Deeper Shade of Green

Here is an excellent article written by Christian Cowley, of the CEED centre on the importance of shifting towards totally sustainable towns, called Transition Towns, in the face of the rapidly coming Peek Oil and Climate Change.

It is a project I am about to join personally.

Note: Maple ridge is a small city situated about 50km east of city of Vancouver, B.C

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Should Maple Ridge be the Next Transition Town?

The twin phenomena of climate change and peak oil have spurred a transformative movement that now spans several continents. Originally conceived in the United Kingdom, the Transition Towns movement has firmly taken root in the United States (20 towns), Australia (13 towns) and New Zealand (seven towns). Chile, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands also have one town each.Canada has Petersborough, Ontario, so far.

These towns have recognized that they will have to respond to the challenges and opportunities of climate change and peak oil. A collection of motivated individuals has come together in each of these communities to plan a response. In the challenges column, climate change may lead to rising sea levels, water shortages as glaciers retreat and rivers dry up, and altered patterns of agriculture. Add to this extreme weather events, new disease outbreaks and ecosystem disruption as well as significant economic disruptions. We are no longer sure how long it will take before we feel these effects because recent discoveries point to the forecasters’ worst-case scenarios coming true, rather than the conservative estimates.

Peak oil, the point when new supply no longer outstrips new demand, will result in supply shocks and rising prices if oil-dependent policies are continued. We expect to reach peak oil in three to 10 years. Although the immanency and magnitude of peak oil is often underemphasized, it has the potential to radically affect most towns even before climate change. ‘Business as usual’ will soon cease to be an option.

So in the case of Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Katzie, it appears that we must ask the obvious question. Will we sit back passively and watch as events roll past us, or will we rise to the occasion and seek the opportunities provided by change? If we fail to plan for wholesale change, we will have to suffer the consequences of the inevitable economic, social and environmental chaos. Or, we could follow the successful examples of the Transition Towns and plan a proactive response that embraces the changes and new opportunities. We cannot expect our leaders to take these steps unilaterally if we are not prepared to go along with them. Politics, after all, is the art of leading from behind. Based on what has happened elsewhere, we can expect local government to support the initiatives, but not drive them.

Transition Towns use the rather cliché but useful approach of thinking globally, acting locally, according to the Transition Initiatives Primer, now in its 26th revision. The approach relies on the fact that a small dedicated group of people can inspire others to act, and therefore their small-scale contribution snowballs into massive effects. Moreover, it can build on initiatives at other levels, national and global. For example, there is something called the Oil Depletion Protocol (www.oildepletionprotocol.org) that provides a model for oil producer and consumer countries to systematically reduce global oil consumption. According to proponents, transition initiatives can complement these wider schemes by making sure that the suggested changes are practical at the local implementation level.

Many transition initiatives are based on the concept of localizing the essential elements that communities need to sustain themselves and thrive. The idea is to build in resilience to the negative impacts while drastically reducing the community’s carbon footprint so that the imperatives of both climate change and peak oil are addressed. Just as people with alcohol and drug dependencies have created 12-step programs to wean themselves from their addictions, the transition town pioneers have created similar programs that we can follow here to get ourselves off the petroleum habit.

Businesses are important players if transition initiatives are contemplated. Local companies can get the ball rolling by conducting oil vulnerability audits and planning for mitigation. It may be difficult to obtain remotely sourced materials once peak oil is reached. Local alternatives will have to be found and it may pay individual businesses to network with other local companies to jointly source supplies. In some of the pioneering transition towns, business exchanges have been set up so that one company’s waste becomes the next firm’s raw material. Local currency
schemes are another avenue to keep economic activity and earnings closer to home.

These are just some of the considerations for adopting a model such as the Transition Town to cope with the upcoming changes. The people of Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Katzie may not chose this particular model, but they will have to begin to take climate change and peak oil seriously in short order. Recognizing this, the CEED Centre has placed a call for the dialogue to begin.

The CEED Centre is a charitable, not-for-profit society dedicated to community
education on environment and development.