Follow Up:

October 30, 2009

Post Peak Film and Lecture Series Showing of Kiss Your Gas Goodbye

Sustainable Berea and the SENS program from Berea College teamed up to present the “Building
Post Peak Berea Film and Lecture Series”. The Goals of the series was to educate members of the
community on practical Power-down strategies to reduce the community’s dependence on oil
production and distribution. The series will also help community members recognize where they
would be vulnerable as the oil supply continues to decrease and the price of gas and oil increases,
so that they can develop practical strategies to increase the Resilience of the Community of Berea
through relocalisation and better efficiency of the City’s businesses and homes.

Kiss Your Gas

Goodbye
Friday, October 30, 2009
@ Berea Public Library, 6:30 PM

Background Info on the Film:

During the film, Kiss Your Gas Goodbye, Richard Heinberg discusses the end of the fossil fuels.
His graphs reveal not only declining global oil and other energy sources, but also many other
critical resources like minerals, fresh water and topsoil. Noting that all previous civilizations
have collapsed, he lays out three possible scenarios for the future. He concludes with resilience
strategies including energy substitution and economic relocalisation, as we embark on the most
challenging energy transition humanity have ever faced.
 Overview

22 students and community members filled the auditorium of the Madison County
Public Library to view the film. Afterward, Finnley Hayes of Berea’s Sustainable
Appalachian Communities course (taught by Richard Olson) led the discussion of
strategies individuals could make to reduce their energy consumption. Strategies
included;

• buying local food or creating edible gardens to reduce CO2 production from
distribution, industrial agriculture, and relocalisation

• reducing meat consumption by eliminating one meal with meat to reduce the
production of methane emissions of cattle and using natural fertilizers

• insulating homes, reducing windows and retrofitting homes to make

household more energy efficient in order to cut down on energy waste and
save money

• changing to cfl or led light bulbs to reduce the 90+% of energy wasted from
incandescent light bulbs

• turning off appliances, such as computers, curling irons, disc players, etc
before you leave home

• putting appliances on a strip outlet to turn them all off simultaneously when
you’re not home or sleeping

• making use of new tax deductions given for purchasing all electric cars

• shutting off water when lathering hands and brushing teeth

• pushing local governments to begin building infrastructure for reduced

energy consumption and oil dependency through public policy

• performing oil audits on homes to discover where individuals were wasting

the most non renewable energy –so that they could be aware of where they
would be financially hit the hardest as the price of oil continues to increase

• changing out inefficient water heaters with more efficient models or

converting to solar heating

• reskilling, or learning to grow edible gardens, canning, or learning crafts to

produce household needs in the home

• participating in the local farmer’s market

 • using low flow shower heads or low flow aerators on household sinks

• increasing discussions with local community members at future film showings

or getting in touch with groups that are already active –like Sustainable Berea
to learn more about what you could be doing to reduce energy consumption,
save money and collaborate with community experts

• putting up rain barrels around your drainage pipes to capture rain water

• and the list goes on….

Viewers were encouraged to participate in discussions about many other ideas and
seemed actively engaged in coming to future Post Peak Berea discussions to further
work on collaborating upon ideas. Many of the ideas listed were included, among
others, for reducing household dependence upon oil and natural gas powered
energy and contributing less to mountain top removal. Community members
seemed to be very receptive toward more future participation and were very
engaged in the discussions. The participants were also encouraged given brochures
and encouraged to check out the Sustainable Berea website and Post Peak Berea
blog site for more information on community initiatives and information about peak
oil. The participants were also very pleased with the door prizes of cfls, Sustainable
Berea calendars (the newest edition), and gift baskets of local honey, green
cleaners and cosmetics.

Challenges:

Although the turnout was better than expected for the grassroots and viral
marketing techniques on Facebook, one community member, who only heard about
the series within 2 hours of the event wished that the event had have been
marketed better to give her more time for planning. Her information was recorded
to ensure that she would be notified in a prompt manner of upcoming events and
she was also given a brochure with the blog site information, where the showing
dates are listed. Of the Facebook invitees, 7 of the 9 confirmed guests attended,
but there is some speculation that this might be due to programming conflicts with
Halloween festivities and the campus production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
For the next showing: Transforming Local Businesses we will work to devise a better
marketing strategy for community members who don’t have readily available
access to internet or local businesses in the City of Berea. This may mean talking
with local business owners about how they promote their local events and
collaborating with the Berea tourism and the Berea Chamber of Commerce. It was
recommended that it would also be beneficial to invite College Faculty, Local
Churches and Campus Center Directors and environmental groups such as MASED,
KEF, KFTC, and KySES to find out what other groups within the region work on
initiatives such as this and send them invitations in a timely fashion. One
participant recommended doing repeat showings of tonight’s film and discussion
series. This may be a good time to find more hosts for the Post Peak Berea
Initiative if the turnout for the next showing turns out to have a measurable
improvement in attendance.