Planning for likely high oil prices and reduced supply of oil is essential to avoid the worst consequences and ensure public services can be provided in a timely and economic manner. Maribyrnong Council's Peak Oil Policy and Action Plan describes how they will continue to deliver community programs and services in spite of global oil price increases.

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.

In June, 2008, a 5-day national training session will take place at Tufts University to increase citizen and planner leadership capacity in communities and their local governments to initiate and lead a change process to become a sustainable community. This sustainable communities approach has a substantial track record of successful implementation – possibly the most extensive in the world - in over 100 municipalities in Sweden, U.S., and around the world. The objective of the training is to prepare potential local leaders – including citizens, local officials, planners, or municipal staff – to be able to lead a process involving sustainability education, communication, and a strategic implementation process.

Energy-efficient houses are the law in Freiburg, Germany; new regulations may require that new houses waste no more than 40kWh/m2 per year. Residents cycle and recycle, and the designs of two eco-developments - Vauban and Rieselfeld - are meant to make personal automobiles unnecessary. Solar panels on roofs bring in income for residents - it's all part of a green ethic built on decades of political will and citizen involvement.

Much discussion about post-peak oil futures has to do with transportation, food, or energy. But what about information and community? This thought-provoking article from the Library Journal goes into some of the ramifications of energy uncertainty and economic decline on the library system, and how public libraries could be key institutions in the uncertain future.

Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition movement in the UK, "transition" being the term for a process of creating more resilient and self-reliant communities. The handbook is a good guide and motivator to making changes at the local level and includes a compelling argument that peak oil and climate change must be addressed together.

An article by Transportation Alternatives in the Brooklyn Eagle explains the rationale behind and strategy of the Complete Streets movement, which seeks to reclaim street space for pedestrians, cyclists, the disabled, and surface transit.

The compact, walkable neighborhood built around public transit rather than the private car has long been one of the ideals of new urbanism. Now significant new research confirms with hard numbers the advantage of transit-oriented development over conventional suburbia. With the United States in the midst of a light-rail building boom, it’s a great time to be finding this out.

On January 31st, Focus the Nation is organizing a national teach-in about global warming. Universities, high schools, middle schools, faith groups and businesses will devote time on that day to education about climate change. A teach-in is a day when an entire school turns its attention to a single issue -— when faculty, students and staff put aside business as usual, and focus the full weight of campus engagement on one topic, in this case, a topic with weighty implications for all of our futures.

The Natural Step for Communities is a guide to applying the science- and democratic process-based Natural Step framework to achieve more sustainable towns and communities. Full of concrete examples of localities where the framework has been put to use, it is an easy and compelling read, and the Natural Step formulation is a useful tool for explaining sustainability concerns.