February 2007 - Featured Post Carbon Group -- Post-Carbon London (Ontario)

Post-Carbon London got started in the summer of 2006, focusing initially on educating people about how to address peak oil locally. The group has done a number of film screenings and lectures, and has been actively engaged in getting peak oil issues onto the table in municipal elections.

Toban Black and the Post-Carbon London steering committee sent us an update on the group’s activities so far, and their plans for the future:

Post-Carbon London organizers began meeting in the summer of 2006 to discuss how to address peak oil locally.  We decided to focus our efforts on informing the community about peak oil.  To this end, our group organized a series of fall events, the first of which included a screening of The End of Suburbia and a discussion between the audience and film producer Barry Silverthorn.

Two days later we held a Post-Carbon London fundraiser screening of Who Killed the Electric Car? at the Hyland Cinema, an independent movie theatre here in London. Our next event was a forum where two presenters – Randy Park, member of Post Carbon Toronto, and Richard Embleton – spoke with the community about peak oil issues. Politicians running for a fall municipal election also attended this forum event to speak with the audience.

As Post-Carbon London raised peak oil issues last fall – at events (a few of which have not been mentioned because we did not organize them), through display boards set up in the community to inform people about Post-Carbon London and peak oil, and through local media outlets that were open to what we had to say – we tried to influence the agenda of local municipal election campaigning that was happening at the time. One approach we took to linking our efforts to the municipal election was to prepare questionnaires for candidates, whom we also encouraged to attend our events.

After our film/Q&A event and our presentation/Q&A event, we hosted roundtable discussions to bring together community members who were concerned about fossil fuel dependency. At this roundtable event, we focused on deciding how to proactively respond to problems surrounding fossil fuels. Point form notes written during these discussions were typed and posted to our web site.

After a busy fall, the Post-Carbon London organizers set about trying to build a more formally structured organization that could tie together the various projects that we hope community members will initiate and help with in 2007. We will be working to collaborate with other groups while serving as an incubator for initiatives and discussion, rather than acting as a stand-alone organization.

Upcoming Post-Carbon London events include monthly discussion meetings on selected topics, municipal ward workshops on community energy planning and a series of environmental film showings in partnership with the Council of Canadians.

For more information about Post-Carbon London, or to get in touch with the steering committee, visit us online at relocalize.net/groups/londoncan.