Next First Friday

Permaculture and Post-Carbon Social Ecology

The reality of energy depletion is looming not far off on our society’s horizon. Whether the dramatic crash of fuel availability will hit hard in the coming decade or unfold a little more gradually over the next 20 to 30 years, the end of cheap energy and fossil fuel supplies is right around the corner.

Challenging transition

American culture was built on the basis of cheap fuels, endless mobility, and cheap and abundant consumer goods. The entire edifice is dependent on a constant flow of cheap energy to power everything from our coffee makers and clock radios to our hospitals, transportation systems, and industrial agriculture.

As we pass the points of peak oil and peak natural gas production within the next dozen years or so, the remaining fuel sources in the Earth will require more fuel to extract than they can yield, and fuels will become astronomically more expensive. Americans are the most affluent people in the world, but we are also the most fuel-dependent, and are thus particularly vulnerable to the sudden depletion of fuel and ill prepared to meet the challenges coming in the next few decades, beyond peak oil and natural gas production.

Strengthening communities for sustainable living

New models of food production, social relationships, work, play, and community will be the key to making a successful transition beyond the point of peak oil and natural gas production. Examples and experiments in intentional community and permaculture land systems offer powerful models that may be integral to developing a sustainable, low impact way of living in the century ahead.

Our friends Brush and Brenna from TryOn Life Community Farm in Southwest Portland will join us at First Friday to share information on their work related to permaculture and social ecology as we move toward a post-carbon world.

Close-knit communities, shared knowledge, skills, and tools, and low-impact building, transportation, and living systems will offer a way of life that is richer, more delight-full, and more hopeful than the consumer lifestyle that has been emblematic of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in the United States.

Discussing these possibilities, sharing information and ideas, and supporting initiatives and efforts in this direction will enable us to move forward toward new ways of living. It’s a remarkable undertaking, and our First Friday discussion is one small step.

Join us!

Join us at 6:00 pm at Laurelhurst Park for our last summer First Friday Community Potluck. Bring a dish to share and your own place setting. First Fridays are open to everyone; there is no charge but donations are greatly appreciated!