Marina Gavrilov
Feb 18, 2009

Leo Tolstoy in his timeless classic Anna Karenina wrote: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. The same can be said about whole societies. The era of globalization has spread the economic, social and cultural tentacles of capitalism all over the world. Unification has declared its mandate on fashion, pop culture, food, human relationships, and many other aspects of life. Thus, we in the developed world have all become alike – all ‘happy’ families. Developing countries also are rushing into our cozy global communities of happy lodgers while following dutifully the rules of family elders.

Occasional economic downturns are accepted as a fair price for our otherwise pastoral idyllic life, yet there is something different about this one – the current global economic turmoil. More people have begun to realize that political cures for sinking economies alone may not be enough to avert this rapid decline, and perhaps, we need social reinforcement to change. To do so we, society as a whole, need to become increasingly aware and much more conscious that, many of the resources on which our civilization depends upon are limited.

In our pursuit of perpetual economic growth we seem to have forgotten the basic laws of physics and ecology. The First Law of Thermodynamics, also known as Energy Conservation Law, states that energy and matter cannot be created out of nothing, nor can they be destroyed – energy can only be transformed. While the Second Law of Thermodynamics (or the Law of Entropy) states that whenever energy is converted from one form to another, there is an energy loss in the form of heat. Unfortunately, it looks like modern humans have failed to apply the Law of Entropy. Simply put, we have been consuming and thus depleting the world’s non-renewable resources at an unprecedented rate in order to support our continuously growing economies.

Oil, the lifeblood of our modern industrial civilization, is a finite resource that is close to or already at the peak of its global production. How long before it starts its inevitable decline? If peak oil merely threatens industrial civilization then climate change, intensified by human activity which causes an increase in the greenhouse effect, promises to destabilize the planetary biosphere. The two issues are integrally related, which means that solutions to peak oil can also address climate change. The ability of the planet to sustain life is in serious jeopardy. Because economies have leveraged on ever increasing quantities of cheap oil, the consequences are quickly escalating to dire. Without significant and successful cultural reform, severe economic and social consequences seem inevitable.

So many people are still unaware of or not interested in the enormity of the situation. This makes fighting hard to influence and promote any change amongst a sea of people that do not understand or do not care. For some, to be concerned with something as distant as the future is useless and/or irrelevant, and for others it is a lack of knowledge, information and even motivation. Regardless, we owe it to ourselves to face our future now and begin dealing with the consequences of our resource-wasteful capitalist industrialist society. One way to do this is to consider solutions to peak oil in order to address climate change.

Transforming our fossil fuel driven economy into a clean energy economy while defeating global warming can be an effective engine of economic growth, job creation and even poverty reduction. Transforming local communities is the first and most crucial step in that direction. Peak oil presents hopeful possibilities and opportunities for our communities to become more resilient by returning to simpler, healthier and more community oriented lifestyles. Let’s take this step together. Now is a wonderful opportunity to rethink and rebuild our communities – their transportation, waste management, heating systems, as well as rehabilitate and conserve agricultural soil, fresh water, forests, lakes and wildlife habitats. Let’s learn from our elders who might still remember life before ‘big’ oil. Let’s engage our youth by giving them an honourable purpose in life and pride in their communities. Let’s encourage them to believe in a society that rejects perpetual consumption or over consumption and embraces a healthy sustainable lifestyle.

Although increasingly so, this issue has not yet reached the forefront. There are growing grassroots movements who advocate for change to sustainable living and environmental justice around the world. The most powerful and rapidly growing is the Transition Towns movement (www.transitiontowns.org). It began in Ireland and the UK and has spread throughout the world. The Transition initiatives are designed to promote communities’ collective efforts for transitioning to a lower energy future and building greater levels of community resilience. More and more communities are joining its ranks. Ontario towns like Toronto, Peterborough, Guelph, Lindsay, Dundas, and others are already working on their Transition initiatives. We in Barrie are long overdue for such actions. Together we can effectively and positively address energy descent issues in our community by promoting and practicing Transition Town concepts, working together and joining initiatives.

There is still hope for change and rational family planning before our families become unhappy, each in their own way…