Entries Tagged 'Solutions' ↓

Those of you who follow me know that I have recently ceased making posts urging large-scale reform. The reasons for that are fairly simple, but they involve a psychological hurdle to get over.

I have been communicating with James Howard Kunstler, John Michael Greer, and David Holmgren, all of whom I have interviewed, about a Wise Action Plan. The goal was for us to agree on this Plan and then publicly pronounce it in an effort to get some sensible action on peak oil and climate change. Initially, I urged a response that included a revitalization of rail, large-scale wind or solar farms, and other actions that require the federal government to take a strong leadership role.

While the others generally agreed such actions would be a good idea, especially if they have been started 20 or more years ago, two of the three thought they were a waste of time. They had two reasons for this:

1. It’s too late. We needed to be getting off oil while we still had a surplus. Now that we’ve hit peak oil, diverting any oil to build solar panels means there is less for cars or crops.
2. They ain’t gonna. What politician is going to do that, barring an emergency situation? (Emergency is here defined as rioting, fuel rationing, or other severe measures.)

To be fair to our politicians, it’s hard to get elected telling people their lifestyle is going to change drastically, including many of them giving up their cars. The problem is partly cultural; we want what we want, and we’re going to keep electing politicians who give it to us until that is no longer possible.

And to be brutally honest, most of us have bought into the idea of unending growth and improvement, that the market will find solutions to concerns like oil depletion, and that if it were really that bad, somebody would do something.

At that point, we will be well into the emergency.

It has been difficult for me to give up on the idea of leadership from above. I ran federally as a Green Party of Canada candidate last go-round, but wouldn’t do it again. Even in the fantastic unlikelihood that the Greens got a majority next election, they could not do what needs to be done. Still too many people will resist change, and this resistance will be encouraged and financed – by vested interests.

Think Globally, Act Locally

As a result, I’ve gone local. Leadership is going to have to come from the grassroots, from us, from those who understand the reality and are willing to take some action. I believe that every village, town, city, and region should create a Transition Initiative to get off oil.

This is acting locally, and it is vitally important for your survival. Local resilience is ‘in,’ and for good reason. When oil prices go up, imports of everything – including food – are going to get more expensive and harder to get. If you’re already shopping at the farmer’s market, for example, you have helped support a local farmer who will now support you as options in the supermarkets get scarcer and pricier.

This is my new Wise Action Plan:

1. Start or join a Transition Initiative in your area.
2. Reskill.
3. Develop personal self-reliance, which includes everything from starting a garden to insulating your house.

If we’re lucky and good, these local movements will take off, multiply like viruses, and infect the planet. These local movements will bond together and require their governments to do the right thing – to protect us. They will do this not by lobbying or influence-peddling, but by sheer strength of numbers.

I’m sure s/he must be asking itself the same question at this point, given what we’ve done to the planet. I suspect it was boredom. After 65 million years of the dinos, God had had enough. S/he needed something new, fresh, exciting to rejuvenate its creative energy. After awhile it must have been like having the fish tank screen saver on your computer. Very cool…but for 65 million years? So, fire a meteor into the earth, presto-blammo, dino-die-off, now taking applications for new species or new variations on old species. Must be creative, like Me.

Now, after only 1 million years, humans have developed the capability to kill God, or any concept of the sacred, both figuratively and literally. We are destroying the planet, which is our source of life, because to us no life is sacred, every life has a price or a use for someone else. The dinosaurs lasted 65 million years and it took a meteor to wipe them out. We’ve been around 1/65th of the time and are wiping ourselves out. Who had the tiny brain, again?

Life is sacred, not just mine but yours, too. I have no right to kill or exploit you in order to enhance my own life. And you will similarly respect me or I reserve the right to defend myself by whatever means necessary. When capitalism or communism or fascism or any other ‘ism’ permits this exploitation, that system is immoral, destructive, and ultimately self-destructive.

This basic truth, that life is sacred, has been lost, killed, sold. Continue reading →

A word of warning: To many, the Mobilisation Plan given here will seem extreme, even ridiculous. It calls for a radical restructuring of our economy, how we use energy and where we get it, how we transport things, including ourselves, how we grow our food, build our buildings, and even govern and educate ourselves. Radical it may sound, but necessary it most certainly is, and the sooner we implement something like it the more of civilisation we get to keep.

To those people who think this plan too ‘radical,’ I would suggest two things: First, what you or I think is entirely irrelevant in the face of reality. If the reality is that declining oil supplies will wreak havoc on our civilisation, then no amount of scoffing will prevent it. I would suggest you acquaint yourself with reality before deciding upon a sensible course of action. I will admit that it was only a few years ago that I would have considered this plan extreme, but I have been busy educating myself about the truth of our situation. This article assumes that you have done some research already and are aware we face multiple crises; you know I am not scaremongering, but simply confronting reality.

Second, if you are willing to think sensibly about our current economic model, that is what you will find to be ultimately insane. And you will realise that one reason such ‘radical’ changes are needed now is because we did not make smaller changes earlier. We are like the smoker who has ignored doctor’s warnings for a long time, and now faces radical surgery and possibly even death as a result.

Here are the things that must be done in developed countries, particularly Canada and the United States; you can see why we’re unlikely to do them – there will be great resistance from vested interests and the majority of unaware people. As a result, we will likely suffer greatly. Continue reading →

We are likely at or near peak oil. The effects will be devastating, including a permanent recession/depression and a major scaling back of civilisation-as-we-know-it. The current recession may well be as much due to high oil prices – now ~$80 per barrel, or quadruple the price of just a few years ago – as to the banksters.

Note: This article is aimed at people with some awareness of peak oil. (It has been increasingly in the news lately.) For a frightening and well-sourced look at expected outcomes, check out Life After the Oil Crash. If you don’t want to ‘believe’ that site, there are plenty more where that came from; I’ve sourced a few reputable sites at the end of this post along with some good peak oil books.

The key points are these:

• Our economy requires continuous growth. Our economy runs on oil. Oil substitutes are nowhere near being ready in sufficient quantity to take over, if that is even possible. Therefore, a reduction in oil supply/increase in prices means an economic contraction.

• Because oil is used for virtually every single thing in our society, from factory-farmed food, to our entire transportation system, to even building alternative energy systems, price increases will ripple through the economy and bankrupt countless people and companies.

What I want to talk about here is the expected response of various governments, especially mine (Canada) and the U.S. Given a serious depression brought on by spiking oil prices and a shortage of supply, what will governments do? Continue reading →