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Energy Descent Action Planning for Hepburn Shire Final Report Energy Descent Action Planning for Hepburn Shire Final Report October 2011 David Holmgren & Ian Lillington !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 16 Fourteenth St, Hepburn Victoria. 3461 HOLMGREN DESIGN SERVICES Phone: 03 53483636 Email: [email protected] the source of permaculture vision and innovation Web site: www.holmgren.com.au !"#$%&'%()*+!&,-&.(-/$01"%2&(%3+03&(42&5.67&(!3+#+03&7(3%+!8&9"4$0&& &'! 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Energy Descent Action Planning for Hepburn Shire: Final Report October 2011 Holmgren Design Services page "#$% !"# $%&'%(&)# ! Holmgren Design Services undertook a consultancy for Hepburn Shire between April and October 2011 to assist the ESAC1 to develop a pathway for an Energy Descent Action Plan. The world has passed the peak in oil supply making petrol and oil-derivatives more expensive. With no easily scalable alternatives of comparable cost to substitute for cheap oil, every aspect of the economy and society is changing in predictable and unpredictable ways. The ongoing global financial crisis is one major predicted consequence of peak oil. Climate change is already impacting our communities and is predicted to increase with or without international agreements. Energy Descent is recognised as a term describing a range of futures with less energy, more unstable climates, a reversal of globalisation and contracting economies over many decades if not centuries. Localisation is the process by which more expensive and less reliable transport and travel will lead to growth in small-scale local economies. This is widely agreed to be the most likely consequence of energy descent. Re-localisation recognises that local, especially rural communities have the past experience, motivation and skills to turn the problems of energy descent into solutions. Resilience is the ability to survive and rebound from shock and change. In energy descent futures, resilience replaces efficiency as the most important characteristic driving re- localising economies. Within Hepburn Shire many people informed by environmental and social ethics are already organising their families, properties, work and finances in ways that will be advantageous in energy descent futures. Many others maintain traditional and resilient patterns of life and work that are key assets for energy descent. Energy Descent Action Planning {EDAP} draws together these diverse actions for more secure communities based on locally available resources. "#"! !$%&!'()*+,$-)$*! David Holmgren is internationally recognised as the co-originator of the permaculture concept that underpinned and informed Energy Descent Action Planning and the Transition movement. His more recent Future Scenarios work is continuing to inform how communities and local governments around the world plan for energy descent. This consultancy was an opportunity to explore more effective ways to plan for energy descent by building on the critical mass of local people, projects and activism that could 1 Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Energy Descent Action Planning for Hepburn Shire: Final Report October 2011 Holmgren Design Services page $#$% be seen as the building blocks of more conscious energy descent action planning. David was assisted by Ian Lillington to run the workshop, edit the earlier reports and compile this report. Ian brings experience from local and overseas transition groups, as well as teaching about energy descent in educational institutions. We have been influencers, co-participants and observers of EDAP and Transition developments elsewhere and have incorporated our learnings in the discussion papers and this final report. We see many possibilities for pathways from here; what is certain is that they won’t look like existing models. The ‘Hepburn Model’ already is unique. Although this consultancy may have raised as many questions as it has answered, its usefulness to the ESAC and Hepburn Shire Council are by no means limited to the work done so far. In particular, the longer discussion paper which distills the substantial pro- bono component of this consultancy is likely
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