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Will Tulsa be a Peak Oil Ready City?

by Wendy Thomas

As one of the founders of TulsaNow, I knew that citizen involvement in the future development of our city was an essential element to its success.

My love of the arts grew into a love for historic preservation, which developed into an appreciation for sensitive downtown development, which morphed into an understanding of the principals of new urbanism and walkable neighborhoods, which led me to an interest in public transit, which introduced me to the idea of sustainability, which cultivated an interest in community gardens and green living. See any trend here? These issues have all been a part of the community dialogue fostered and facilitated by TulsaNow.

These issues are also all integral to the ability of our city to survive in a Peak Oil environment. If you’ve never heard that term before, Google it! You’ll be amazed at what you find.

According to many sources, it is quite possible that world oil production peaked in 2008. In other words, all the world producers will never suck more oil out of the ground at one time than they did in 2008. The oil left is harder to get out of the ground, more remote, and more expensive to find and process. If it wasn’t 2008, then this point will still be reached at some date in the not so distant future.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist (or a petroleum geologist) to understand that the United States uses much more oil than we produce. With all the other developing nations wanting a US lifestyle too, soon worldwide demand will outstrip worldwide production. Last year’s oil price run up and subsequent price crash will likely be repeated until we can develop a stable economy that is not run on petro-chemicals, or at least not exclusively.

So what does this mean for Tulsa? It means that the ideas promoted by TulsaNow are more important than ever. We need walkable areas of our city and good public transit to get people to them. We should preserve nearby agricultural land for local food production and encourage people to “think global but eat local”. We must invest in green tech as an industry, and also form green energy neighborhood cooperatives. We need a smarter energy grid that allows individuals to monitor and better control their own energy use. We should also encourage community gardening and provide incentives for conservation projects and private investment in green technology.

But most importantly, we need to be flexible and creative in facing a future that may not look exactly like the past. We need to foster a sense of community and cooperation. TulsaNow will continue to serve a vital role as a mechanism through which people can discuss, debate, educate and engage each other in that most ancient and essential art – citizenship.