UNITY – With gas prices unbearable at the pumps and home-heating oil costs expected to become life-or-death expenses in Maine this winter, attention has shifted to fossil fuel alternatives, the possibility of oil rationing and a phenomenon first predicted the 1950s – that of “peak oil.”

Peak oil is the point when we’ve used half the earth’s oil and consumption will outpace production.

Go outside and watch what everyone is doing. What makes it possible that we do what we do? What makes us have jobs? How can we buy anything we want? What powers all the conveniences in my house? What makes my car go around? Why are the stores always full of food?

“It’s energy. Massively available, cheap energy,” John Howe, one of Maine’s foremost alternative energy advocates, who subscribes to the “peak oil” theory, said recently.

“Now, the big thing here is that this cheap energy won’t be here for too much longer. Our modern society is at a turning point. We’ve actually gone off the cliff. Now, the challenge is to see if we can fly.”

Howe says that although Hurricane Katrina slapped us in the face with the cold water of high oil prices, the crisis has been looming for decades.

Of the 5.5 million barrels of oil produced every day in the United States, 28 percent, or 1.6 million barrels, came from Louisiana and adjacent areas of the Gulf of Mexico.

“We use 1 billion barrels of oil every 11 days in the world,” Howe said. “One-fourth of that goes to the U.S., even though we have one-twentieth of the world’s population. Half of the oil used in the United States goes for gasoline alone,” a figure that represents 1.5 gallons per person per day.

Howe will present the keynote address, which is based on his book, “The End of Fossil Energy,” at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Common Ground Fair in Unity. That same weekend, hundreds will gather in Yellow Springs, Ohio, for the 2nd annual U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions.

Howe and those speaking at the conference say that the end of cheap abundant oil represents an unprecedented challenge for humanity.

It heralds the end of many things to which we have become accustomed: the ever-growing economy, transportation as we know it, cheap food and goods from around the globe.

The question, Howe maintains, is not “What shall we do?” but rather, “Who shall we become?” as Americans will be forced to change their lifestyles.

“We can’t go on the way we are,” he said. “We’ve had a 100-year energy party.”

Howe certainly practices what he preaches. He built a 13-horsepower, solar-powered tractor that plows and harrows, needs no gasoline, doesn’t need 2,000 pounds of hay and grain each year like a team of horses or oxen, doesn’t pollute the air, loves sunshine and goes up to 12 miles an hour, and he uses it on his 175-acre Waterford farm.

As the world reaches “peak oil,” Howe says rationing should be installed to provide time to adjust to renewable sources of power.

“We’re all in this lifeboat together and we’re about to sink,” Howe maintained.

But Howe said that if he explains to the Common Ground fair-goers that conservation and simpler lifestyles are necessary, he’ll be preaching to the choir.

Just switching to corn or soy to fuel vehicles is not the answer.

“There are many things we already know about, such as living off the grid, driving a hybrid or smaller fuel-efficient vehicle, planting a garden, but these won’t have much effect, even if all fair-goers participate,” Howe said. “Our best and only hope is for the masses to understand fossil energy depletion as a worldwide crisis and spread the word.”

Howe maintains that as oil runs out, Maine will be forced to feed much of New England. He said the balance is all wrong, with it taking 10 kilocalories of energy to produce one kilocalorie of food energy.

“Food travels thousands of miles to supermarkets, so we’re eating fossil energy,” he pointed out.

Part of Howe’s message is personal action.

“We need many voices to reach our politicians,” he emphasized. “Our government – right and left – has been avoiding the subject of fossil fuel depletion for the last 50 years, except briefly during the Carter administration.

“Now we desperately need leadership.”

The Common Ground Fair will take place Sept. 23-25 in Unity.