Some of our closest friends have remarked upon how our new (to them at least) calling is similar to what we’d be like if we’d have just found Jesus. Namely that we’re quite vocal about it and that we can’t help ourselves from trying to educate others.

This really made us stop and think for a moment. Do we really want to alienate our friends or others that we come into contact with? Ackers & Bealers fully paid up members of the knit your own yoghurt brigade?

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I found out today that I’ve been accepted onto the Renewable Energy and the Built Environment MSc course at the Centre for Alternative Technology Starting in Sept. I’m really chuffed as I don’t have a degree so I had to rely on my commercial experience to be accepted onto it and it’ll also allow me to right the wrong of dropping out of my Computer Science BSc course many moons ago.

I’m doing it over 2 years part-time so I can juggle it with community work, family life, some fee earning external work too.

If all goes well then this qualification coupled with what I learn as we try to take Trelay off-grid should give me enough experience to set-up as a renewable energy consultant in the coming years. I suspect it’s the sort of role that will become more and more in demand as time goes on…

Oof, punch in the stomach time. Well that’s how I felt after watching What a Way to Go last night. I still have the phrase “There is no happy chapter” echoing in my head…

Initially I thought it was Yet Another Peak Oil Movie but it soon became apparent that it was much more. It’s like a two hour poem with a documentary sandwiched in between that covers not only (what we’re finding to be) standard peak-oil theory but also a great deal on climate change, population growth, water shortage and – this is where it’s unique compared to the other things we’ve consumed on the subject – it goes into considerable detail into the root causes of the problem and likens our collective denials of the evident problems to a herd-like hallucination.

I’m probably not explaining this very well so I’ll defer to a great review over on EnergyBulletin that puts it much better:

I have seen a number of films on Peak Oil, climate change and the other ills of our society and planet (yes, even Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s Oscar-winning “An Inconvenient Truth”), but none has moved me so much as this one. While it does include some facts and figures, it primarily deals with the human psyche—the emotional and spiritual pain experienced by those living in, or victims of, industrially civilized countries. The film builds a deep emotional and spiritual connection between the viewer and the planet on which we live, and the fellow creatures of all forms with whom we share life on this planet. It becomes clear that the suffering we experience as humans is shared by the entire biosphere. Because of the beliefs which have entrapped us, we are alienated not only from nature, but from each other and, indeed, from our true internal nature. What we have done to our planet we have also done to ourselves.

….

“What a Way to Go” is a two-hour poem of great power and beauty. It is the story of a personal journey, yet a journey that is also deeply universal. A journey that encompasses ignorance, awareness, fear, depression, denial, grief and despair. But when denial can no longer be maintained, and grief and despair can no longer be endured, there remain two options. Once is self-destruction; the other action. The narrator chooses action.

Action. There’s that word again. Soon we’ll finish the sitting on ass preparation phase of our coming  journey and get into action. I tell you it can’t come soon enough.

“If we don’t change the direction we’re going, we’re likely to end up where we are headed.” -Chinese Proverb

p.s. If you do watch it then see if you can spot the most unfortunate jumper ever. Trust me you’ll know it when you see it.

Thanks to the continuing wonders of Twitter I stumbled across EnergyBulletin.net today. The offending tweet (thanks Ed) contained a link to one of its articles (which is superb) but it’s the peak oil primer that really caught my eye.

Of all the reading we’ve done I’d say that this was the most succinct and easily accessible I’ve seen. It’s an excellent place to start and is packed full of links to continue research afterwards.

I couldn’t help but note this under the What can be done? section:

Intentional Community (IC) is an inclusive term for ecovillages, cohousing, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives and other related projects and dreams… ICs represent one of the sanest ways of dealing with energy peak.

If you’re looking for a quick intro to the subject, this is it.

I stumbled across the PowerSwitch website this evening which seems to have a well supported forum and lots of UK specific Peak Oil background information.

I thought that their Personal Energy Descent Plan was particularly interesting.

Here’s how they describe it:

When confronted with the implications of the decline of global oil supplies, it can initially be terrifying to any individual. With the foreknowledge of this scenario, you can take steps to minimise your exposure to the problems that will come.

PowerSwitch has put together this Personal Energy Descent Plan to help you develop your own approach for preparing for the oil and gas decline. We have kept it simple, enough to give you ideas and directions on what to do with your knowledge of Peak Oil. You can’t expect yourself to implement this all in a hurry, but you will be at an advantage by preparing early. It will not be easy, but it will be rewarding.

A lot of this will involve measures not absolutely necessary now, but which will get you ready for when it is. You may even wonder why you should start ‘doing without’, especially since any pressure you relieve off the system will be used up by others. It is all about preparing yourself and your expectations.

This is all presented as a list but an entire book on this subject can be written. No such specific book exists yet, but the good thing is that there are many books out there that cover the different aspects of this plan.

There are many people taking the Energy Descent Road, willing to offer help and advice. You may find them in your family, your local community or even on the Internet in places such as the PowerSwitch forum.

It’s an excellent document. I think we should try the no power for 24 hours one soon, though that does sound *really* hard.

I spent the weekend with the twins at Trelay for a ‘new wave’ weekend where all stage 1 members like us got together to discuss many things relating to our possible lives together there.

It was really exciting to see that all of the new members share similar aims in terms of sustainability and resilience and also comforting to find them all to be nice, warm & really interesting and skilled people in their respective fields.We had a judge, some professional gardeners, a woodsman, a nurse and a (sustainable) heating engineer plus of course someone with really useful skills like web development, erm, no…. wait.

5 couples were fully or partially represented (Ackers was in Weymouth doing the unpleasant job of sorting out her recently deceased gran’s house) so should they all move on site full-time as we intend to then Trelay’s population is going to almost double.

We discussed a range of topics on our own and with existing members including conflict resolution, managing community work, where we’d all live and plans for the eco hostel amongst many other things.

We all agreed that it was really luxurious being able to discuss these important but relatively simple topics knowing that the foundations for the community were already in place and working.

I came away exhausted – it was like a 3 day job interview whilst being responsible for two six year olds -  but also positive and hopeful in equal measure that it’ll all work out and we’ll all be moving in this year.

Over this weekend we’ve almost finished transferring over the hand written diary entries so with only a few left to do we felt that it wouldn’t hurt to open it up, web 2 beta style. A custom theme is planned so we can then ditch this default blog theme.

Our current status is that we’ve applied and been accepted as stage 1 members of a community in Cornwall and that we’re going to spend as much time as we can down there between now and September 2009 prior to becoming full members in time for the start of the kid’s school year.

In terms of what this blog will contain we plan to have brief diary entries for both of us as we tackle community living, learning oodles of new skills and get used to what is inevitably going to be a harder life; links to things we’ve discovered or reviews of books we’ve read and also more formal articles where we’ll offer more detailed commentary and opinion.

We’re nervous about what we’re letting ourselves in for but also excited that we’re about to start a big new adventure.

Hopefully we won’t screw up.

@edmittance tweeted a link to a trailer of the upcoming Transition movie last night.

Unsuprisingly the trailer conveys a positive message and uses words like local, hope, resiliance & solutions. The movie premieres on Friday 22nd May as a live web broadcast which is, incidentally, the same day that we’re hoping to be in Bristol attending @robeam‘s The Age Of Stupid screening at a pub in Totterdown.

A great 25 minute interview (edging towards diatribe)  by David Holmgren co-originator of the permaculture concept. He is very eloquent and succinct in his summary of peak oil & where permaculture fits in though you’ll probably get most benefit from watching this if you’ve already a grasp of the basic concepts.

Of particular interest is his comparison between now and the 1930′s depression (around 4:45). He goes against the accepted wisdom that artificially increased economic activity (lets call that spending) in a Keynsyan-like orgy will pull the world out of depression much like it did in the 30′s where – arguably – the 2nd world war dragged the US back from the economic brink. He argues that back then it was in a context of massively increasing energy availability and that now the direct opposite is true so we can’t rely on things panning out the same way.