Post-Carbon Buffalo-Niagara, WNY

That’s what this blog will be all about.

Climate change, food shortages, dwindling crude oil supplies, social strife, geopolitical chaos….those are but a few of the nasty symptoms of a great problem that’s begun to rear its ugly head over the past few years.

Basically, there are too many people on this planet. Most citizens of the wealthy, “first world” nations live incredibly energy-intensive lifestyles, especially in North America, that are straining the natural resources which enable this comfort and convenience-based, high-octane living to be possible in the first place. Most citizens of industrialized nations take for granted the energy-rich resources like fossil fuels which allow machines do effortlessly do the work which would otherwise require multiples of human laborers to perform.

Amidst all the fun and games, our hometown, Buffalo NY is a shrinking, post industrial city that has largely been forgotten by the global economy over the past 50 years, despite being located within the most powerful and prolific of the “winner” nations of the industrial and modern eras.

Right now, as we speak, demand for crude oil is outstripping supply, as the expanding middle classes in rising, overpopulated nations like China and India wish to join the high-consumption party America has enjoyed for decades. Most Americans are still oblivious to this ugly truth and they have no idea that down-scaling the way we live will be mandatory for most of us, not just a trendy “green” lifestyle choice.

This blog will be about how Buffalo and its surrounding region can and will cope will this emerging reality. Our largely suburban-based economy and way of life will have to be re-arranged into a much more energy efficient format. (see: picture below) This means that businesses (whichever ones may survive) will have to relocate for suburban office-parks back into transit-friendly activity nodes like downtown. This means the people who wish to maintain urban livelihoods will have to move back into the city and live in walkable, transit-accessible neighborhoods. Suburbanites who wish to maintain some semblance of “country living” will actually have to live in the country and engage in the age-old occupation of farming.

The challenges to adapt are daunting as hell and no one knows for certain when a great crisis (like a severe economic depression or war) will hit that will force these issues all onto the table at once. We hope to lay out as much information and ideas as possible using this blog.