I'm glad to see this discussion started. Personally I think that it is very difficult to get people interested in the problems of climate change - it's intangible, maybe unproven and difficult to focus on in a freezing January. Easier to grasp is the possibility that we have reached a peak of oil production and that energy prices will probably increase (although you seem to think that new technologies will come online - what are they? - got any references?). How will farners, for example, cope with rising oil prices?
At the leading edge of community response to climate change and peak oil is the Transition Towns movment, http://www.transitiontowns.org/, based in dear 'ole Devon. Rather than 'reinvent the wheel', I suggest that anyone interested in this topic should download and read the Transition Initiatives Primer, http://transitionnetwork.org/Primer/TransitionInitiativesPrimer.pdf . This document and the follow-on 'Transition Handbook' give good ideas for community action. Other good sites for serious reading about the future are http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse for an economics course and http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ for a more general view of the future of industrial society.
Response to these issues is sporadic and unco-ordinated in N Devon at present. However there IS a wealth of existing community organisations, such as the parish councils and the W.Is.
The Biosphere is an exciting concept (Australian permaculturalist David Holmgren , http://www.holmgren.com.au/, has suggested that local government should be based on eco regions like the biosphere) but I think that it needs to promote discussion such as this if it isn't to be seen as a fancy name for a nature reserve.

One of the features of the Biosphere Reserve is that it is based on an eco-region concept defined largely by drainage catchments. It includes not just towns but also the land in between and the smaller, often quite isolated communities within it. This is important because the communities are those where land use choices are made - they include the farmers who manage the land are often the focus for a variety of hospitality and other small businesses that often have very immediate links to a quality environment. The Biosphere Reserve can at its best provide a stimulus and focus for these communities to act together to address the issues at the heart of North Devon's sustainable future. For example, people in Winkleigh recently came together to look at their collective carbon footprints and small communities often have a coherent enough community spirit to take on such projects that can be hard in towns where 'finding a call to arms' can be hindered by larger numbers of people with a wider range of interests and backgrounds and influences. By focussing on towns, the transition town movement can and does make headway into those communities of 'consumers' but can often overlook the producers and sustainers at the real interface between people and environment.

Dave - definitely no code. We are interested in landowners/managers of course, what they do has a profound effect on us all, but are interest in generating understanding, pride and confidence as foundations extends beyond them. It is dangerous to label people as conmsumers or producers - as you rightly point out, we are in reality both - and the ability to take positive, sustainable actions applies to both. Our (joint) challenge is creating the right environment for that action to flourish - that is delivering the right messages but also the right climate of partnership etc. Matt

Dear Andy and colleagues
Your article on the future of North Devon is most welcome
You are right to use your article to highlight the 10:10 campaign as a good starting point for both businesses and individuals to reduce their carbon emissions and adjust their lifestyles. I also agree with you that it is essential for us to be planning to generate our own renewable power locally. Communities and landowners in North Devon are very well placed to create community owned renewable energy initiatives and the recent government announcements on the ‘Feed in Tariff’ now make this option much more viable.

Unfortunately, this opportunity is seriously undermined by climate change sceptics and the massive anti renewables campaign - both of which are being funded by the oil companies1 and countries that have a vested interest in disrupting the move to a low carbon economy.
This has contaminated the debate and has persuaded so many to unknowingly support the pro-oil lobby. 2

There are many good points you make in your article however there is one aspect I wish to strongly disagree with. It seems that you are suggesting that we need in part to rely on nuclear power based energy. The danger in making such a statement is that it will encourage people to believe that we can carry on developing a non-sustainable economy fuelled by nuclear energy. Nuclear power is a clear example where we are ‘externalising’ the cost of our unsustainable way of life. The real cost of nuclear power is never factored in to the bills we pay. These externalised costs will be paid for by future generations, these will include: the real build cost, the real cost of mining and supplying the fuel, the costs of decommissioning, the cost of inevitable accidents, the cost of storing and safeguarding the waste from accidents and terrorists for hundreds of years. When these externalised costs are taken into account nuclear power is not only highly toxic and dangerous to the health of all beings, but also its use will prove massively costly to the planet and to our grandchildren and their grandchildren.

It is important that the Biosphere does not fall into the trap of promoting an unsustainable economy fuelled by nuclear power as the way forward.

As well as Climate change there are other global changes taking place that will significantly influence the future of the Biosphere and our local economy. Declining oil reserves (Peak Oil3) will mean that we will see a continuous rise in the cost of oil-based products. As the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China and other ‘industrialising’ economies grow, competition for scarce oil and other commodities will have an affect on the price we have to pay.

This will have a significant impact on all local households and businesses with low-income households paying the most. In the near future there will be many more households in the wider Biosphere reserve area who will find it increasingly difficult to afford to heat their homes or use their cars, as they do now.4 The rising cost of oil will also have a profound affect upon our local agricultural systems.5
Another significant factor affecting our future is our current unsustainable ‘just in time economy’ which is very vulnerable to disruption6. We are heavily dependant on a few supermarket outlets for our food supply7. Even in an agriculture region we rely on virtually all our food being shipped in by oil-based transport. This food on the whole is grown with oil-based fertilisers and scarce minerals, harvested and processed by oil and mineral driven machinery and packaged in oil-based wrappers. The forecast8 of a rapid decline in oil supplies means that in the future our economy will be forced to adapt and change.

Our local economy is also vulnerable to other big changes taking place in the global economy.

Every day in the news we see examples where the global economy relocates jobs to where ever the profits are greatest. As we have seen in the last 24 months the world economy can flip into recession within a matter of weeks and dump millions of people into unemployment and poverty condemning whole communities to idleness, in the form of unemployment and a lives wasted.9

So what does this mean for our regional economy, the challenge of reducing the causes of climate change and the Biosphere?

If the Biosphere is to conserve our world-class environment and be a model for low carbon development we urgently need to build a new economy in our region organised ‘as if people mattered’ as Schumacher described. This new economy would:
•   Have far simpler material living standards and high levels of wellbeing.
•   Develop high levels of self-sufficiency within households, communities and towns.
•   Produce many of the goods and services we need through local labour and resources.
•   Have cooperatives and participatory local decision making systems.
•   Have a radically different culture, in which competitive and consumerist individualism is replaced by frugal, self-sufficient, creative communities and individuals10
•   Have high levels of social trust (social capital) and effective networks to help to stimulate the economy and support good institutions and governance.11
•   Protect the natural environment and work for the benefit of all eco-systems within the Biosphere and not just the people.
•   Be designed to reduce the causes of climate change.

This is not a utopian dream. If we are serious about meeting the challenges you have outlined in your article this is the type of economic transformation in which we need to aspire. We cannot expect to see the emergence of this new economy and transformed behaviour over night. It is likely to come about in the medium term – perhaps over the next 15 to 30 years. As this new economy emerges we will see small incremental steps and some rapid changes brought about by disruption and shocks.

At present only a small number of individuals and communities see the need to adapt their lifestyles, businesses and farming practices so they have the capacity and resilience to flourish in the future. Most people will for some time be highly resistant because they will not want to forgo their consumerist lifestyles. A few will be fiercely resistant because they will fear losing their privileges. This resistance will be balanced by a new generation of young people who care passionately about the welfare of their planet. We will need to find ways of working with all groups, no matter what stage of awareness they have reached.

I want to make the case that the Biosphere and its partners can only fulfill its role of being a model for sustainable development if they proactively support the emergence of a new economy. As we see the decline of trust in government we need local organisations like the Biosphere to help nurture the kind of innovation we need to see.12

What could the early steps in this transition look like?

It is important that we build on the very limited discussion so far by initiating an inclusive and interactive dialogue about how our area addresses these challenges.13 This will provide an early opportunity to start building a network of the many individuals, organisations, communities and businesses who will have a stake in conserving our world-class environment and being part of this transition to a post carbon economy.

One of the outcomes of the dialogue should be a broad agreement on the common ground14 we all share in the need to develop this new economy. As we take each step we need a Biosphere wide ‘transition’ plan that sets out the practical strategic actions that will begin to create this new economy.

I hope you find these ideas helpful and I look forward to receiving feedback and comments.

Kind regards Neil

1. www.exxonsecrets.org
2. http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/news/North-Devon-wind-farm-decision/article-1781597-detail/article.html
3. Powerdown options and actions for a post carbon world. Sheinberg, Richard.2004
4. www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jan/27/pensioners-poverty-ons-inequality. http:// and www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/news/Poor-families-hit-huge-heating-bills/article-1979608-detail/article.html
5. http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=EttWlupviYA%3d&tabid=387
6. www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4253402.ece
7. http://www.tescopoly.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=189
8. http://transitionculture.org/essential-info/what-is-peak-oil/
9. culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=605&Itemid=1
10. The Transition Towns Movement: Its Huge Significance and a Friendly Criticism. Trainer,Ted. 2010
11. Cooke and Morgan. 1998. Putnam, R. 1993
12. We-Think, Mass innovation not mass production. Ledbetter, Charles. 2008
13. Leading Change, A guide to whole systems working. Attwood, Pedlar, Pritchard & Wilkinson. 2003
14.   Discovering Common Ground, Ed. Weisbord. Marvin. 1993