Thursday, February 17, 2011

We are living in a dream; a dream that's becoming a nightmare

Dreams, good, bad or otherwise, have bequeathed us this world.

Our modern world is the product of dreams, much of what we enjoy sprang from dreams and, interestingly, disillusionment also arose from dreams.

James Howard Kunstler
Today’s dream, or life narrative, has become something of a nightmare with the indisputably reality of human triggered global warming and then to further complicate matters, the end mid-way through this century of the world’s oil resources. Last week I invited readers to join me and consider my dream, a dream that I humbly suggest would ease the difficulties that society and humanity generally, face as our climate changes and we embrace a low-energy future.
To withstand significant changes to our climate and live successfully and psychologically prosperously in a low-energy future we need to re-engage with our near-neighbours, in turn with our wider communities, society generally and so civilization.
Early in his 2005 book “The Long Emergency” James Howard Kunstler said he hoped it would wake the American public from its sleepwalk and defend the project of civilization.
“Even in the face of epochal discontinuity, there is a lot we can do to assure the refashioning of daily life around authentic local communities based on balanced local economies, purposefully activity and a culture of ideas consistent with reality.
“It is imperative for citizens to be able to imagine a hopeful future, especially in times of maximum stress and change,” Kunstler wrote.
Discussing why alternative fuels won’t rescue us Kunstler said: “Based on everything we know right now, no combination of so-called alternative fuels or energy procedures will allow us to maintain daily life in the United States the way we have been accustomed to running it under the regime of oil.”
And so what do we do locally? The world-wide Transition movement enables communities to ease into a low-energy future and a Tatura based group aligned with those aims is working to expose its community to those critical ideals – join them, or at least endorse its ambitions.
Tatura Transition is working to understand our crisis-laden future and can help us turn a certain nightmare into a dream.