I have been oscillating, spiritually, since I became Peak Oil aware. Before this tumult, I concentrated, wholeheartedly, on trying to spread a message of love and compassion. On being a good person. My spiritual questing was informed largely by Quakerism and Buddhism - paths that advocate kindness, pacifism and even-temperedness. Despite a being deeply flawed individual, I would meditate on directing ‘metta’ - loving kindness - to all sentient beings as far as I was able.

In 2005, I was hit by a freight-train of awareness that my heart could not assuage. Simultaneously, I felt rage swell in my core as I beheld the realpoliltik - the malfeasance and insanity of the globalist agenda. The evil promulgated by the lies and prevarications of the corporatists ever permeated my being. As I bore witness to the modus operandi of our fear-based death culture, it felt like a tapeworm was inching its way through my soul. Read the complete Post.

One January in Paris, I held a well-wrapped bag of Brie outside my third-floor window.

Street lamps shone on deep green leaves as snow melted in the cool air. I wound my window closed, holding the edge of the bag until it was firmly secured in the protective corner of the outer pane.

With hundreds of students and only one kitchen, leaving food in the communal fridge was like giving it away.

Four years later, in my new apartment in Toronto, I stood in front of what sounded like a fridge with bronchitis. I started to view it less as a useful appliance than as an unneeded annoyance.

In what felt like a radical decision, I unplugged my fridge. Read the complete Post.

I can’t help but feel frustrated when I read Newsweek articles like that one below that only go as far as advocating a Business As Usual (BAU) or a Technofix just-in-time-to-save-our-asses solution (In religious jargon – False Messianic promise) to Climate Change and Peak Oil.

By Philip Be’er VPOE

In his Hierarchy of Needs, Abraham Maslow laid out in a graphic format, what human beings need to thrive http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm

Try to find the need for nuclear, fossil or even “low carbon” energy sources, for cars or of any other kind of mechanised transportation in the pyramid and you’ll see that they simply play no role in what human beings require to be healthy, wealthy and happy.

According to Professor Abraham Maslow, we do need Clean Air, Food, Water, Sleep and Shelter to survive. When we also get our safety and security needs met this creates a stable environment conducive to developing socially and emotionally. When we set up our societies in ways that allow us to have our Esteem Needs met, then we also have a shot at realising our personal potential.

Read the complete Post.

The first organizer of the Vancouver Peak Oil Citizens Group, Max - a highly like-able young permaculturist and eco-activist - renounced the post allegedly, because he foresaw our powering-down and transitional efforts going to s***. I remember hearing this information from my predecessor, Steve. I was told that he was off, ‘walking the land,’ trying to find out ‘where it is at.’ As I began to Contemplate Max’s life-path, I also began to question more of my own plans for the future. Put it this way, if I am to use the folks at LATOC as a yardstick, I am woefully unprepared, ripe for the die-off. A secure home with crate-loads of ammo is the de rigeur minimum - or so the message boards would have us believe.

Read the complete Post.

I find myself trying to take account of a lot of different scenarios, ranging from a “soft landing” — where oil depletes gradually and price rises are the biggest problem we have to deal with — to a crash with both sturm and drang.  In the soft landing scenario, I’d hope to stay in North Vancouver and help relocalize it into a fairly self-sufficient neighborhood, bearing in mind that that still requires preserving farmload to grow food for the whole metro area and so on.  That’s why I’m eager to get the Peak Oil task force going, get the city council and the provincial government on board, and make Vancouver the first city in Canada to officially prepare for what’s coming.  But I’m also thinking about what to do in a more severe scenario — I’d still need a village around me — but maybe somewhere farther from the city, like Nelson, or the Sunshine Coast?  That kind of scenario brings with it a million questions:  How do I make a living?  What about family, here and elsewhere?  Where are my best friends?  How do I convince lots of people with Really Useful Skills to come live next to me and teach me everything I don’t know?  No real answers yet, but I’m hoping 2008 will bring much more clarity.  I’ll update this post when I know more.

Plans A, B & C are all in various stages of research and development:

Plan A - Stay in Vancouver - Plan A

• Continue to develop guerrilla and community gardens
• Create a non-profit to facilitate the creation of city sponsored community gardens
• Start an urban permaculture school to train low-income, disadvantaged, at risk populations alongside anyone interested in the subject
• Work with the city to create urban farms employing people who have graduated from the urban permaculture school

Plan B - Ecovillage in BC

• Looking at property in Lillooet with plenty of sun, long growing season and access to fresh water
• Work with city of Lillooet to create a methane digester facility for composting municipal food stuffs while generating electricity and fertilizer
• Purchase diesel vehicle and get a Plant Drive kit so I can run on used veggie oil, dino diesel and biodiesel
• Start building a huge garden & orchard - enough to be self-sufficient with a surplus to sell/trade
• Begin keeping livestock for meat and dairy
• Continue developing soap making skills
• Start a permaculture school within the next five years
• Continue to create micro-enterprise focused on relocalizing our economy

Plan C - Head for the Hills

• Retreat to Manitoulin Island - work with friends and family to build self-sufficient infrastructure there