What do sub-prime mortgages have to do with Atlantic salmon, SUVs and globalization?
They all depend on cheap oil, but oil is peaking.
So you can count on the price at the pump going up.
And as transportation costs rises, so will the costs of our food.
That means that we have to wean ourselves from fossil fuels and re-engineer our lives
to adapt to a world of growing energy scarcity.
The good news is your neighbors and your neighborhood are about to get a lot more important
in the not too distant future.
Margaret Mead, a famous anthropologist, once said,
"Never underestimate how a small group of thoughtful people can change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has!"
That's where community power comes in.
Thinking and acting locally is the only way that we are going to able to
address the issue facing us today and generations to come.
We have significant challenges in front of us.
CO2 emissions are pouring into the atmosphere.
If the global climate warms beyond an average increase of 2 degrees,
the impacts will be far more devastating than we can imagine.
Community power and the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA) is a way for people
to share adversity and decide what to do about it
while creating economic benefits.
The Green Energy and Green Economy Act is unlike anything else in North America.
It created the framework for a cross-section of communities to come together and create
the infrastructure to turn vision into action. We are facing two paths: the Hard Path, centralized production of energy with continuous consumption and limitless growth; or the Soft Path: local production of energy, locally owned with resilient and sustainable communities.
We need to make a choice of which direction we want to take.
The Hard Path is more of the same, and leads to irreversable consequences.
We need to make this choice together to decide on the vision we want for our community.
And to take action on what we want to create together.
The greatest challenge is about leadership.
Finding those people in the community who have the passion
and who want to make a difference.
That is where YOU come in.
If you are a local guy, a girl, a local group,
a church, or a local leader, who sees the benefit
of community power and you want to build community resilliancy.
But where to start?
That is where we at OSEA come in.
with our roadmap to getting your community power project from vision to reality.
OSEA's Roadmap To Success Workshop will take you on a deep dive
into the roadmap tools and techniques.
We will create a project in your community
and help you develop an action plan
to bring it from vision to reality.
The Community Energy Partnership Program (CEPP)
offers a 90% grant on eligible activities
that have the technical, financial and governing feasability of a community project.