[Thanks to Tess Felder for providing this article. -Ed.]

by Tess Felder

If Kilkenny is to free itself from oil dependency, it will have to come up with local solutions rather than relying on the Irish government or the EU.

And the best results will come if the initiative is taken by residents and businesses rather than just the local authorities.

This is according Daniel Lerch of the San Francisco[sic]-based Post Carbon Institute, who was speaking as part of a day-long conference 'Housing, Planning and Urban Design for a Sustainable Future' in Butler House, Kilkenny on Tuesday.

Mr Lerch addressed the situation of 'peak oil' - where the world's demand is rising but the supply is levelling and will soon fall, and where "the remaining oil isn't necessarily ours to buy".

The price of oil affects the price of petrol, plastics, tarmac and other by-products, Mr Lerch explained. For instance a relatively small rise in the price of oil in 2006 doubled or even tripled the price of tarmac in the US, with the result that road resurfacing had to be abandoned in numerous cities, with job losses at businesses contracted to carry out the work. However, the cities that had prepared for such changes were able to pave their streets and their local businesses did not suffer, Mr Lerch said.

Oil prices also affect the cost of food - an important issue as cities and towns consider the introduction and expansion of supermarkets and shops which rely on food and other goods being transported from thousands of miles away.

Mr Lerch's organisation once asked the manager of a supermarket in Portland, Oregon what effect a spike in oil prices could have on their ability to supply local people with meat, veg and other essentials.
"He said that if the price of diesel skyrocketed, we would basically have three days' stock of food on the shelves," Mr Lerch said. "For decades we have not had to think about that on a local level. We need to start thinking about that."

Actually, Portland has been working on solutions for the past three and a half decades, and Kilkenny must begin to do the same, he advised.

"Even if things aren't happening at a national level, you can still act on a local level," Mr Lerch said. "You know how much sun you get here, you know what your potential is for bio-fuels is, and they don't necessarily know that in Dublin."

He recommended that a local committee be set up to come up with ideas for local changes from which everyone could benefit.

"You can't just sit around and wait for City Hall to take care of it, let alone the national assembly."

He suggested:

• actively involving the business community in environmental solutions. (The green economy is the fastest growing sector of the US economy, he pointed out. "There is money to be made here. We have to cut down but this is not necessarily about losing money.")
• building a stronger sense of community so that people care about what happens to their city or town and those who live there
• and preserving local farmland instead of "depending on spinach that comes from 3,000 miles away".

"You can't produce everything in Kilkenny," Mr Lerch said, "but you don't have to ship it all from Shanghai."

Photo credit: Bernie Goldbach