Community Discussions: Transitions to Post-Carbon Economy II

1. What will be some specific challenges for your community as energy from fossil fuels becomes more scarce and expensive?
- Basic Needs – For example, heating costs can accentuate poverty
- The stark individualism in our society: Uncertainty, instability, violence.
- Government acknowledgement impending difficulties
- Mobilization of the grassroots to influence policy-making (citizens’ mindset)
- Cultural shifts may form a foundation for addressing the specific challenges of the end of the fossil fuel age.

2. Assuming that the energy transition is going to involve fundamental change to living standards in wealthy countries, how can democracy help or hider the process?
- “First past the post” doesn’t work
- Reclaiming public and civic space: we are all “people/citizens”
- Freedom and democracy depend on each other
- Communication, dialogue and discourse provide for a community which makes adaptation bearable,

3. Where do you think will be the safest place to live during the energy transition? What would be the best place to live if you wanted to have a positive impact on the process?
- The safest place to live is a psycho-spiritual, cultural place of cooperative, dynamic living in symbiosis with the geophysical place. (“To not go away but build positively where we are.”)
- The best place to live if you want to have a positive impact is one of genuine, open, and accommodating of emergent realities.