This year's conference, a cooperative effort between Community Solutions and Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center, is organized around the recently published book, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change, by Pat Murphy, Executive Director of Community Solutions. The book, and this conference, "point to the life we must lead, if we are to survive on this planet."

Why Attend This Conference?

Skyrocketing oil prices, mounting geopolitical tensions, grave economic realities, and dangerous climate changes are threatening our lives and communities like never before. The age of cheap, abundant fossil fuels is coming to an end, and urgent action is required to transform our overly consumptive society into one that uses far less energy.

By acting now, you can significantly cut your personal household energy use and overall consumption, support more localized economic production, and reduce your dependence on high energy transportation in your daily life. By doing this, you will be helping to create a more resilient and sustainable community adapted to the coming economic and ecological storms.

At this groundbreaking conference participants will explore strategies for reducing energy use in the areas of housing, food and transportation, including both theory and practice. We will examine the long energy decline of the 21st century, the psychological barriers to rapid change, and the challenge of persuading our communities to embrace local, low-energy living.

Attendees will learn survival strategies for growing food, creating local food security in their communities, retrofitting their homes to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and educating their communities to prepare for the difficult times ahead.

Tentative Schedule of Presentations and Workshops:

• Keynoter John Michael Greer, author of the forthcoming The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age
  
• Keynoter Dmitry Orlov, author of Reinventing Collapse: Soviet Example and American Prospects
  
• Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute, author of The Party’s Over and Powerdown (via webcast)
  
• Katrin Klingenberg, director of the Passive House Institute US Peter Bane, editor of Permaculture Activist
  
• Christopher Bedford, President of the Center for Economic Security and the Sweetwater Local Foods Market
  
• John Richter, co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Education
  
• Pat Murphy, author of Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change
  
• Megan Quinn Bachman, Outreach Director of Community Solutions; co-producer of The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil