NORWAY — The Public Interest Forum will hold an educational program and film showing Thursday, Nov. 17, at the Fare Share Commons, 443 Main St. The public is invited. The event will provide an opportunity to learn about and discuss sustainability, an issue that increasingly is claiming the attention of Oxford Hills residents.

Sustainability is a catch-all expression used to characterize objectives of people’s thinking and action in response to what many see as threats to our ways of living, even survival. They point to a future of environmental changes and diminishing natural resources, particularly those used for energy production. Two groups in our area have recently taken up the issue of sustainability.

For two years, the group Sustainable Oxford Hills has been studying the impact of reduced oil availability. Its members have prepared an educational program covering current dependence, or over-dependence, they say, on that resource. More recently, the Transition Town project has begun to organize local people into thinking and planning about what can be done locally to accommodate to changes on the way. Representatives of both groups will be present to review what their organizations have been doing.

Organizers of the session expect that varying threats will be identified in the discussion, among them climate change, reduced sources of energy and power, and food shortages, perhaps even new economic conditions and over-population. This public information program provides an opportunity for concerned citizens to examine priorities and prepare for further education and action.

The evening begins at 5:30 p.m. with a potluck supper. Beginning at 6 p.m., the film “Power of Community” will be shown to illustrate how Cuba in the 1990s dealt with sharply reduced oil supplies. Presentations and discussion will begin at 7 p.m.

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