It’s been an interesting few months, hasn’t it?

I don’t suppose you need me to tell you that fuel prices are horrendous, and that the cost of heating your home or filling up your car rises week on week. Then of course we had the Grangemouth refinery strikes, the threat of the pumps running dry and the panic buying which ensued. Food isn’t getting any cheaper either and it’s increasingly apparent that there’s actually a pretty massive global food crisis going on. If you drive a big car, you’ll no doubt be paying higher taxes and the cheap holiday deals to which we’ve become accustomed look set to become a thing of the past.

I recently stumbled across a wee clip on YouTube (below) which depicts a car trundling up a pretty steep hill. We begin at the start of the last century and as we reach 2008 the image of the car becomes bigger, faster, more expensive. Then just beyond 2008, the steep hill begins to level out at the top and the big gas guzzler trundles over the edge of a pretty sheer cliff never to be seen again. The image then pans out to let us see the full image of the hill (or perhaps mountain) and what appears is a spectrum of global oil production since the beginning of the last century to the present day.

And what is it suggesting? Well, it’s suggesting that maybe, just maybe, we’ve arrived at the point where we’ve discovered all the oil that there is left to discover in the world. It’s also suggesting that our society has become so accustomed to using that oil that we’re going to use up what’s left pretty quickly. Disagree? I challenge you to look round the room you’re in and find something that isn’t in some way connected to oil.

Which leaves us with something of a choice, I suppose. We can either brace ourselves for the impact, or we can start trying to find some local solutions to the problem. Some people seem to have adopted some sort of Ostrich position, deciding that we’ll invest in exploration and find more oil. It’s a response driven by the perceived need to safeguard our economy. Well, I’m not really all that happy about putting my eggs in that basket, so maybe I’ll start a bit closer to home. Because I genuinely believe that’s where the answers lie. Local solutions to global problems.

I don’t have the solutions yet. I’m not convinced that a solution for me will be a solution for you – when was life ever that easy? But I am pretty convinced that the world we live in today, the world driven by economic growth and GDP, won’t be the same as the world I’ll be living in five or ten years from now. There’s no way it can be. I’d be inclined to take the stance of a guy called David Korten who believes that if we concentrate on growing strong, healthy, resilient local communities, then health, well-being and the economy will follow.

It’s going to be an interesting few years, isn’t it?