Megan Quinn Bachman, outreach director for The Community Solution in Yellow Springs, Ohio, spoke to members of Presbyterian Church of the Covenant tonight in advance of a film showing at UNCG on Thursday about Cuba's loss of access to oil in the 1990s. 
She talked to a crowd of about 40 about the need for American towns and cities to radically curtail their energy use and rebuild community connections as preparation for the approaching era of dwindling fossil fuels. That means retrofitting existing homes to save energy, growing more food at home, decreasing the amount of grain-fed meat and processed foods in our diets, using public transportation and creating car-sharing plans in cities where public transportation is not feasible, she said.
"We got into this one bad decision at a time and we will get out of this one good decision at a time," Bachman said about the nation's oil dependency. "We need to recognize that if we don't choose a different path, then the choices will be made for us."
The country will need practical models of low-energy living and community building and the changes will have to come from within the community rather than top down from the government, she said.
"I really think Greensboro is on its way to becoming one of those models," she said.
Greensboro has a long way to go, but the fact that Bachman found her way to the city this week gives me some confidence that the paradigm shift that is coming may soon be at the forefront of people's minds and actions.
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