Rising Costs of Food and Fuel: Are We Ready?

Howdy Neighbors,

How do we share our concerns about the drift of world affairs and our desires for a better future? As we all know: the costs of food, gas, heating oil, health care, college tuition, rent, essentially the major consumer items we build our lives around, have been rising.

It is likely that over the next few years the cost of food and oil will continue to increase, driving up the costs of living.

While many of the causes of this are outside our control, we know there is still much we can do as neighbors to prepare and strengthen community resilience in the face of coming shocks.

For some of us in JP, the impact was felt as soon as costs began to rise, and life has only grown harder in the intervening years. Others of us lost our jobs or cut back hours, or lost our retirements and nest eggs, or got ensnared in a web of trouble due to a medical illness, or have close friends and family members who are going through these challenges right now. Some of us are safe and comfortable, but worry about the future, and wonder what world we will be leaving to our grandchildren?

Increasingly scientists – such as my colleagues at the Tellus Institute – tell us that we have fundamentally altered the biosphere (i.e., atmosphere, nitrogen cycles, carbon cycles, the climate, oceans and other ecosystems upon which all life depends). The full impact of how much we as individuals and communities will have to adapt to this reality has yet to fully dawn upon us, and is hardly remarked upon on the public screens of television.

Come out and meet other neighbors who share your concerns on either:

Thursday, May 19th 7 to 9pm – Greater Egleston Community High School, 3134 Washington Street

or

Thursday, May 26th 7 to 9pm – First Church UU, JP Monument, 6 Eliot Street

These evenings will be conversations, a chance to share and listen, and most importantly to brainstorm together about what we can do to prepare. We will ask what is already happening, and what are the gaps we might address with new efforts?

These community conversations are part of the Jamaica Plain New Economy Transition series. We hope you’ll be able to join the discussion.

Sincerely,
Orion

Orion Kriegman, lives in Egleston Square, and spends his time in the Brewery with JP New Economy Transition, and at the Tellus Institute with the Great Transition Initiative.