PCT Background/References: Why do we need to “transition” our communities and significantly change how we live? The attached Pender Community Transition summary (text also below) is an introduction to local resilience, the Transition model, peak oil, climate change, plus other global resource and financial impacts that will radically alter our world in the coming years. In addition…
Library/Reference Articles: Courtesy of GreenAngels Financial and the North Pender and South Pender Local Trust Committees, and the Pender Farmers’ Institute, we have a library of books/DVD’s (in black below) for anyone to borrow (email PCT). We’ve also started gathering articles (in green below), about why it’s so important for communities to develop local resilience and self-sufficiency:
- The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (book by Rob Hopkins) and
- In Transition: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (DVD – both of these are very inspiring)
- Saving Seeds: As If Our Lives Depended On It (book by Dan Jason of Saltspring Island, courtesy of Pender Farmers’ Insitute)
- How to Make a Village – Community as Lifeboat in a Perfect Storm of Exceeded Limits (book by Penderite Patrick Conroy)
- The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream (DVD including interviews with James Howard Kuntsler and other leading analysts)
- Why Your World Is About To Become A Whole Lot Smaller - Oil and the End of Globalization (book by Jeff Rubin)
- 300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Seconds (amazing online video from Post-Carbon Institute & Richard Heinberg))
- Strategic Local Infrastructure Development (by Rob Hopkins, Transition founder)
- The Downside of Dependence, and Importance of Learning to Use Less Energy (supporting a faster, more radical transition of our communities)
- Practical preparation for peak oil and financial uncertainty (by Stoneleigh/Nicole Foss)
- The Story of Stuff (video about why it’s so important for us to use much less stuff!)
- Get Real (about global financial abuses, peak oil & more)
- The Global Economy’s Corporate Crime Wave
- The Future of Oil and the End of the Dollar
- Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources are Over
Note: To respond to the above kind of material by building local resilience and self-sufficiency, see the 7 community transition projects that PCT is initiating next, and also our issue-specific references for energy, food growing, and other do-it-yourself stuff. Come help co-create your community’s future!
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PENDER COMMUNITY TRANSITION (PCT) is a cooperative alliance, helping the North and South Pender Islands (in BC, Canada) to reduce oil dependency, carbon emissions, and other damage to our Earth, and to transition with resilience and self-sufficiency through peak oil, climate change, and other worldwide resource and financial challenges.
LOCAL RESILIENCE is what PCT is trying to help rebuild on Pender (together with other groups and folks). This is the capacity of a community (along with the natural ecosystems that support it) to handle shocks or pressures, meet core needs self-sufficiently, and keep adapting and evolving in a connected, sustainable way.
CURRENT PCT PROJECTS include a November 12, 2011 Energy Action Day, Solar Water Heating Public Education, School Nut Tree Project, Community Seed Bank, Youth & Elder Film about “Old & New Wisdom, for a Brighter Future!”, and other activity on key transition issues like: Energy, Emissions, & Waste; Food Growing & Community Farmland; Economic Relocalization & Justice; Conserving Biodiversity; Community Spirit, Art, & Wellbeing; Water Supply & Weather; Alternative Transportation; and Eco-Friendly & Affordable Housing.
BASED ON THE TRANSITION / LOCAL RESILIENCE MODEL: an inspiring, practical process for our entire community (people, families, existing groups, businesses, and local government) to build trust and come together with all our gifts. Why? To create a future where we are not only more resilient and self-sufficient, but also: more connected with each other, the land, and the rest of nature; living lower-carbon; lighter on the Earth; with healthier lifestyles; and greater happiness and community spirit. (see www.transitionnetwork.org)
PCT ORGANIZATION: we are an ever-growing, incorporated non-profit Society, serving our two-island, full-time Pender community of 2500. PCT currently has 5 Directors and over 160 supporters, involving 20 diverse Pender community groups. Many thanks to these folk, and to our funders – the North & South Pender Local Trust Committees, Nu-To-Yu, Eco-Homes Network, GreenAngels, CRD, and Vancity.
PEAK OIL means that world oil extraction rates have maxed out and begun declining, which is exacerbated by continually growing demand. Easy (cheap) oil is ending, yet currently most things around us (e.g. our food, medicine, clothing, buildings) rely on it for creation and/or transport (see “The Transition Handbook” or “TH”).
More specifically, conventional oil production likely peaked by 2006, and is now forecast to decline by 3% per year (e.g. in 20 years, 60% less available? TH p. 27). Meanwhile, unconventional oil is extraordinarily risky and/or expensive to produce (e.g. ultra deep sea drilling, or oil sands using equivalent of 1 million barrels of oil to produce 2 million barrels, with enormous emissions and environmental damage: TH pp. 23 & 50).
CLIMATE CHANGE – Despite various well-funded or off-the-cuff campaigns creating confusion (some intentionally), over 95% of qualified scientists say that the world’s current levels of greenhouse gas emissions would commit us to a dangerous global average temperature rise, climate instability, and severe threats to agriculture, water, and nature. For this and other reasons (e.g. peak oil, pollution), the wisest course is to cut carbon emissions ASAP (TH pp. 30-36; www.climate-change-emergency-medical-response.org).
GLOBAL FINANCE, peak oil, and climate change need to be considered together, or we might choose peak oil solutions that worsen climate change (e.g. “liquid coal”), climate change solutions that don’t increase resilience (e.g. less emissions but no community self-sufficiency), or we might forget that pervasive financial system abuses still threaten to take down the global economy. Relocalizing economies and reducing debt are vital protections.
OTHER KEY RESOURCES have current or projected worldwide shortages (e.g. water), or projected peaks (e.g. natural gas, coal, uranium, fertilizers, etc.), and how we hyper-consume resources causes astounding pollution, biodiversity loss, illness, inequity and more. Also, there is no viable energy replacement for easy oil that can maintain a perpetual-growth economy and lifestyle based on cheap food or goods shipped around the world. All of the above also impacts our local food security, and is calling on us to change how we live.
OUR FUTURE IS BRIGHTER when we come together with the best of ourselves, building trust and cooperation, doing our part for the world, and choosing to make our communities more resilient and self-sufficient. Check out www.pendercommunitytransition.ca and contact info@pendercommunitytransition.ca for more info.