PEAK OIL AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY Chapter 9B – What We Can Do at the Local and Municipal Levels By Robert Bériault.

PEAK OIL AND THE PEAK OIL AND THE FATE OF HUMANITYFATE OF HUMANITY

Chapter 9B – What We Can Do Chapter 9B – What We Can Do

at the Local and Municipal Levelsat the Local and Municipal Levels

By Robert Bériault

2- Local neighbourhood levelDuring the energy down slope, community cohesiveness will be an advantage for everybody, especially from the aspect of security.

Neighbours would gain by getting to know each other.

Everybody would benefit from getting involved in neighbourhood activities like sports, neighbourhood watch, energy efficiency groups.

2- Local neighbourhood levelIn order to prepare for the energy decline, we must absolutely reverse the process of globalization before an oil crash imposes it on us.– Because it will if we don’t.

For the average person like you and me, we can start at the neighbourhood level. It means living more locally, by travelling more on foot, and by buying locally made goods and services.

Efforts must be made to support neighbourhood restaurants, hardware stores, bookstores, grocery stores, clothing stores, etc.

This enables the money to remain in the neighbourhood, therefore increasing employment, thus making the neighbourhood economy more robust and reducing crime.

2- Local neighbourhood level

What better way to strengthen a local economy than to operate a local exchange trading system (LETS).

For more information on this read: “Short Circuit” by Richard Douthwaite, free on-line.

2- Local neighbourhood level

Start a gardening plot cooperative

This is the type of arrangement where a vacant city lot is divided up into small garden plots which individuals can rent to grow their own produce.

2- Local neighbourhood level

Start or Join an Organic Food Cooperative Not only does this encourage local

producers,

BUT It also is more environmentally benign

and provides a healthier diet for all of us

2- Local neighbourhood level

Start an energy efficient housing cooperative

This could take the form of a condominium apartment building or a housing project.

2- Local neighbourhood level

It could incorporate:Photovoltaic array for electricity productionSolar water heater systemGardening plotsWell treedPlay areaIndoor parkingPicnic areaDaycareCommunity centreCoop food storeAutonomous sewage treatmentHigh efficiency insulation

3- Municipal level

That’s where the decision making gets done, so lets get involved:

Attend city council meetingsGet to know the actorsGet to meet your councillorGet involved with a committee

Toronto city hall

3- Municipal level

There are so many things that cities are doing wrong that there is always something for us to try to correct :

These are the hard-working, well-meaning people who run the city of Ottawaon the assumption that oil will last forever. Every Canadian city is run this way.

3- Municipal level

City politicians favour street widening as opposed to public transit, sidewalks and bicycle paths:

All Canadian cities are hooked on perpetual growth. They haven’t caught on yet that Mother Nature will put a stop to this on her own terms. We have been blindly drawing down the resources she so generously bestowed upon us.

3- Municipal level

Citizens all over Canada must denounce this short-sighted way of doing things and demand that their city council make our cities

more suitable for walking and less dependant on the

automobile.

3- Municipal level

Improve public transit.

Why not resuscitate the good old electric streetcar? This would be the most efficient way to use wind energy for transport.

3- Municipal level

Encourage cycling.

Create more bicycle paths

3- Municipal level

Encourage cycling.

Create bicycle lanes on all streets

3- Municipal levelCity councillors encourage huge shopping centres instead of small stores:Our cities have been systematically killing small businesses by welcoming large multinational shopping centre developers and Walmart.

The profits from these stores are not recycled into the local economy, but are exported to the big companies’ overseas bank accounts.

A total reversal of this pernicious trend has to come about.

3- Municipal levelThe people in power design the suburbs in such a way that we need a car even if we’re just going to the “corner” store:

In suburbs we cannot walk to our work place, high school, arena, theatre, cinema, restaurant, library, university, store, church, hospital, fire or police station, municipal office, medical clinic or pharmacy.

3- Municipal level

Municipalities segregate work place from living place.

They have not thought about how people will move between the two when oil becomes rare.

Ottawa’s Sparks Street mall blends shopping and office spaces but not residential.

3- Municipal level

At the dawn of declining energy supplies, zoning

laws should allow a mix of uses.

3- Municipal levelCities should invest massively in making themselves walkable

3- Municipal levelCities are still building skyscrapers – higher than ever

At the turn of the 20th century a phenomenal number of apartments were built in Paris. None of the buildings exceeded 7 stories. They didn’t have elevators then, so I guess they figured that there had to be a maximum tolerable number of stairs up which people would care to lug groceries.

At the dusk of the age of petroleum we are still punching sky scrapers into the heavens. In view of the uncertainty that we will be able to run the elevators, would it not be wiser to limit the height of buildings?

In fact, we must develop a new ethic on consumption.

For starters, we could begin by reverting to closing stores on Sundays.

Whereas the practice used to exist for religious reasons, we would re-establish the custom for ecological purposes. Foregoing consumption one day a week would help create a healthy, environmental mindset…

…with the added benefit of rediscovering a more cohesive family and community life!

3- Municipal levelCities are maintaining the status quo on garbage removal:

We are consuming resources faster than ever. The Chinese have joined us and they are now buying 10 million refrigerators and 7 million cars a year.

We have to realize that ANY rate of extraction of resources is unsustainable because eventually they will be exhausted. The only way we can consume goods and maintain our civilization is to recycle to the maximum degree possible.

In Canada we are producing more garbage than we were in 1980 despite all half-hearted efforts at recycling.

3- Municipal level

We have to aim at recycling or reusing 100% of the resources we extract.

3- Municipal levelCities ought to urgently start “fixing” suburbs by:

Joining suburb sections together with pathwaysBuilding more pedestrian overpassesPutting a moratorium on road expansionDedicating separate bus lanes on existing multilane roadsEliminating the zoning laws that separate work and shopping areas from residential areasEncouraging individuals to start businesses from homes

3- Municipal levelCities ought to put an absolute and immediate ban on new housing developments:

In the meantime municipalities should gang up on the Federal government to do what it should do (slides to follow).

• Much of what municipalities do is dependent of what the Federal decides. So it is vitally important for the Canadian government to take appropriate action. This is what Chapter 9C attempts to cover.