Northern CommunitiesTransitioning to Resilience

The title of our Letter of Intent is "Northern Communities Transitioning to Resilience: Reworking Policies and Practices towards the Post-Carbon Era". So what is this "post-carbon era"? 

If you Google the term, the first site that comes up is the Relocalization Network (http://www.relocalize.net/about/relocalization), a group committed to a "strategy to build societies based on the local production of food, energy and goods, and the local development of currency, governance and culture.The main goals of Relocalization are to increase community energy security, to strengthen local economies, and to dramatically improve environmental conditions and social equity."

The Relocalization Network describes the "post-carbon era" as "an era where Cheap Oil and Gas – and all the modern conveniences that rely on them – no longer exist in economically viable form, or, through supply disruptions, are no longer available to the continental United States."

Much of the discussion about the post-carbon era originates from the US and focuses on what will happen when some kind of disaster strikes US communities as a result of their dependence on fossil fuels. Will these (largely urban) communities be able to adapt and how? Discussion is focussed on the future and what changes need to be made or how communities will adapt to some kind of crisis that will hit as a result of ignoring the limits of fossil fuel consumption (whether limits to supply, environmental impacts, costs, etc.).

I checked into how much this idea has been applied in Canada, and there is evidence that groups have formed to address "peak oil" and "energy descent", i.e. Post Carbon Toronto (http://www.postcarbontoronto.org/).

The question is, how much does this concept apply to northern Ontario? Is it a suitable concept upon which to base our work? No doubt, we will have to deal with crises associated with dependence on fossil fuels and their impacts, but should this be our main focus? More discussion needed!

Just a note--some of the language of proposal writing is dependent on hanging your hat on "sexy" concepts that have a global appeal. Maybe that's what it takes to get funders to pay attention?