Post-Carbon Girl

Your Next Ten Steps

• Organise
• Powerdown
• Recycle
• Substitute
• Stay
• Generate
• Grow
• Invest
• Make
• Community

The Coming New Reality

You have heard of 'Weight Watchers' right? And Alcoholics Anonymous? What about 'Neighbourhood Watch'? What do they all have in common? People come together with a common cause, a common objective. They wish to achieve communal security, reach a greater state of personal health or cut back on a substance that is bad for them. All of these objectives have something in common with a Post-Carbon Living Group. We want to achieve safety in numbers. It is easier to feel you can make the changes necessary when you know everyone else is doing it to. On the international scale a country's dependence upon foreign Fossil Fuel reserves threatens all our security. We are hostage to other powers. Your Country's Political Leadership may be tempted to use warfare to secure Oil because they think that is what YOU want. War only begets war.

Your Post-Carbon Living Group will be cutting back on a particularly nasty and addictive drug. Like the worst crack cocaine it is almost instantaneously addictive and the addict will do almost anything and commit any crime in order to get their fix. They will lie, cheat, steal, kill, whatever to get some more of that precious Fossil Fuel energy into their lives. We must help each other to recondition our needs as a society. We must create the new "norm". WE define what is normal.

When you have reduced you Fossil Fuel Dependency by 80% and learnt to run your life through your personal solar endowment you will be free. Fossil Fuel is like an albatross around all our necks. It distorts our entire view of life. Once the fog is lifted you will see the World for it is. You will learn to fill your life with more fulfilling activities such growing your own food and making things.

Meet with your fellow members and achieve critical mass. If you want to you can take your campaign out to the masses then please do so. We will help you. You will be handing out Post-Carbon Living's Gold-coloured balloons with pictures of Milla's face. Each will say "Please don't let me down" and the reverse says "Post-Carbon Living - join the revolution". Join the revolution today.

Find New Words - New Understanding

When we talk about creating our brave new reality (our new "normality") some interpret this as top-down "Stalinesque-social-re-engineering". Like something out of Orwell.... But take a step back. What exactly do we mean? In the Books from the Transition Network you will commonly see the term "cultural stories" - as in - we will need to learn new stories about ourselves. It is all about change enablement and making the change more acceptable. We need to be getting out of one comfort zone and getting into another whilst avoiding obvious clichés and stereotypes. People won't change if you re-enforce negative perceptions of what the change will bring.

So, first things first: Don't be a hypocrite and don't lecture people. We are all human. We can all be wrong. We share our frailties. Instead, just LEAD and follow this golden rule: Stop using the language of environmentalism. We are not ecologists but you can hold a little piece of the future in your hand and keep it safe for generations to come. If you can do that then you have built a better life for yourself.

• Example one: we do not face an environmental catastrophe. We face a human tragedy.

• Example two: your investment decisions are based upon the reasonable assumption that oil and food are to become intolerably expensive. This is based upon the evidence, not a 'feeling' or some need to 'connect with nature'.

• Example three: you are not "saving the Planet". You are saving the future. The planet is a ball of rock that will happily spin around the sun for millions of years minus homosapiens.. Biodiversity will proliferate without mankind. It will go on. The oceans will recede once man has gone. All problems will be solved in a geological scale of understanding. The human experiment is but a brief blinking of an eye. Our concern should be how to save ourselves.

• Example four: forget the concept of the green "lifestyle choice". A lifestyle is what colour coat you wear, the games you play, the places you go, the friends you keep. A post-carbon future is LIFE. It is not style, it is substance. It is not choice. It is only a "choice" in the same way that committing a crime was a choice before laws were passed. You will always have choice. You can choose to walk or cycle. You can choose to eat apples or pears. You can choose your friends and your spouse. You will always have choice and freedom.

Finally, think about doing more than just going on demonstrations. Instead demonstrate solar power. Demonstrate community leadership. Become an example of the future we must transition to. Give your politicians a mandate by voting for the right ones at the Polling Booth. Use your vote wisely. We get the politicians we deserve. We get a system that reinforces the status quo because that is what most people are voting for. People are scared of change. Let's make it a party.