Did you happen to see this in last week's Whatcom Independent?

Higher gas prices are only the tip of the iceberg
Another View by Myron Wlaznak
Myron Wlaznak is a community activist and a retired business executive.
http://www.whatcomindy.com/oped_story.php?subaction=showfull&id=12108697...

"...Gasoline prices are on a relentless climb into the stratosphere – $8 a gallon by 2010 is my guess. What we need is not better gas mileage but a completely retooled outlook on life.

There will be an increase in use of mass transit, but by and large, folks will be staying home a lot more, watching TV, and hanging out. We will all be living a little closer together – natural infilling – and we will be on each other nerves a lot more, too.

Close living creates a whole host of people-related problems that our local planners haven’t even begun to consider.

How do you deal with that neighbor who leaves the blinking Christmas lights shining in your bedroom year-round, the dog barking outside all day while the owner takes the bus to work, the noisy drunken neighbors stumbling in and out from midnight to 4 a.m., paper-thin apartment walls that allow even whispers to slip through, loud stereos and TVs, and stinking garbage right outside your window?

The upshot of these rising prices is that we will have to live with each other for a long, long time before solutions to address our energy needs emerge. America’s brain trust is hardly a world leader in this area so we’d better get used to seeing a lot of each other – up close and personal.

There you have it, a few things for the Neighborhood Planning Academy and the proposed Peak Oil Task Force to think about. For me, Tuesdays and Thursdays have become no driving days."

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The article above describes some of the challenges that appear to be headed our way. Peak Oil will most likely necessitate close living, and Myron Wlaznak is correct to point out many of the likely difficulties associated  with interacting more intimately with our neighbors. Of course there will be many benefits as well, which is why Sustainable Bellingham's mission is to promote Relocalization.

In my volunteer work on the Vision Team of Sustainable Bellingham, and in my involvement in the community as a 'peak oil activist,' I've come to see a huge need in relation to our collective push toward a more sustainable community - a need that most of have not put much energy into addressing. As people in general, we desparately need to learn and grow in our abilities to get along with one another, understand one another, and communicate with one another. We also need to learn and grow our skills in helping to bring about social change in our community.

Last fall Angela and I attended Alan Seid's Nonviolent Communication (NVC) workshop series. After having seen a video presentation by NVC founder Marshall Rosenberg, we were interested in developing some of these skills, so we signed up for this class. What we learned in this NVC series dramatically improved the communication between Angela and I, and as a result dramatically improved an already wonderful marriage. What surprised me, however, was how deeply and broadly NVC principles can apply to our lives. It helps us identify our real feelings and our real needs. Identifying real feelings and needs - what a concept! Tough to do sometimes, actually, but when done, I've found the results to be profound.

Getting to know Alan was also a real pleasure. Alan's college experience was a self-designed degree in sustainabilty, but he explained to us that his real learning occurred a few years later when he took seven years off from work to search out and learn the best sustainability tools available. He realized early on in studying sustainability that there are some big holes in the movement regarding human interactions. There's a lot of work being done on the "exterior" stuff - systems, methods, and structures of sustainability, but not a whole lot of focus on the "interiors" like decision making processes, agreements, how to interact and resolve conflict, efficient and harmonious group processes, etc. These interior tools and processes have become Alan's specialty.

When Alan mentioned he was looking for people to help him produce his workshops, I wasn't looking for more things to get involved with. However, the chance to work with Alan seemed to me to be a great learning opportunity, and I really believed he had a lot to offer our community, and I wanted to be a part of that. I truly believe that the trainings he offers will impart tools and skills that are desparately important at this time. I believe this is the generation that is moving into a post-carbon future, a time of unprecedented changes in living and working arrangements. As Myron Wlaznak said in the article above, "we'd better get used to seeing a lot of each other - up close and personal." And we'd better start putting a lot of effort into improving vital interpersonal skills.

With that in mind, please consider our next workshop on June 7 & 8, "Tools for Social Change: Integral Sustainability and Life Practice." The Integral Framework of Ken Wilber will be explored in it's relationship to sustainability and will be interwoven with three other exceptional tools:
Nonviolent CommunicationSM,
Permaculture and Financial Integrity. In this workshop Alan will
present each of these tools and also explore how their value is
enhanced when combined within the Integral model. See the blurb here:
http://www.relocalize.net/tools_for_social_change_integral_sustainabilit...

David MacLeod