Nicole Foss in Nimbin – Surviving Collapse

We live in uncertain times with the converging pressures of energy, environment, resources, financial crisis and climate change. How will this effect us locally and what can we do to mitigate the impacts are some of the questions Nicole Foss will explore at her presentation at Djanbung Gardens, Nimbin on Sep 15.

Australian’s barely experienced the impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, which has perhaps fostered a sense of complacency in the ‘lucky country’. Next time we won’t be so lucky, especially as we reap the consequences of our disastrous current political climate.

Nicole has a unique capacity to share the big picture of historic and current global trends, balanced with practical steps we can take to reduce our vulnerability and build resilience on the household and community level.

I was fortunate to hear Nicole give the short version of her Limits to Growth presentation in Sydney several months ago when she was on a speaking tour with David Holmgren, and am keen to experience her full in-depth talk on this critical topic. Nicole has previously spoken in Byron Bay on national speaking tours, including the ‘Economics of Happiness’ Conference. This will be her first visit to Nimbin providing a unique chance for locals to tap into her insights and strategies.

Building Resilience in an era of Limits to Growth  –  Nicole Foss in Nimbin

Mon 15^th September at 6.30/7pm, at Djanbung Gardens, 74 Cecil St. Door charge $15/$10 or donation

Café opens for meals and refreshments from 6pm, featuring local & organic produce.

“Reaching limits to growth will impose severe consequences, but these can be mitigated. Acting to create conditions conducive to adaption in advance can make a difference to how crisies are handled and the impact they ultimately have” Nicole Foss

Nicole will paint a comprehensive picture of where we stand today globally, how our human operating system functions, how and why it is acutely vulnerable, and what we must do about the predicament we find ourselves in. We must plan to restructure our societies from the bottom up, so that both the transition period and our eventual recovery from the coming upheaval can rest on a solid foundation. That foundation requires the resurgence of resilient communities and the development of true human capacity.

Humanity stands on the edge of a precipice, and where we go from here is in our own hands. There is both considerable danger, and the opportunity to address what is arguably the most challenging situation in human history constructively.

Nicole will be also speaking in Lismore on Friday 19^th September at the Lismore Workers Club with a different presentation titled “Choices for Family and Community Self-Reliance”

About Nicole Foss

Nicole M. Foss is co-editor of The Automatic Earth (http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com), where she writes under the name Stoneleigh. She and her writing partner have been chronicling and interpreting the on-going credit crunch as the most pressing aspect of our current multi-faceted predicament. The site integrates finance, energy, environment, psychology, population and real politik in order to explain why we find ourselves in a state of crisis and what we can do about it. Prior to the establishment of TAE, she was editor of The Oil Drum Canada, where she wrote on peak oil and finance.

Until recently, Foss ran the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, where she focused on farm-based biogas projects and grid connections for renewable energy. While living in the UK she was a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where she specialized in nuclear safety in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and conducted research into electricity policy at the EU level.

Her academic qualifications include a BSc in biology from Carleton University in Canada (where she focused primarily on neuroscience and psychology), a post-graduate diploma in air and water pollution control, the common professional examination in law and an LLM in international law in development from the University of Warwick in the UK.