• How to talk about peak oil and convince others that this issue will impact us very soon?
• How to discuss climate change and its consequences for Montreal?
• What is the Transition Town movement, which offers a response to these issues – a movement created by citizens for their community? It is based on facts, focuses on concrete action, and most importantly, is also fun and inclusive!
• How can we find inspiration in the Transition Town movement to launch initiatives in various areas of Montreal, in order to reduce our dependence on oil and better resist the shocks of the near future?

Free entrance – Donations welcome
Bring your mug!

A new community group has sprung up in the Mile-End neighborhood with the ambitious goal to reduce auto use.

Other urban areas, most notably Berkeley, CA have managed to dramatically reduce auto use by aggressively installing berms, stop signs and barricades where only bikes and pedestrians can pass. There is also a more aggressive vandalism/propaganda campaign that has been in effect for many years (see photo, right). It is simply annoying to drive through that city, which was by design.

Mile-end must navigate the murky Montreal political process to achieve its ends.

Source: Car Free Mile-End

Clinging to car-dependence as a way of life or as an economic model for growth is like climbing the smokestack on the Titanic. But I hesitate to extend the metaphor to include the proverbial “lifeboat community” as a way of casting the Mile End. None of the seemingly catastrophic changes that seem to loom is going to happen overnight. Yes we should try to reshape our neighbourhood according to sustainable, sensible principles. And yes, this should involve a dramatic reduction in car use by us all. But this will never happen in a vacuum to the exclusion of our neighbours. Perhaps as a motivating factor we can think of a Mile-End striving to be car-free, or going “car-lite”, as a matter of setting an example for those neighbours who must ultimately be a part of our future.

Source: Charles Hugh Smith

Resilience is a key attribute of sustainability. We cannot speak of sustainability without considering resilience, for a fragile system is only sustainable in the short-term and at great cost…

…A family with three sources of income is more resilient than one with a single source, and a household in which all three incomes are earned at the same enterprise is less resilient than one with three incomes from three independent sources…

…Transparency adds, obfuscation and lies detract, as they destroy trust and legitimacy.

Mutual benefit adds, benefitting only a tiny Elite detracts.

Extraction of wealth from the community and exploitation of its people detract, as institutions which do so are dependent on fragile systems of dominance and control.

Leverage and debt both dramatically increase systemic fragility. Savings and capital increase resiliency.

Inner strengths such as integrity, faith, and goals are resilient; inner weaknesses such as greed, self-absorption and lack of integrity are fragile.

Shared goals create resiliency, a welter of competing self-interests leads to fragility.

Taken together, these attributes help us understand why the status quo in the U.S. is so extremely fragile, from the household level to the highest levels of government.

Just as over-leveraged banks are fundamentally insolvent, so too are over-leveraged households fundamentally insolvent.

A culture dependent on lies, obfuscation and propaganda is terribly fragile, as the truth eventually topples all seemingly invulnerable fortresses built on half-truths and outright lies. The same can be said of individuals who have constructed their lives on artifice, dishonesty, denial and self-absorption.

Is your city resilient enough to cope with the upcoming hardships of energy and climate shocks? Are you interested in learning more about how to bring thoughtful and meaningful change to your family, neighborhood and community?

The Resilience Cycle – 5 evenings for positive change – has been organized with this in mind. The first four evenings will include films and discussions centered on topics essential to building resilience in cities: *Food, Housing, Transportation and Community*. The 5th evening will focus on putting together pragmatic local action plans for those wanting to move their neighborhoods and cities towards a more autonomous and self-reliant future.

Learn about the unprecedented challenges of *global energy supply* and *climate change* and *how to prepare* for the inevitable transformation we are all facing. Meet other Montrealers and learn about the positive and stimulating processes already underway in response to these challenges.

Where: *Main Film*, Métro Saint-Laurent, 4067 St-Laurent Blvd., Montreal
When? *Sunday, November 22nd* at 7 p.m.
Theme: Food

Admission free, donations accepted
coffee and tea will be available; bring a mug.

Organized by:

- Post Carbone Montréal
- Montreal Permaculture Guild

The *Resilience Cycle* was organized to sensitize and bring together anyone interested in building a group or movement to help Montreal’s neighbourhoods become more resilient to the future challenges of peak oil and climate change.

This approach was inspired by the international citizen-based Transition movement which began in Ireland and England.

- http://www.villesentransition.net/transition
- http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionInitiative

*Everyone is invited to participate* – young, old, rich, poor, healthy, sick, experienced or beginner on the transition movement. All gatherings are open to all, informative, fun and action-oriented. We hope to see you there!

***Update: Westmount has offered an online poll for residents to cast their votes on which sustainability issues are most important ***

I don’t know what is most disturbing about the process by which Westmount is attempting to institute “sustainable” measures in its borders.

First, Westmount is using the term “Sustainable Development” without any hint of duplicity that the term itself is an oxymoron.

Second,  the public is asked to comment further on 200 “initiatives” which simply smacks of posturing for public input since the real decisions will be left to city council.

Third, and my biggest peeve, is that not one of the sustainable initiatives (except bringing in organic farmers from the outside to set up a farmer’s market) moves the city towards sustainable food production for at least a portion of its diet.

The assumptions of the city residents and politicians seem insurmountable to me. “Of course the trucks from Metro supermarket will continue to arrive FOREVER.”

Nevermind a natural catastrphe, a Flu epidemic, a terrorist attack or just plain scarcity due to soaring food prices down the road. The lack of imagination or simple vision to see the present risks listed above astound me and make me want to live elsewhere.

Overlooking the most basic needs of its community, namely food, water, air, clothing, heat in the winter, will be Westmount’s downfall eventually.

From Joshua Wolfe, Sustainability Coordinator

Thursday, Sept. 10, Westmounters can participate in prioritizing sustainable development actions.

The Action Plan contains over 200 specific actions to make Westmount more sustainable. They were obtained from input from members of the general Westmount public, as well as other stakeholders, and from best practices developed by innovative cities throughout North America and elsewhere.

Of course, not all these ideas can be put into practice immediately. In addition to the concerns listed in this Plan, the City must maintain its infrastructure, parks, lighting, and ensure the effectiveness of current waste management practices, etc in a sustainable manner. Of the many actions listed in the 6 chapters* of the Sustainable Development Action Plan, City Council has developed a short list (see attached). The Sept 10 meeting will focus on prioritizing among these for 2010. There will also be time to discuss more long term actions.

Thursday Sept. 10 7:00 pm

Lodge Room, Victoria Hall

The Sustainable Development Action Plan is scheduled to be adopted by Council by early October. Municipal staff will then calculate the personnel and resource costs of implementing these priorities.

If you would like to provide input on priorities and cannot attend the Sept 10 meeting, fill out the survey at www.westmount.org/sustainable

Feel free to email your comments, reactions and suggestions.

*The six chapters are:

1. Energy & Greenhouse gas reduction
2. The three waters: Water, wastewater and precipitation
3. Nature & Biodiversity
4. Public Health
5. Wasted Resources
6. Access and Transportation

What: Screening of “The Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil”
Followed by a discussion on the impact of peak oil for Montreal.

Even if you have seen this film online or at another venue, please come and meet with other like-minded people to organize and plan for a future, sustainable Montreal!

Description: In the early 1990s, the Cuban population was faced with painful shortages of oil and other goods after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the tightening of the U.S. embargo. What happened to Cuba at that time is not only a case study for what is in store for the rest of us on the down-slope of the fossil fuel era, but also an inspiring example of what communities can do to live a more localized, ecological and healthy society, even in the face of climate change and the current financial meltdown.

Film Preview:

When: Monday, July 27th at 7pm*
Where: Main Film – Room 303 – 4067 Saint Laurent (just north of Duluth)
*This event can only accommodate a maximum of 40 people, so please get there early!

Cost: Free entrance – donations welcome.

For more information, contact: postcarbonmontreal@gmail.com

Learning how to make your own bread is empowering!

Marie-Lou is on the second of her series of workshops this upcoming Saturday with “How to Make Bread!”

When: Saturday, July 18th from 10am-2pm
Where: MUCS: 2000 Northcliffe #218, Montreal QC

Please bring an apron and something to tie your hair. Suggested donation of $3, which goes towards ingredients and use of the kitchen. You will get to leave with notes and a loaf of your own!

We hope to see you there!

Venez nous joindre pour un atelier sur comment faire du pain. Démonstration interactive, réponses aux questions, pages de notes fournies.

Quand? Samedi le 18 juillet, de 10h-14h
Ou? Chez MUCS, 2000 Northcliffe #218

Contribution suggérée de 3 $, pour les ingrédients et l’espace de la cuisine. Si possible, apportez un tablier et quelque chose pour attacher vos cheveux.

On espere vous voir!

If Montreal is to become a sustainable city, there’s some serious work to do. How do we get there?

On Friday, June 19th at Collège Notre-Dame auditorium (3791 Queen Mary), from 6 to 8:30 p.m, Richard Bergeron will tackle these questions. Bergeron is the city’s anti-car, pro-environment political party leader (and urban planner).

He’ll also be joined by two other locals, Dimitri Roussopoulos, publisher and founder of the Urban Ecology Centre and author of several books, including the forthcoming The Rise of Cities, and Dr. Pierre Gauthier, professor in geography and urbanism at Concordia University and author and editor of the recently published Montreal at the Crossroads: Superhighways, the Turcot and the Environment.

$20 at the Door, but includes refreshments.

3791 Queen Mary, near Cote-des-Neiges Metro.

Source: Hour

Bixi, the bike sharing/rental service has finally arrived in Montreal. You can rent bikes by the hour at over 300 self-service stations in Ville-Marie, Plateau-Mont-Royal and Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie. Other stations will be available in Outremont, Sud-Ouest and Villeray–Saint-Michel if the first phase of the roll-out goes well this summer. Find a Bixi station near you.

To try the service at first, you can go to any station and insert a credit card/debt card to rent a bicycle for the hour or the day – just $5 for 24 hour access. Once you’re hooked, you should subscribe to the bike sharing service at the Bixi website. One year subscriptions are just $78; or you can opt to try it for 30 days, at $28.

The BIXI system has been honoured in TIME magazine’s list of the best inventions of 2008 and received the GOLD award for best product of 2009 in the Energy & Sustainability category of the Edison Best New Products Awards.

This idea – an Expo modeled after the 1967 World’s Fair and devoted to Sustainability – sounds very exciting. But why wait until 2017? The idea is to coincide with the country’s 150th anniversary. Do we have that much time to teach people about sustainability? I hope so.

The site: Expo 2017