Solutions for a Post Carbon World

By Guest Writer, 2-09-10

With the avalanche of opinions on the challenging issues that face Montanans and the world today, it’s hard to know where to get reliable information.  We know the conundrums of climate, energy, resource depletion, and the economy are complex and interrelated, but it can be difficult to grasp exactly how they fit together.  And just what are we going to do to slow these run-away trains?

I recently got some clarity on this subject when I attended a gathering for the Fellows of the Post Carbon Institute.  The Fellows are a think-tank focused on today’s interconnected sustainability crises —a one-stop shop for cutting edge thinking on the transition to a post-carbon world.

Twenty-five of the nation’s leading experts in transportation, green building, health, urban and rural agriculture, water, sustainability, eco-literacy, population, climate change, and peak oil attended. We gathered to answer two questions:

• What can we be doing right now to ensure a more secure and sustainable future?  and,
• How do we engage with people hungry for information and eager to roll up their sleeves?

We know it’s highly unlikely we’ll return to the kind of economic growth we’ve witnessed over the past 20 years.  And the last decade was the hottest on record.  Here in Montana, we’ve seen it with longer fire seasons, less snow, and earlier run-off.  So how do we find health, happiness, and gainful employment in a post-cheap energy, post-resource-abundant world with a changing climate?

As we took an objective look at today’s world, every subject matter expert in attendance added more sobering information.  There were few upward trends to report other than increases in debt, atmospheric CO2, population, and demand for water.  It’s crystal clear that we need to transition to lower impact, less consumptive life-styles. We need to do it creatively, and we need to do it now.

The trajectory of the next decade is hard to imagine.  Although we can’t predict the future, we can prepare for uncertainty.  For example, those of us who live amongst dead and dying trees can’t be certain they’ll burn, but we can proactively create defensible space and have our escape routes planned.

Relocalization is job one.  That is to say, for a truly sustainable economy we must look first to the renewable resources, farmland and craftspeople close to home.  In Montana, it wasn’t that long ago that most of our energy, food, and goods came right from our own counties. In this age of global food and energy systems we’ve lost that self-reliance and local economy. Thankfully there are plenty of folks in Montana who still know how to work with and care for the land, or are capable of wiring a home-power system.  Seek out those people in your town as you look towards a new gardening season or as you consider how to cut your dependence on coal-fired electricity.

We see relocalization growing all around us. The huge popularity of farmers markets and local food is one example.  We see it in the surge in community gardens and vegetable plots, the explosion of businesses selling and installing roof top solar panels and backyard wind turbines, and new commitments by our schools and local governments to waste less energy.

Along with relocalization, we need to relearn resiliency, that is, the ability to observe, react and adapt to change and adversity.  Resiliency is neither fight nor flight – it’s developing a commitment to action that flows with the circumstances. 

Technological innovations are often held up as the solution to our world’s woes.  New technology may provide some answers but much of it will take time (which we’re short on), money (which we’re short on) and energy (which we’re short on) to fully develop and implement.  Government, facing staggering economic woes, can’t help much either.  When we face the reality that so-called “clean coal” or any of the other techno-fixes won’t be saving us anytime soon, it’s time to take matters into our own hands.

We all need to better understand what’s really feeding these crises and why continuing to accept business-as-usual solutions is so last century.  Then we need to develop responsive, resourceful plans and a readiness to help our neighbors and ourselves move in a new, conservation-oriented direction. 

The next decade is going to bring amazing achievements and devastating blows to different sectors of society.  However, life and the most important things about it can be as good or better.  Driving less may mean enjoying more time with friends, family and hobbies.  Consuming less means spending less and saving more.  Growing our own meat and produce locally means more nutrient-dense food and fewer chemicals in our bodies.

A focus on our own towns and our skilled neighbors means greater self-reliance and resilience to the changes that are sure to come.  Montana is more than ready for this transition.

Gloria Flora is the Director of Sustainable Obtainable Solutions and she offered this commentary, which was first used on Montana Public Radio, on behalf of AERO, Montana’s Alternative Energy Resources Organization.