Gas $5/gal by end of 2012, $3/gal at Christmas

I just read an article on the front page of the business section, New Year’s Eve Minneapolis Star & Tribune.  Overheard a couple of women talking at the Senior Center, expressing concerns about the impact on everything from commuting and travel to the impact on cost of living related to food prices and all the stuff we consume that’s manufactured overseas. 

Once you start thinking about everything we live on and how it relates to the price of oil, lining up at the gas station almost pales a bit in comparison.  When Richard Heinberg spoke at the Ballroom in November, he mentioned the best way to double our mileage is to add a 2nd person in the car — thinking person miles per gallon rather than vehicle miles per gallon. At our November World Cafe I learned about the rail conversation in Northfield, the Dan Patch line isn’t a conversation about building light rail.  It’s a question about lifting a moratorium against even studying the feasibility of using existing heavy rail to transport people to the Cities and the SW metro, areas the Metro Express currently doesn’t serve.  Conversations like these might help out a bit with commuting people, but what about commuting goods?

Wondering what will happen to the price and availability of food, our capacity to maintain comfortable temperatures in our homes, and forcommercial farmers to raise their crops (agriculture is heavily dependent on petro chemicals).  What about all the plastic stuff (oil based), and the imported goods? 

The Transition Movement is about gathering neighbors and friends together to take back our future, with energy focused on developing a vision of what we can do to relocalize our economy/needs/food/daily stuff of life, and then going out and doing it!  The more folks involved in crafting the vision, the great our potential success — we need the collective wisdom of our community to get through this.  Watch our calendar for meetings and events, or sign up for our email group to share your wisdom!