Welcome to Post-Carbon Living.
This is the inspirational vision of an alternative to a century of declining resources.
Declining oil production - declining food production -
spiralling debt - decline in climate stability. 97% of us
understand that we are contributing to Climate Change but less
than 2% of us have switched
to a Renewable Electricity Tariff. 74% of people felt that “we
are heading for disaster if we don’t quickly change our habits”,
yet 59% said that “they are doing nothing about it”.
What we need to stop doing is thinking of it as a problem that
is too expensive to solve. This is a socioeconomic opportunity
and there is no alternative to solving it. All we need is the
wisdom and the roadmap.
This Post-Carbon Life is
not environmentalism. It isn't "green". It isn't "eco" this or
that. This isn't a "lifestyle" choice. It is just how life WILL
be. The Post-Carbon Life is an inspirational glimpse of the future...
A vision that
will be here quicker than you think.
Glimpse the future: what one
ordinary family can do
Our "Post-Carbon" Superhome!
The latest additions to this web
site. You can read the book reviews via the blog
below.
Post-Carbon
Living is the home of the "Post-Carbon Homes"
initiative. Real homes, not new homes. Since most of
us, in 2050, will be living in the housing stock
that already exists, all the talk of Carbon-Neutral
Building Standards are a little academic.
We aim to take normal homes and
turn them into resilient homes. Homes that generate
their own power, their own hot water, their own
food, all with a minimal footprint upon our
children. All in a cosy home you can live in - not
some horrid science project gone wrong.
In August 2010 our work was recognised when our own
PCL Post-Carbon home in Buckinghamshire, UK, was elected to be Britain's
59th "Superhome":
www.SuperHomes.org.uk The public will now be
able to visit our "super" Post-Carbon Home by
logging on to the Sustainable Energy Academy website
and watching out for our open days. There are now 60
such homes in England and Wales (see map below) -
check for one in your area. 75% of the UK population
is now within 40 minute drive from a Superhome.
To be a "Superhome" you need to have reduced your
home's Carbon Footprint by at least 60%. The PCL
Post-Carbon Home was estimated to have reduced its
Carbon Footprint by 90% down to 0.88kg/sqm. However
this just a benchmark based upon average homes in a
computer model. It somewhat ignores actual usage and
lifestyle changes which means that 90% is pretty
conservative by our reckoning!
The World of Post-Carbon Girl
Welcome
to the adventures of Post-Carbon Girl. We
believe the problems mankind faces are so simple a child
could understand. We also know the solutions are equally
simple. Post-Carbon Girl
will share with us what her family are doing in the great
transition. She appears on many pages to give the
child's eye view of what us grown ups must do.
The Ascent of Post-Carbon Man
Welcome
to the adventures of Post-Carbon Man.
Read his blog
here
or see below. He appears in many places
giving his thumbs-up and thumbs-down to this Post-Carbon Life.
Use him as a guide through this site.
Get the roadmap = the Ten Step Vision to Post-Carbon Living
Organise
- the first step -
change your mind. Study the evidence, think
about the future, decide to do something.
Measure your Carbon Footprint. How dependent
are you on oil? More
here...
Generate
- step six. Become your own power station.
Why be a slave to the grid & outdated
energy infrastructure? Break free. Get
independence. Get security. Generate from
your rooftop. More
here...
Powerdown - step
two. Switch things off. Kill your standby.
Don't leave lights on. Learn some simple
self-discipline. Imagine sky-high food and
energy costs. More
here...
Grow
- step seven. Break free of the supermarket.
Grow your own fruit and veg. Enjoy the
exercise and peace in gardening. Reduce your
food miles to zero. Eat healthier too. More
here...
Recycle
- step three. Easy! Why throw good stuff
away? Pride yourself on how little you need
to dispose of - not how much you consume.
Re-use & have an empty bin. More
here...
Invest
- step eight. Get out of debt. It is a
big threat to your security in a
steady-state economy. When money doesn't
grow its supply collapses. Invest in trees
and carbon-neutrality. More
here...
Substitute - step four. Simply swap old
fashioned things for new energy efficient
things. Job done! No one will sit in the
dark or go cold. Good riddance to bad
rubbish. More
here...
Make
- step nine. Get a hobby. Work with your
hands. Re-skill. Some DIY skills will
improve your self-reliance and be of benefit
in a future of expensive fossil fuels. It
will give you new life. More
here...
Stay
- step five. Having a carbon neutral home is
easy. But it all goes wrong when you step
foot out the front door. Why are we travel
crazy? Try staying at home. More
here...
Community - step ten. Join a Transition
Town. Embrace your town, your neighbours,
your island, your village. You will be more
resilient as a team. The more help the
better. More
here...
WHY do we need a new vision?
The Graph on the left shows the trend in the Global Air Temperature
over the last
150 years. It shows a steady rise since about 1910. This
information is from the CRU - the Climate Research Unit at
the University of East Anglia. You can follow this curve as
they occasionally update it on line at the web site
www.cru.uea.ac.uk.
The Graph on the right shows the trend in the Price of Oil.
If you hover your mouse pointer over it you can see the
trend over the last month, the last quarter, the last year or
the last five years.
One thing you can be sure of is
that Temperature and Oil prices are going to rise in synch
for the foreseeable future. This is because both climate &
oil are
finite resources. These resources are depleting more quickly
than they will renew. This
is a finite planet but the human enterprise continually
expands.
Something will change. We will switch to a
smarter way of working to mitigate the risks of
declining resource.
The risk comes from the threat to fuel, food & economy. All
are carbon-based and none can expand forever. It is not a
question of if they "peak" - only when. Evidence shows that
this 21st Century will be the Century of declining resource.
But this isn't doom-mongering. We have the ability to build
a more resilient post-carbon society with clean air, healthy
food and more fulfilling lives. It will be unlike anything
we have considered before. A vision, not a nightmare. An
achievable dream, not a fantasy. A cultural renaissance the
likes of which we have never seen before.
"Who cares? I don't believe in man-made
climate change......."
Nobody-who-matters
cares if YOU believe in man-made climate change or not. Governments
believe. The market believes.
The scientists believe. So why fight it? The decarbonisation of
the economy is the logical conclusion from observable
reality. No modern economy will continually expand based
upon finite and declining resources. The argument about Climate Change
is now only of academic interest because it will be rapidly
over-taken by issues of security and scarcity.
The bottom line will be
the price of carbon. Scarcity of such a critical resource as
Oil will lead to sharp price rises. If scarcity doesn't do
the trick then Government intervention will. You will live
to see carbon rationing, carbon budgets and carbon taxation.
So why wait? Mitigate the risk. Move away from Carbon -
completely. It is no longer a question of being a bit
"low-carbon". We must now think about what lies beyond
carbon. What does the post-carbon world behold? Get it right
and we all win. There are only
opportunities for the pioneer.
A quick recap
Economic Chaos
- Oil has peaked in
production. There will never be as much cheap oil again. What is
left will become very difficult and expensive to
extract. Oil & Gas will become so expensive that our
economies will cease to function. This will
happen within thirty years.
Climate Risk - It
matters not whether Climate Change will cause warming or
cooling. It matters not whether it is man-made or
natural. We are vulnerable to ANY climate change.
Food Security - The combined
effects of Peak Oil and Climate Change are to reduce our usable
agricultural land, ie, our ability to feed ourselves.
Energy Security - Our
'security' is another man's suffering. Suffering will
find its way home to us.
....but this isn't a problem, it is an
opportunity! Since fossil fuels are the source of all our
problems, and we know how to run an economy without them,
what are we waiting for? Leadership? Hope? Vision? A world
of clean renewable energy, thriving local economies,
unpolluted fresh air and healthy food awaits.... Lead,
follow or get out of the way.
Everyone can implement
the new vision of a post-carbon future. "Post-Carbon Living"
is a positive vision and example of how we will all be
living very soon. Solutions, not problems. Follow the Ten
Step Plan. Let's all transition to a post-carbon
future.
From Global Vulnerability to Local Security
Imagine the Britain of 2020. Petrol is £5/litre. It will cost you
£1200 to heat your house for a year. Another £1000 pays for a
year's household electricity. Energy prices are doubling every
year. There is a shortage of food in the shops. You haven't seen
a Banana in three years let alone snow. The Summers are long, hot and dry. Sometimes
there is no water. Sometimes no electricity. Unemployment is 20%
and rising at 5% a year. There are riots and mass homelessness.
Crime is rampant. TV News shows the body bags flown home from the
endless
foreign wars.
Now imagine if you made
different decisions in your life in 2010. You moved to a smaller
home with wood boiler and some land. The new home is extremely
well insulated, you now grow your own food and make your own hot
water & electricity through the power of the sun. Your Business
diversified out of fossil-fuel dependency and into renewable and
local alternatives. Your Community erected a Wind Turbine and supports itself
now after transitioning to system of self-reliance. All Food & Fuel is
now locally
supplied. You aren't just surviving - you are thriving and have
job security. These
were the best decisions you, your Community and Business ever made. The
decisions of millions like you increased security for all of us.
Wouldn't you do the right thing
too?
There is
no techno fix. No magic bullet. Sustainable, renewable energy
and food is very unlikely to sustain a consumer society. Your
world is about the start shrinking. We will go from global to
local. Everything will be a lot smaller. Small is beautiful and
local is security.
Something To Do Today
www.uswitch.com where
you can compare suppliers of renewable electricity online
Insulate your home
Stop flying
Live close to work
Check these
illuminating web sites for a glimpse of the future:
Post-Carbon
Living considers our future socioeconomic opportunities as
needing a holistic approach. We can't ignore economics. Did you
know our money supply was unsustainable? Once
you realise all our money is just debt you will discover that it
needs an exponentially growing economy to keep it going. That
economic growth is on a collision course with finite resources.
We are raising money for our friends over at Transition Town
High Wycombe through a sale of the "Money as Debt" DVD. This DVD
is in multi-region format. We have just 6 of these for sale. We
are offering these at a discount price of only £5.99 each.
You'll enjoy the DVD too as it is one of the most thoroughly
entertaining and educational animations you will ever see.
***PLEASE NOTE THAT PAYPAL PAYMENTS MUST BE MADE TO
"donationsATtransition-wycombe.org.uk" (REPLACE "AT" WITH "@")
ONLY.***
To Buy Money as Debt II - Promises Unleashed
This
Movie will have a profound impact upon your life as it explains how the
macro-economics of nations are locked into a money-debt system that leads to
dead-end of resource depletion and Climate Change. We must consider the reform
of our Money=Debt system.
We are now also selling the "Money as Debt II - Promises Unleashed" DVD. This
DVD is in multi-region format. We have 8 of these for sale. In the UK you will
have to send off for these from Canada and one DVD will cost the equivalent of
£15 depending upon the exchange rate. However we can offer these for £13.99
each.
***PLEASE NOTE THAT PAYPAL PAYMENTS MUST BE MADE TO
"donationsATtransition-wycombe.org.uk" (REPLACE "AT" WITH "@")
ONLY.***
The 1% figure for Green Tariff
switches is reported in an article "How Green is your
Energy?" p8-12 Organic life Magazine April 2007. The actual
numbers for the UK are £54million out of a total market of
£18billion.
Figures on UK
Population awareness of Climate Change causes comes from an
ICM Poll taken in March 2007.
For an insight into why Western-style
Democracy and neo-liberal Globalisation Policies are
unable to solve these problems,
read Chris Goodall's "How to Live a Low Carbon Life"
opening chapter.
Note that a 2nd edition of How
to Live a Low-Carbon Life is to be published by
Earthscan in February 2010
A Krofire Enterprise - supporting the Transition Town Movement since
2008
