Transition Racine Wants a More Sustainable Future

Imagine going to the gas station in the distant future and paying more than double the current $3.70 price per gallon average to fill up your tank. Or, worse yet, not being able to buy gas at all because the station has run out.

That’s the future that a Racine group is working to avoid – and one they’re trying to make you aware of now. Transition Racine is part of a nationwide network of grassroots community initiatives designed to build sustainable practices.

The group is seeking to mitigate future global crises by engaging communities now to increase their self-reliance and resilience. Racine’s group, in particular, is concerned about a concept called “peak oil.

“I had heard this term called peak oil, and I didn’t know what it was,” said Transition Racine member Rees Roberts. “I started doing research, and I was surprised by what I found.”

Peak oil refers to a concept wherein the amount of newly discoverable oil in the world for which we can drill peaks – and after which, less oil will be drilled and refined into gasoline for our vehicles. Roberts says we’re close to that point.

"We have used half of the available oil, and that half has been the easiest and cheapest to extract," he said. "After the peak, the other half will still be there to use but will only be more expensive to retrieve."

The group meets on the second Monday of every month, and is so concerned about energy issues, that they will be the topic of this month’s discussion. The group will host “Analysis of Nuclear Power” from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 8 at the Gateway Technical College – Racine Campus, 1001 Main St., in Mount Pleasant.

University of Wisconsin-Parkside Professor Emeritus Morris Firebaugh will discuss whether nuclear power should be another energy option in the future. The lecture is open to the public.

Roberts said the topic of discussing nuclear energy wasn’t spurred by the recent nuclear disaster in Japan in March, but rather because energy issues deserve everyone’s attention now.

“The amount of newly discoverable oil will follow a bell curve,” Roberts said. “The cost of oil will be much more expensive in the future because of the increase in Earth’s population. The demand will be much higher than the supply, which equals higher prices.”

The fact that our population relies on a large volume of petroleum-based products also means we’ll be vulnerable, Roberts said. On average, food travels 1,500 miles to its destination and 70 percent of the consumption of oil is used for transportation. Racine County only has access locally to about two percent of its food needs, Roberts said.

To solve the problem, Roberts said, we need a Plan B.

“We need to help create a new blueprint to try and replace global resources,” Roberts said. “We need to create a plan now so we don’t get surprised by this. The challenges will be difficult, but we see unprecedented opportunity.”

Roberts said Transition Racine would like to work in the future with municipalities like Racine and Mount Pleasant to come up with a power-down scenario, or a way of exploring alternative energy sources. The best scenario would be to create an Energy Defense Action Plan, which would outline specific changes that make sense to the community, Roberts added.

The group also encourages the replacement of global resources with local ones. Roberts said one of the group’s aims is to help bring the community together to use the intellect of the people who live there to create solutions that work for that community.

“Every community is different,” Roberts said. “If we do it on a community basis, we just might have a chance. This is not a doomsday scenario, but an opportunity to find a new blueprint for our lives. We just hope people will join us.”

Click here to watch a video from the founder of the Transition movement in the UK.