Review by Erica Etelson

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty
Post Carbon Press, 2007

Spend a few minutes surfing most of the peak oil websites, and you will quickly arrive at the grim conclusion that civilization is doomed, or worse—we oil-addicted humans are all going to die of starvation or be killed in the violence of a society in its death throes. Time to close your web browser and open Post Carbon Cities, a reference manual that offers a cautiously optimistic and pragmatic assessment of the looming twin crises of peak oil and climate change.

Post Carbon Cities is about what local governments, in the void left by derelict federal and state officials, can do to mitigate the impacts of anticipated fossil fuel shortages and climate uncertainty. In two succinct chapters, the book explains why we’re at the end of the era of cheap oil and gas and why this is a big problem—namely, that our economic and agricultural systems are premised on the availability of cheap fossil fuels.

Author Daniel Lerch is the program manager of the Post Carbon Institute’s Post Carbon Cities program. Lerch’s background in urban land use and planning for the relatively progressive city of Portland, Oregon is in evidence throughout this guidebook. Lerch knows his audience—city officials and bureaucrats who need a push but will not welcome a shove. Accordingly, he strikes a tone of urgency without hitting the alarmist notes that many peak oil activists strum so incessantly.

Lerch focuses on issues any city official would be concerned about—transportation, energy, and local economies. The doubling of asphalt prices may not be the most scintillating subject for the average citizen, but for city officials overseeing limited budgets; it’s anecdotes like these that make the book a page turner. (Asphalt is a petroleum byproduct, and prices for crude oil are soaring. Already, some cities have to sell bonds to raise money to resurface their streets—imagine the fix they’ll be in when crude oil hits triple digits).

The book then steers readers toward taking action to rejig their cities for oil independence, and fast. This section of the book opens with an urgent message from Beverly O’Neil, the mayor of Long Beach and president of the US Conference of Mayors: "We know that aggressive action is necessary to turn this tide, and we are taking the lead in addressing the nation’s energy challenges to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. We cannot wait on the federal government; we must do what mayors do best and act now."

Lerch uses case studies of the handful of US and Canadian cities that have established peak oil task forces charged with assessing local vulnerability to fossil fuel scarcity. From Portland, Oregon to the small towns of Willits and Sebastopol, California, a growing number of jurisdictions are responding vigorously. They are looking at issues like local food production, water access, urban redesign, mass transit improvements, local manufacturing, renewable energy purchasing, emergency preparedness, and the city’s ability to provide social services in the context of high unemployment and decreased tax revenues. But it’s not just west coast hippy towns that are jumping on the peak oil bandwagon—other leaders include Denver, CO; Hamilton, Ontario; Bloomington, IN; and Franklin, NY, along with usual suspects like San Francisco and Oakland.

Permaculturists will be glad to know that Lerch mentions climate-resilient ecosystem management techniques like tree planting, bioswales, and wetland restoration as well as the overall concept of local, sustainable economies. I would have been thrilled to see reference to grey water and rainwater harvesting, but the point of the book isn’t to dictate specific solutions so much as to prompt officials to craft their own, locally-appropriate plan. As Providence city council member Cliff Wood put it, "I think locally you just talk about anything and everything you can—I don’t know that there’s a magic bullet for it [energy uncertainty]. This is the fundamental—perhaps even defining—issue or series of issues over the next 50 years."

Though the target audience of this book is local government, it is also an invaluable tool for citizen activists. Oil Independent Berkeley bought thirty copies of the book and is distributing them to every city council member and board and commission chair as part of its campaign to convince Berkeley to start powering down. The appendix of the book has pointers on how to get a local oil depletion resolution passed and includes the text of San Francisco’s resolution. Another appendix offers advice on the composition of a peak oil task force and on how it should conduct itself.

If you’re worried about peak oil, you should be. But don’t waste your time ordering peak oil survival kits off the internet. Get this book, and share it with your local officials. We’ve all got a lot of work of to do.

Erica Etelson is a journalist, permaculture student and founder of Oil Independent Berkeley.

Thanks to Erica Etelson and Permaculture Activist's Peter Bane for permission to reprint.