I am tired of reading so much bad news on peak oil, global warming and climate change. We are seeing many climate-related disasters happening around the world: hurricanes, droughts, wind storms, floods, forest fires and forest plagues, and more. The latest IPCC reports have confirmed that our human actions are a major source of global warming.

I eagerly followed the Bali Climate Change conference, waiting for some good news. It was frustrating and very disappointing to read about the pitiful role of Canada, USA and Japan, blocking all good intentions and ideas from the majority of other countries attending that conference. At the end of the conference, there are no real targets for reducing GHG emissions in the so called Bali Action Plan.

If this had been a game, the final score would have been Economics 1, Life on Earth 0.

Reading the news on China's unstoppable rush to reach the American dream is so overwhelming. But then again, what right do we have –the western culture, in telling them stop looking for that dream, when we have shown them it is “so nice and good”. I think this hypocritical attitude is called climate justice.

We keep reading the news on the unstoppable development at the Alberta Tar Sands and the huge environmental damage it represents.

In our province, the government has published their plans to combat climate change. Up to a point, this is good news, at least they are trying to do something about it. On the other hand, several environmental groups have criticized the plan, saying there are many gaps and many points are missing.

At the same time, the BC government recently announced the sale of new oil and natural gas exploration rights for more than $1-billion. On December 13, the Globe and Mail reported: “In one swoop, B.C. took in $401-million, the second-biggest sale ever (after September, 2003, when EnCana Corp. alone spent $407-million to get its Cutbank Ridge land as B.C. took a total of $418-million).”

Some people say this may be BC's Tar Sands.

The bottom line is that overall, in the rich countries we still don't get the urgency of climate change, nor we make the connection between the impacts on climate change from rampant economic progress.

We keep saying we are very concerned about the state of the environment, but we are not willing to really, really, take any personal action. We keep waiting for the government or the big corporations to take the lead.

On the other side of this gloomy reality, there are many cases of good things happening to combat climate change. We see the examples of Sweden, Norway, Germany, where they are way ahead of North America in developing and using renewable energy, electric cars, and many other practices to minimize their carbon footprints and reduce their impact on the environment.

We also see many cases from small towns and communities, where they practice their local wisdom to apply local solutions through local actions. In many cases, they haven't invented any new technologies, nor changing their behaviours, they only live the way they have lived all their lives. Basically, their local cultures tell them to live without harming nature.

In response to the climate change problems, several pioneering towns in the UK and Ireland are taking a very interesting approach to reduce their carbon footprints and make the transition to a lower energy future, with a low impact lifestyle, and to greater levels of community resilience and sustainability.

One of the most promising ideas is the Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) model that i have covered extensively in previous posts. Many small communities around the world are now using this model to make their transition. There is a new Transition Network website to help with this work, it may be accessed here: http://transitiontowns.org/Main/HomePage

Now, I still don't understand why climate change is so difficult to understand in our western culture. Richard Heinberg's talks about this in his new book “Peak Everything: Making Up to the Century of Declines.” He says:

“Why are Peak Oil and Climate Change so hard for many people to understand? There are probably many reasons. One often cited (and discussed brilliantly and at length by Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich in their 1989 book New World New Mind) is that humans are hard-wired via the reptilian brain for fight-or-flight responses to adversity or danger, but have an innate inability to respond effectively to slowly developing problems that are hard to personalize. Ornstein and Ehrlich suggest that our species, if it is to survive, must quickly improve its capacity to understand and deal with systemic crises.

“Another possible reason why so many people can’t “get” Peak Oil and Climate Change has to do with psychological maturity — which often does not correlate particularly well with chronological
age. Psychological maturity might be defined as the ability or tendency to think of not just one’s own welfare but that of larger groups — family, community, the world as a whole, and that of
other species; and to think in terms of long time horizons in addition to short ones. This includes thinking about consequences of present behavior that will be felt only by future generations. People who are psychologically mature know — not just theoretically, but by experience — that youth and old age are on a continuum; that life consists also of death; and that personal sacrifice is sometimes required for the sake of family or community.”

I believe that if we are going to survive the potential collapse of our civilization from climate change, we need to reach that “psychological maturity”... pronto !

The window of opportunity is closing. We can not afford keep talking, devising new strategies and making more plans to define new plans. Nor we should keep waiting from our local or provincial governments to tell us what to do.

We need to change, and to act. Now ! Maybe the governments will catch up later on.

We need to understand we don't need to be always fighting for having more stuff. We have an abundance of treasures in these islands. We are very lucky and have more than enough just by living here. We need to understand that moving to a low impact lifestyle will be liberating and meaningful.

I believe that the EDAP model can help the small communities in this area with this important transition, by discovering, planning, and implementing many available local solutions and local actions, both at the personal and community level.

At the end of the day, the sum of our actions will make a difference to combat climate change.

Are we ready to make this transition ?