Probability of scarce gasoline fuels DDATT discussion

DEXTER — The challenge of imagining what challenges Dexter would face if the current supply of gas and diesel was no longer available attracted over 20 citizens to the Abbott Memorial Library on November’s first Friday evening. The objective of the gathering was to imagine the impact of fuel scarcity on Dexter so as to begin the process of planning for getting by with less energy than we use now. Thoughts ranged from fearful to hopeful as the group carefully shared personal perspectives and experiences.

Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) has been sponsoring community discussions since 2009 on this core issue of our over-dependence on imported forms of energy. Ed Hummel of Garland noted that Dexter was self sufficient 130 years ago, with about the same number of people living here as now, but using water and muscle and solar power (photosynthesis) for all its energy needs. What we consider “normal” energy consumption today is not “normal” for the history of human civilisation (because we’ve only had fossil fuels easily and cheaply available for the past 100 years or so), but we are fearful of making any changes to our consumption patterns.

Food production, transportation and water supply headed the list of topics mentioned, as well as the differences between rural and town dwellers. What role would electricity play? Would Dexter’s water power be useful? How would people get around? Will the area’s aging population need more young people to provide muscle power?

Two hours of the evening was not long enough to provide solutions for these and many more questions, but it was enough to demonstrate serious interest among the participants for more discussion time in the near future. For more discussion details contact info@ddatt.org.

The next scheduled DDATT meeting is the first Friday of December (Dec. 2), when the locally produced film “Peak Oil: A Love Story” will make its tri-county premier at the Abbott Memorial Library starting at 6 p.m. No doubt this movie will provide fuel for more thought provoking discussion.

DDATT’s mission is to help ourselves rethink and reshape our community as we all move (consciously or not) away from being consumers to being contributors. For more information on DDATT and future events, email info@ddatt.org to get on list or call 277-4221 or 924-3836.