recovered after its petrocollapse.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Cuba lost 90 % of its imports,
including crude oil,most foodstuffs, spare parts, agrochemicals, and industrial
equipment. It was a terrific shock to their economy and a lesson in
resourcefulness for us. Untrained people began to grow food on rooftops,
backyards and small plots of land. Urban farming became a key component in food
security. By 1999 Cuba’s agricultural production had fully recovered, using only
organic methods.
Get rid of the driveway and the duckies
Jan shared some surprising facts about automobiles. I didn’t realize that most
of the air pollution and energy usage by cars happens in the production process,
long before it hits the highway. This is true for hybrids as well as
gas-guzzlers. Another fact -- if one averages in the hours spent earning the
money needed to buy a car, insurance and gasoline, the average driving speed
slows down to a measly 5 miles per hour. So are we really saving time by
driving?
Transportation is the biggest user of fossil fuels. Jan’s message on this
subject is clear, not only do we need to get outof our cars; we need to tear up
the roads too!
Start with your driveway if you have one. Pavement encourages fossil fuel
use, it’s made of fossil fuels, it blocks rainwater from soaking into the soil
and renewing our aquifers, thus creating storm water runoff and polluting the
ocean.
The Lundgren de-paving technique:
1. Invite the community in to help and make it a party.
2. Widen existing cracks with a sledgehammer, enough to wedge in a crowbar.
3. Tip and lift the pieces out. If they are too big, use the sledgehammer on
them.
4. Use the broken pieces for walls or permeable walkways.
5. Scrape the top layer of soil off (toxins seep into it).
6. Mulch it well.
7. Plant.
He said he grew some fine melons in what used to be his driveway in the first
season after removing it. He suggests we start acting as if petrocollapse is
happening already. Try cutting way back on your use of fossil fuels and see what
happens.
Ed Begley jr. spoke at the event about his experiment of trying to live without
petroleum for a week. You can listen to this and Jan’s talk as well, here,
thanks to Sound Posse: http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=16328.
Jan has been trying to live without using any plastics. He now carries canvas
bags and stores his food only in glass jars, but plastics are everywhere. There
is currently 6 times as much plastic in the middle of the ocean as there is
zooplankton. Plastic pollution is killing ocean life. Plastic bags and bottles
in the ocean decay into bits the size of krill -- small, shrimp-like
crustaceans. These bits are mistaken for food by fish, mammals, and birds,
eventually choking or poisoning them.
A host of poisonous chemicals are imbedded in plastic, causing genetic damage
and disease to humans as well. We are exposed to these kinds of toxins from the
womb onward.
Phthalates are especially toxic. These are the chemicals that make plastic
flexible, like in garden hoses and rubber duckies. It’s also used in wallpaper,
furniture, deodorant, nail polish and perfume. Jan recently went on an 18 day
fast to flush out the plastics and other toxins from his body.
He says, “We have to be healthy to be able to process the pollution and the bad
news we are constantly exposed to”. Fasting done correctly can be very healing.
Hands-on solutions
Jan wrapped up his talk with some suggestions for action.
“We have to stop believing what we’re told by corporate media and the
government. Look into hands-on ways to get off fossil fuels -- like composting
to feed the soil, composting toilets, bee-keeping, grey water irrigation.
Radishes take only 60 days from seed to harvest but the time to start a garden
is before the disaster. We need to start preparing and practicing now. Some of
these techniques are illegal because of current building codes, but we can learn
about them now.”
The more we can bypass the dollar system and share skills and barter goods,
the better. This is another important tool of sustainability.” We also need to
support places like the South Central Farm, recognizing them for what they are,
sources of sustainable food security, now and in the post-carbon future.
Jan closed with another song, this one written for his daughter when she was a
tree-sitter in an old growth forest in Humboldt County. The title is a quote
from her, one that we can all keep in mind in the struggle to save the farm,
“Direct action will get the goods”.
Following Jan Lundgren, Tezozomoc, an organizer with the South Central
Farmers, spoke briefly about the situation at the farm. He said that the farm is
unusual for many reasons, one being that it combines food supply with leisure
space. Modern cities can’t imagine this when creating zoning codes, but it’s a
very old and natural way to live. The marketplace, the children’s play areas,
the meeting place, and the cropland are all together.
The struggle for the farm, Tezo said, comes down to 2 opposing paradigms: are we
about survival or about profit? Do we view nature as a living deity or as a
stockroom?
He hopes the farm can provide a third option, a synthesis that allows for
many viewpoints.
“Aqui estamos y no nos vamos!”
Thanks to the Los Angeles outpost of the Post Carbon Institute for organizing
this event. Their website http://www.LApostcarbon.org has many article and links
on how to prepare ourselves for petrocollapse. Thanks also to the South Central
Farm for hosting it.
Source: http://www.southcentralfarmers.com