Regional planners are increasingly tasked with developing sustainable approaches to population growth, land and water use, energy production, transportation infrastructure, and pollution control. Smart Growth (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) The EPA’s Smart Growth strategies have been used in communities across the country to help communities preserve natural lands and critical environmental areas, protect water and air quality, and reuse already-developed land. MORE

What if the decades-long era of economic growth based on ever-increasing rates of resource extraction, manufacturing, and consumption is over, finished, and done? It’s an uncomfortable idea, but one that cannot be ignored: The “normal” late-20th century economy of seemingly endless growth actually emerged from an aberrant set of conditions that cannot be perpetuated. We have reached the end of economic growth as we have known it. That enables more growth. MORE

And speaking of insanity, Europe is rapidly returning to coal-fired power plants , while in China, coal "remains the major source of fuel for two billion people"-nightmare scenarios with respect to global warming and climate change. Or as a friend recently commented: Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food. As fossil fuels deplete, all that will inevitably go away. MORE

We must end our dependence on fossil fuels, chemical fertilizers, and mechanization in our food production. We’d be sequestering carbon in the soil, in plant growth. The biggest driver is going to be the increasing cost and decreasing availability of fossil fuels, especially oil. Because agriculture is so dependent on oil, the entire system is extremely vulnerable to oil depletion—and to oil price spikes. I think we could call that exponential growth. MORE

I say this with some confidence, because our existing energy, food, transport, and financial systems can’t be maintained under the circumstances that are developing—circumstances of fossil fuel depletion and an unstable climate. That tells us that life can in fact be better without fossil fuels. Now it’s up to you to imagine and build the world after fossil fuels. [link].Again, Again, I am addressing my words especially to you students. MORE

Transition Initiatives are locally based groups working to equip their communities with the tools they need to build resilience in the face of fossil fuel depletion, climate change and the economic crises. Transition US works in close partnership with the UK-based Transition Network ( www.transitionnetwork.org ) set up in early 2007 to support the emergence and growth of the Transition Movement internationally. MORE

DOWNLOAD: (2,933 Kb) [link] Sustainable Urban Energy For cities to confront the challenges of fossil fuel depletion, increasing energy costs and rapid climate change, it is inevitable to develop and implement urban energy management solutions for their sustainable future. Energy efficiency asks, “what would be the best possible way to consume the same good/service”, while renewable energy asks, “could there be sustainable renewable energy alternatives for fossil fuels”. MORE

It turned out that having increasing amounts of money in circulation was a benefit to traders and industrialists during the historical period when all of this was happening—a time when unprecedented amounts of new wealth were being created, first through colonialism and slavery, but then through the harnessing of the enormous energies of fossil fuels. As society dramatically simplifies itself in the wake of fossil fuel depletion, will we revert to some form of gift economy? MORE