In the olden days of yore – say 50 years ago – when fossil fuels were cheap and perceived as plentiful, the potential problems caused by the delocalization of housing, energy production, food supply and other essential community resources just didn’t seem much of a threat.

At 30-cents per gallon, American families in 1950 were pleased to move from the congestion of the cities to the great open spaces of suburbia. The cost to drive the smog-spewing family auto to and from home, work and play was a minor impact on the family budget.

And in our post World War II euphoria, we fell in love with this new-found freedom of travel, as we fell in love with our exploding economy that brought into our homes an endless mountain of luxuries that became the worldwide definition of the American Dream. And that love blinded us to the environmental impacts of the processes needed to produce those goods. Our land, air and water experienced levels of pollution we had not known before.

As time passed, with trucks, trains, buses and planes available to inexpensively transport the food for our daily table from across the country and around the globe, support for local farmers became less of a priority for a majority of Americans, even those who proudly displayed the flag on holidays and wore the label of “patriot” with pride.

And a few decades farther down the road to delocalization – as the 20th century was coming to a close – gas was still hovering around $1 per gallon, and labor costs in foreign lands were far less expensive than here at home. American corporate and political leaders, seeing these cheaper avenues of production far from our shores, had no qualms at sending the manufacture of clothing, home furnishings, electronics and many other items that previously bore the “Made in the USA” tag to factories located halfway around the world.

Cheap production meant low prices and mass consumption. Mass consumption meant mass production. The economy continued to flourish.

My, how things have changed. Today, with $4 per gallon gas a commonality of daily life, it appears that delocalization might not have been such a shrewd move. Those dependent on the auto are fighting back by driving less, and trading in the old gas-hog luxury cars, pickups and SUVs for more petrol-efficient models. Families who moved far from their relatives are finding the cost to get back for a visit becoming more and more prohibitive. Transit Oriented Development – density around train stations – has replaced suburbia as the hip new housing option.

And just about every product you buy for your family or your business comes with a substantially higher price tag, due to the need to offset the increased energy costs that impact the production and transport of those items that were once so affordable.

Tragically, our environment shows the impact of our consumer-driven follies at least as dramatically as our economy. The cheap oil that drove mass production, heated our ever-larger homes and fueled the autos that clogged our highways has contributed mightily to a global warming crisis that threatens epic changes to life on our planet if not reversed very soon.

Among the most pressing threats to our economy and our environment is a phenomenon known as “peak oil.” Many environmentalists and energy experts believe that the world has reached – or will soon reach – its peak of oil production capabilities, after which time the black gold will be less plentiful and more expensive to extract from the ground.

In the mid-1950s, according to an article in the Asia Times in May 2005, “... the world was consuming 4 billion barrels of oil per year, and the average (annual) discovery was around 30 billion. Today, we consume 30 billion barrels per year and the discovery rate is approaching 4 billion barrels of crude per year.”

Thus, the theory goes, the price of oil will continue to rise ever faster, and though producing countries will attempt to maintain existing levels of flow from declining reservoirs, availability will eventually become limited. Transportation costs will become prohibitive, preventing consumers from easily and cheaply obtaining goods and services that had long become a part of their daily lives. Fossil-fuel powered transportation will become a luxury.

“There are some 90 oil-producing countries around the world,” said Boulder-based environmentalist Michael Brownlee. “About 60 of them have already hit peak and are in decline. We (America) get some 60 percent of our oil from others, so with an economy that’s been based on cheap oil – and with $200-$500 per barrel oil on the horizon – it appears things are going to have to change.”

A journalist with a background in personal growth and development, Brownlee believes it will take much more than increased recycling and switching to low-energy light bulbs to stabilize our economy, deal with our environmental issues, and prepare for life in a post-peak world.

Searching for a way to address the issues at hand, in 2005 Brownlee became aware of a new movement – Transition Initiatives – that was taking hold in Totnes, England, a town of 8,000, under the guiding hand of British educator Rob Hopkins. The Transition Initiatives program provides a framework assisting communities in moving towards a future based on “localized food production, sustainable energy sources, resilient local economies and an enlivened sense of community well-being.”

Brownlee states, “One of the most severe impacts of economic globalization is the destruction of community. It’s our most endangered resource.”

Since its inception some three years ago in Totnes, the Transition Initiatives program has resulted in the establishment of some 100 Transition Towns in the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Argentina and the U.S. Nearly 900 other localities have expressed an interest in participating in the movement.

In 2006, Brownlee and his partner, Lynette Marie Hanthorn, spearheaded the creation of Boulder Going Local, which has since morphed into a more wide-reaching group, Transition Boulder County, the first Transition Town in the U.S.

Groups wanting to work toward a Transition Town designation are directed to begin an aggressive campaign of public information, to not only present the chilling concepts of peak oil and global warming to those who will listen, but to let concerned citizens know that all is not lost. There is life after peak oil.

Hopkins’ program encourages individuals to remain positive, “to take action without playing the doom and gloom card,” said Brownlee, who last summer went to England with Hanthorn and participated in a Transition Training Workshop directed by associates of Professor Hopkins.

“People often become immobilized when they first are presented with the reality of the challenges we are facing,” said Brownlee, “But once they see that there are positive actions they can take to address the situation, the depression and negativity begin to fade away quickly.”

Reskilling a community is a major tenet of the Transition effort. Such practical skills as repairing (meaning everything from worn-out clothing to broken down automobiles and appliances), construction, and gardening are re-taught as essential tools to prepare a community to be more responsible for meeting its own needs.

The program provides a context in which those who wish to take action can learn how to take advantage of alternative energy sources, and a variety of methods to not only reduce their own carbon footprint, but to encourage the community in which they are living to take similar action.

Recognizing that to truly make the quantum leap changes necessary to rescue the world from the grip of post-peak oil requires a buy-in from government, Transition Initiative participants are advised to involve their local representatives as part of the solution, rather than simply eschew them as an immovable part of the problem.

Since Brownlee and Hanthorn put Boulder County on the Transition bandwagon, Transition Towns have sprung up in Sandpoint and Ketchum, Idaho; and Santa Cruz, California, with other locales coming on line in the near future. Along the Front Range, Transition Initiatives are gaining strength in Louisville, Longmont, Gunbarrel, at Naropa Institute in Boulder, at the University of Colorado, and, recently, here in Denver.

Dana Miller is part of Transition Denver, a group that meets regularly at the Mountain View Meeting House at 2280 S. Columbine St. Miller was introduced to the concept of peak oil at an EarthWorks festival at the Denver Merchandise Mart last year. She stumbled upon Transition Initiatives in a search to find a way “to live in an energy-depleted future, so that life is even better than today.”

Miller and her cohorts are actively involved in the public information effort, holding bi-weekly programs open to the public. One recent Friday night, those gathered heard the gospel of decarbonization from Leslie Glustrom, a biochemist who has given up her job to give her best effort at ensuring, among other things, that Xcel Energy makes good on promises to be more environmentally friendly as it goes about its mission of energy production.

Glustrom is not afraid to ring the alarm bell. “We’re frying the only planet we have,” said Glustrom. “If that was your truck, or your sick child that was heating up, you’d do something about it, wouldn’t you?” She maintains that Colorado has the ability to meet our electrical needs with concentrated solar power alone. “When you hear it, said, ‘We can’t do it with solar power'; they’re wrong,” insists Glustrom. “In the 1940s we transitioned from a peacetime economy to wartime in 24 months. It depends on public will.”

Andy Bardwell is a statistician with a background in construction. He and his wife, Nancy LaPlaca, “stumbled" on Transition Town about a year ago. "We’ve been talking to Brownlee and others," said Bardwell, "but Dana (Miller) provided the spark (for Transition Denver).

“I don’t think anyone knows the level of economic disruption coming,” he continued. “I like that the Transition Town model acknowledges the importance of visualizing the solution, or people just can’t look at the problem.”

Bardwell sees the answer for a sustainable future in the mix of available alternative technologies, listing “concentrated solar, tidal, wind and geothermal” among the likely places to look for a breakthrough.

Although the Transition Town movement has worked with communities as large as 400,000 people (Bristol, England), Bardwell sees “qualitative differences in the problems of transitioning a big city. I’ve asked (James) Kunstler, Lester Brown and Richard Heinberg (noted authors with an environmental bent), ‘What do we do with cities?’ None of them had an answer.”

But Bardwell agrees with the premise that the community has the resources to devise a solution. “We start working on it. We have one advantage in a city, and that is the wealth of human capital.”

“The real problem is political will. I grew up thinking there was beneficence more than greed and avarice. It doesn’t look like that’s the case. If we don’t get over that hurdle,” he said, “I want out. So much depends on leadership.”

A pair of Transition Denver programs will be held this month at Mountain View Meeting House, 2280 S. Columbine St.

Oct. 10, Carol Tombari, energy policy expert and author of Power of The People: America’s New Electricity Choices. Bring something to share for a community potluck at 6p.m.; Tombardi will speak at 7p.m.

On Oct. 24, also at the meeting house, stop by at 6:30p.m. for root beer floats and popcorn, and catch a showing of Crude Awakening, a look at the planet’s dwindling oil resources. Donations welcome. Call Dana Miller, 303-300-3547 or email pompomdana@comcast.net with questions.