Cumberland BC: The Cumberlander Articles Section
Local · 16th July 2008
Dwayne Rourke
At a February 2008 public hearing regarding Trilogy Properties Corporation's development proposal for Cumberland I expressed my desire to have our village council declare a complete moratorium on development - a big "TIME OUT!" from ALL development projects presently before them. Instead of our village office dwelling almost exclusively on meeting developer's plans and priorities, I asked that its attention be turned instead toward what I described as an impending superstorm of transformation coming our way.
I called for Mayor and Council to proactively address the impact on our community of three looming factors: the rapidly rising price of oil, the local consequences of extreme, global climate change, and the immanent collapse of the American dollar.
My concerns are well founded. Crude oil prices have doubled in the last year thus contributing greatly to food scarcity for millions of people throughout the world, many of whom have been thrown unexpectedly into starvation.(See related Macleans magazine article HERE.)
Extreme weather events are on the rise and scientists throughout the world continue to call for all nations to address it proactively. ( See Dr. James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist, speak about global warming HERE.
Canada is hugely dependent on the American economy and if that economy is in trouble, so are we. Dmitri Orlov, a veteran of the collapse of the Soviet Union, believes that the USA is in for the same experience, only worse. Find out why in the following article HERE.
As far as I can see, my call to Mayor and Council to implement a moratorium on development has gone completely unheeded and it has pretty much been "business as usual" in our municipal office. In fact, a development process co-ordinator has now been hired by the village and is being paid for by developers! So, in the face of such a complete merger of government and corporation (see corporatism), I now turn directly to my fellow citizens to proactively face the storm bearing down upon us.
We must not let corporations rule our world. Rather, we the people must co-creatively formulate and act upon what we consider to be important priorities. Clearly, creation of a viable alternative to the status quo is needed.
We are not alone.
In the UK and in other parts of the world, villages like ours have begun to tackle some of the major issues indicated above by consolidating resources and by using Internet communications technology to share them broadly. Consequently, we do not have to begin at square one as revealed in the following material drawn from the flagship website of this initiative known as Transition Towns. It is offered here as an introduction to this concept. (To see this material in its original context, click HERE.)
Transition Towns...
embody creative responses by ordinary people
*who want to prepare creatively to meet the twin challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change that face us now.
*who know we don’t have all the answers but know it’s important to have the conversation.
*who see the need to build local resilience to cope with future shocks, energy brownouts, etc as oil becomes scarce.
*who believe that we will not come through well unless we work together, building community and solidarity.
*who see that whether we like it or not, we will have to re-localize, de-globalize, in most basic aspects of life, and that it is better to try to plan this than to let ourselves be taken unawares.
*who are drawing on their individual creative resources to wean ourselves off our heavy dependence on oil in food production, transport, energy, manufacturing, businesses everywhere - our whole way of life.
*who discover they are unleashing incredible riches of a community's creative capacities to face difficulty.
Transition Towns...
emerged out of initial shock when the permaculture students at Kinsale, Ireland, learned about Peak Oil. They responded creatively by developing the first Energy Descent Action Plan, involving and engaging the whole Kinsale community. The initiative has now grown from just two towns in 2006 (Kinsale and Totnes, UK) to 30 officially designated Transition Initiatives and over 400 groups "mulling" (Nov 2007).
"It feels to me that one of the reasons [Transition Towns] has grown so fast is that it is positive in a time where it is hard to find positivity, solutions-based in a time when the problems are so glaringly obvious, and fun, in a time where we’re not supposed to have time for that any more." Rob Hopkins
The aim is to "re-localise" ie "de-globalize", community by community, planning practical alternatives to our fossil-fuelled energy-intense lifestyles, looking for best solutions generated by everyone, rather than waiting for hardships enforced from above, catastrophes, societal breakdown, and even martial law. We still have a "window of opportunity" to recreate communities that are vibrant, resilient and truly sustainable. But the longer we do nothing and expect "someone else" to act, the harder it will be when the global challenges press in on us, as they surely will.
Peak Oil describes the half-way high point in oil production. It’s not that oil is going to run out, but as the rate of new finds decreases, it becomes more expensive to extract.
• This looming scarcity can only lead to price rises, stiff competition for remaining reserves, and unthinkable patterns of behaviour - unless we think, plan and act, now.
• Fossil fuels are central to every aspect of our lives including food, transport, water, manufacturing, and healthcare.
• Peak Oil also threatens our ability to deal with the unpredictable effects of climate change.
• Peak Oil may well be here now - production has not risen since 2005, and prices are increasing.
We can’t control the speed of energy decline, nor can we predict its onset accurately at this point. However, we can choose how quickly and effectively to prepare and respond…
Energy Descent Action Plans.... An EDAP is a timetabled vision of how to move away from our dependence on cheap fossil fuels, rebuilding local resilience through re-localising, where feasible, all aspects of life. Given the likely disruptions ahead, a resilient community – self-reliant for as many of its own needs as possible - will be infinitely better prepared to weather the storms, if only those of price volatility, which are set to impact food supply, energy generation, transport fuels, healthcare and housing. See the EDAP, or visit Eat The Suburbs for more detail.
_____________________________
Enter the new Transition Town Cumberland section on The Cumberlander by clicking HERE or from the Menubar, above.
_____________________________
If you would like to advance the Transition Town initiative here in Cumberland, please come to the very first Transition Town Cumberland event, Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 9:30 AM. Location: 3312 5th St. (The Twisted Chimney).
The meeting will provide a brief introduction to what the Transition Town initiative is all about. Everyone welcome.
For more information, please call Dwayne at 250 336 2070.
I called for Mayor and Council to proactively address the impact on our community of three looming factors: the rapidly rising price of oil, the local consequences of extreme, global climate change, and the immanent collapse of the American dollar.
My concerns are well founded. Crude oil prices have doubled in the last year thus contributing greatly to food scarcity for millions of people throughout the world, many of whom have been thrown unexpectedly into starvation.(See related Macleans magazine article HERE.)
Extreme weather events are on the rise and scientists throughout the world continue to call for all nations to address it proactively. ( See Dr. James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist, speak about global warming HERE.
Canada is hugely dependent on the American economy and if that economy is in trouble, so are we. Dmitri Orlov, a veteran of the collapse of the Soviet Union, believes that the USA is in for the same experience, only worse. Find out why in the following article HERE.
As far as I can see, my call to Mayor and Council to implement a moratorium on development has gone completely unheeded and it has pretty much been "business as usual" in our municipal office. In fact, a development process co-ordinator has now been hired by the village and is being paid for by developers! So, in the face of such a complete merger of government and corporation (see corporatism), I now turn directly to my fellow citizens to proactively face the storm bearing down upon us.
We must not let corporations rule our world. Rather, we the people must co-creatively formulate and act upon what we consider to be important priorities. Clearly, creation of a viable alternative to the status quo is needed.
We are not alone.
In the UK and in other parts of the world, villages like ours have begun to tackle some of the major issues indicated above by consolidating resources and by using Internet communications technology to share them broadly. Consequently, we do not have to begin at square one as revealed in the following material drawn from the flagship website of this initiative known as Transition Towns. It is offered here as an introduction to this concept. (To see this material in its original context, click HERE.)
Transition Towns...
embody creative responses by ordinary people
*who want to prepare creatively to meet the twin challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change that face us now.
*who know we don’t have all the answers but know it’s important to have the conversation.
*who see the need to build local resilience to cope with future shocks, energy brownouts, etc as oil becomes scarce.
*who believe that we will not come through well unless we work together, building community and solidarity.
*who see that whether we like it or not, we will have to re-localize, de-globalize, in most basic aspects of life, and that it is better to try to plan this than to let ourselves be taken unawares.
*who are drawing on their individual creative resources to wean ourselves off our heavy dependence on oil in food production, transport, energy, manufacturing, businesses everywhere - our whole way of life.
*who discover they are unleashing incredible riches of a community's creative capacities to face difficulty.
Transition Towns...
emerged out of initial shock when the permaculture students at Kinsale, Ireland, learned about Peak Oil. They responded creatively by developing the first Energy Descent Action Plan, involving and engaging the whole Kinsale community. The initiative has now grown from just two towns in 2006 (Kinsale and Totnes, UK) to 30 officially designated Transition Initiatives and over 400 groups "mulling" (Nov 2007).
"It feels to me that one of the reasons [Transition Towns] has grown so fast is that it is positive in a time where it is hard to find positivity, solutions-based in a time when the problems are so glaringly obvious, and fun, in a time where we’re not supposed to have time for that any more." Rob Hopkins
The aim is to "re-localise" ie "de-globalize", community by community, planning practical alternatives to our fossil-fuelled energy-intense lifestyles, looking for best solutions generated by everyone, rather than waiting for hardships enforced from above, catastrophes, societal breakdown, and even martial law. We still have a "window of opportunity" to recreate communities that are vibrant, resilient and truly sustainable. But the longer we do nothing and expect "someone else" to act, the harder it will be when the global challenges press in on us, as they surely will.
Peak Oil describes the half-way high point in oil production. It’s not that oil is going to run out, but as the rate of new finds decreases, it becomes more expensive to extract.
• This looming scarcity can only lead to price rises, stiff competition for remaining reserves, and unthinkable patterns of behaviour - unless we think, plan and act, now.
• Fossil fuels are central to every aspect of our lives including food, transport, water, manufacturing, and healthcare.
• Peak Oil also threatens our ability to deal with the unpredictable effects of climate change.
• Peak Oil may well be here now - production has not risen since 2005, and prices are increasing.
We can’t control the speed of energy decline, nor can we predict its onset accurately at this point. However, we can choose how quickly and effectively to prepare and respond…
Energy Descent Action Plans.... An EDAP is a timetabled vision of how to move away from our dependence on cheap fossil fuels, rebuilding local resilience through re-localising, where feasible, all aspects of life. Given the likely disruptions ahead, a resilient community – self-reliant for as many of its own needs as possible - will be infinitely better prepared to weather the storms, if only those of price volatility, which are set to impact food supply, energy generation, transport fuels, healthcare and housing. See the EDAP, or visit Eat The Suburbs for more detail.
_____________________________
Enter the new Transition Town Cumberland section on The Cumberlander by clicking HERE or from the Menubar, above.
_____________________________
If you would like to advance the Transition Town initiative here in Cumberland, please come to the very first Transition Town Cumberland event, Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 9:30 AM. Location: 3312 5th St. (The Twisted Chimney).
The meeting will provide a brief introduction to what the Transition Town initiative is all about. Everyone welcome.
For more information, please call Dwayne at 250 336 2070.