Mobilizing for the Climate Emergency in Canada will uncover that changes in the way we plan for a green resource based economy have been in the works for decades.
Changes in the works
Connie Vitello reports on a solar energy milestone in Antigonish Nova Scotia that marks generation of a megawatt of renewable power. It began with a pair of community meetings, in the fall of 2014 and again the following spring, at which a hundred or so people from Antigonish took a long, hard look at Nova Scotia’s energy mix. Recognizing the dominance of coal, oil and natural gas, residents decided they could do better. A Co-op was formed in the summer of 2015 to advance the cause of renewable power.
The Co-op was formed in the summer of 2015 to advance the cause of renewable power. “We’re entirely independent, entirely volunteer” said David Morgan, who became president that June. They settled on the “buyers co-op” business model, wherein they bring together members interested in purchasing rooftop solar arrays every year and make one large group purchase rather than several smaller ones. This allows them to secure discounts on the shipping of solar panels and on labour costs from partnering solar installers, specifically Appleseed Energy in West Arichat and Nova Sun Power in Pictou. The savings are modest, said Morgan, averaging 5-7 per cent, but they’re not insignificant, and far from the Co-op’s only benefit. As Morgan described it, the Co-op has offered free property assessments to its members to gauge solar potential, organized several public information sessions on the power of renewables, led walkthroughs of solar homes to showcase the technology, and pulled off their group solar purchases every year for five years running. To date, they’ve empowered 123 households to install rooftop solar, from Tatamagouche in the west to Sydney in the east and Musquodoboit Harbour in the south. The Co-op boasts a membership of 500 or so people with only a $5 entry fee, their cumulative investments in solar totaling just shy of $3 million.1
Steve Cohen writes that the movement away from fossil fuels is not without victims. The decline in Wyoming’s coal industry and the simultaneous rise of that state’s wind business is an example. The number of jobs in wind business is smaller and the skill base is different. These transitions are inevitable in a capitalist society, government programs and policies are needed to ensure that the victims of this transition receive the help they need to find meaningful employment as we move toward a Renewable Resource Based Economy.
While the need to maintain the planet’s resources may have begun the move toward sustainability, the new set of constraints posed by ecosystem needs is also generating business opportunity. Recently a group of businesses in Minnesota started to work together to push for the development of a circular economy. According to Jessica Lyons Hardcastle, writing in Environmental Leader: “Dow, 3M and Target are among the 25 major companies and organizations that have launched an initiative to promote the circular economy. The Minnesota Sustainable Growth Coalition says adopting circular economy principles — where raw materials are extracted and made into products that are designed and manufactured for reuse and remanufacturing or recycling — will uncover business growth opportunities and drive innovation. Circular economy principles also promote better waste management by sending less material to landfills.”2
In his book, “A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency”, Seth Klein writes to encourage people to reject the harmful notion that only the profit seeking sector undertakes real job and wealth creation.
“wealth is created whenever natural resources, human ingenuity, human labour and finance capital are combined to add value (including the production of services, not only goods). The for-profit private sector is certainly effective at doing this (although not always in the most socially and environmentally helpful ways), but it does not hold a monopoly on such activity. The public sector does it, as do the co-op sector, Indigenous nations, municipalities, -owned businesses, crown corporations and credit unions " - 3
The transition to an economy that involves cooperative action by people to accumulate resources that circulate renewable products and services is likely to be part of an evolution from a market based to a resource based economy.
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