As all this starts to shift and change and disintegrate and collapse, there’s the opportunity, in fact, to come back to ourselves. To grow up, fundamentally, as people and as a culture.

~Richard Heinberg, What A Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire

What will it mean to grow up, as a people and as a culture?

Responses to What A Way To Go include inspiring efforts that range from a conscious dismantling of industrial civilization, visions and practices to bring about an evolutionary leap into a new paradigm, as well as shock and deep despair at the massive on-going loss of species and indigenous cultures and the threat of human extinction.

Many people want to know WHAT TO DO.

PREPARATION:

1) Post-Peak Living offers online courses on a variety of topics from gardening and keeping chickens to a six-week course to prepare for living very differently in the following areas: transportation, health, finances and shelter, food production and storage, and post-peak skills.

2) The Transition Network “helps communities deal with climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy (peak oil).”

The Transition concept emerged from work that permaculture designer Rob Hopkins had done with the students of Kinsale Further Education College in writing an “Energy Descent Action Plan”. This looked at across-the-board creative adaptations in the realms of energy production, health, education, economy and agriculture as a “road map” to a sustainable future for the town…The idea was adapted and expanded through 2005, 2006 and beyond in Hopkins’ hometown of Totnes where he is now based. The initiative spread quickly, and as of May 2010, there are over 300 communities recognized as official Transition Towns in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Italy and Chile. The term transition towns has morphed into transition initiatives to reflect the range and type of communities involved…

In the United States, transition initiatives have sprung up in many communities. Transition US is the national hub and has a vision “that every community in the United States will have engaged its collective creativity to unleash an extraordinary and historic transition to a future beyond fossil fuels; a future that is more vibrant, abundant and resilient; one that is ultimately preferable to the present”. Transition US is a resource and catalyst for building resilient communities across the United States that are able to withstand severe energy, climate or economic shocks while creating a better quality of life in the process. They are accomplishing this mission by inspiring, encouraging, supporting, networking and training individuals and their communities as they consider, adopt, adapt, and implement the transition approach to community empowerment and change. (From Wikipedia)

3) Chris Martenson’s The Crash Course, online course and book, focuses on the effect on global economics of oil depletion and dwindling resources. On his site are excellent resources and on-going discussion of actions one might take to prepare personally.

TRANSFORMATION

In addition to the authors and scholars we interviewed during the making of What A Way To Go, here’s a list of authors and books that have been important to us over the past years and have contributed to our own personal and spiritual evolution in the face of humanity’s crisis:

The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine

Last Chance to See