Guía para o descenso enerxético

A xente do periódico Transition Free Press, o medio de comunicación oficial do movemento das Cidades en Transición, ofreceunos contar o que se está a facer en Galiza e así, no nº 5 de primavera de 2014 deste medio de comunicación distribuído en máis de 250 puntos no Reino Unido e enviado tamén aos colectivos en Transición de todo o mundo, aparece un artigo noso falando da Guía para o descenso enerxético e doutras experiencias que están a sementar a Revolución Pospetróleo no noso país. Velaquí tedes unha captura do artigo tal e como apareceu publicado e o texto orixinal do mesmo, que foi lixeiramente corrixido polo periódico, e ao que lle engadimos algunhas ligazóns para ampliar información:

Artigo sobre a ‘Guía para o descenso enerxético’ aparecido no n. 5 de Transition Free Press

Seeds of the Post-Oil Revolution in Galicia

Galicia, the Celtic country at the NW of Iberian Peninsula and the land of St. James’ Way (Camiño de Santiago) is rapidly starting its own post-oil revolution. Galician people are starting to learn what the End of Fossil Fuels will mean for them, for their way of life and for their economies, and that their still alive rural society could be an optimal foundation for this transition.

Former director of the Energy Institute of Galicia, Xoán Doldán, began to sound the alarm in 2008. Soon Véspera de Nada (name comes from Galician saying Day of Much, Eve of Nothing) association was created and through its work awareness started to spread among many social movements looking at degrowth, food sovereignity and social environmentalism. In 2012 a left-nationalist coalition (Alternativa Galega de Esquerdas), became third political force in the Galician Parliament with a program which included a Peak Oil response plan which was also backed by Partido da Terra, a small party for local direct democracy and the return to the land.

Now a further important step has been taken with the crowdfunded publishing of Guide for Energy Descent – Preparing a Post-Oil Galicia. This book aims to seed both the needed awareness and the urgent community action at local levels, with practical and strategic tips to start Transition-like projects mainly in rural areas, but also in the middle-size cities and the numerous towns of the fertile Galician countryside.

In recent years many interesting projects have already begun to flourish here, rooted both in traditional knowledge —the country still has a strong rural culture— and on new methods like permaculture. Local food and crafts markets are being maintained and spreading, urban food gardens cropping up, seed networks and direct producer-consumer relations started. We can even find transition-style projects at Santiago University.

Consumer cooperatives and local community-living projects are consolidating based on these new urban-rural networks, for example the Millo & Landras communal organic farm; Chozas ecovillage; Tornajeira, Xixirín, Lentura family and collective organic farms; Pousadoira Center for Resilience; and many others, often with a strong political ethos. Several of these projects helping to strength Galician resilience, are founded by eco-immigrants in this land, like the British founders of Cernunnos ‘ecosocialist’ farm.

2014 must be the year Transition took momentum in Galicia, brought on by the deepening economic crisis and aided by the publication of the Energy Descent Guide. The book has received great attention, even from non-Galician speaking areas of Spain and will be presented in a round of events during the year all over the country. This book briefly presents the Peak Oil problem for the general public and then explains a whole range of actions which could be taken by individuals, families, local communities, councils and even small companies. It also takes a detailed look at the Cuban case (many Galicians emmigrated there in the 19th and 20th centuries) and even includes a futuristic tale about what living in Galicia could be like a decade in the future.

Galicia used to be known as one of the most underdeveloped regions in Spain, but through this book Galicians might well become aware of the richness of their under-industrialized and rural territory. As we haven’t ascended very far towards the unsustainable peak, descent should be easier for us.