Identifying Global Pressures

Welcome to the second part of the journey. In Chapter 1, we started with what is here: the abundance in your place, the seven forms of it in the COASTAL framework, and how the Sunshine Coast turned some of it into a working system. That was the good news.

This module asks a harder question. If places are so abundant, why do so many of them feel insecure? Why do communities with forests, farmland, coastlines, skilled people and strong cultures still struggle to afford food, energy, housing and opportunity?

Part of the answer is dependence. Most places have quietly come to rely on supply chains, decisions and systems that sit far outside their control. In calm times that works well enough. In pressured times, it becomes the price you pay.

This first chapter looks at the pressures that are shaping every community on earth. We call the framework CRISIS, and by the end of the chapter you will be able to use it to see which pressures reach your own place, and how.

The central question

Throughout this course, we keep returning to one question: what does it take for a community to own the value of its own abundance?

Ownership is only possible when a community has some control over its own future. That’s why this module matters. Before we can talk about building something better, we need to be clear about what’s pushing against us, and where we’re exposed.

What we mean by dependence

Dependence is not a bad word, and it isn’t always a problem. Every community depends on others for something. Trade, friendship and shared knowledge are healthy forms of connection.

The problem is dependence without choice. It’s when you rely on one supplier, one employer, one route, one currency or one decision-maker, and you can’t easily change. Dependence like that has a price, and the price shows up in four ways.

Cost. You pay what others set, including the shipping, the middlemen and the margin.

Vulnerability. When the supply chain breaks, you have no backup.

Lost value. What leaves your place as raw material comes back as a finished product at many times the price, and the profit and jobs stay elsewhere.

Lost say. Decisions that affect your land, your food and your people are made by others.

Security means being able to meet your needs when conditions change. Sovereignty means being able to make your own decisions about how. Together they are the opposite of dependence without choice, and they are what this module is really about.

An everyday picture of dependence

Consider an island or a coastal community that can only be reached by ferry or air. Almost everything must be shipped in: food, fuel, building materials, goods. Almost everything that leaves, from logs to waste, must be shipped out.

On a good day, you hardly notice. On the day the ferry is cancelled, the shelves empty, prices rise and plans stall. The Sunshine Coast experiences this directly, which is one reason it has become such a clear example of why local capacity matters.

But you do not need to live on an island to feel this. A town that relies on a single mill, a farming region that imports its fertilizer, a Nation whose land is developed by outside companies, a city that exports its waste, a country that buys its energy from abroad: these are all the same pattern at different scales.

The six global pressures

CRISIS is our name for the six pressures reshaping communities everywhere. Each letter stands for one. As you read, think about how each reaches your own place.

C: Climate Crisis

Climate change is raising the risks that every community faces: fires, floods, storms, drought, heat, rising seas and disrupted seasons. These events damage homes, roads, crops and livelihoods. They also stress the systems communities rely on, such as power, water, transport and food.

How it creates dependence. When local systems fail, communities turn to outside help. The more you rely on distant infrastructure, the more exposed you are when it’s cut off. A community with local food, local energy and local repair skills can recover faster.

The shift we teach: from extractive to regenerative. Regeneration doesn’t just reduce harm. It rebuilds soil, water, forests and ecosystems so that places become more resilient over time.

R: Resource and Waste

Most of the global economy is linear. We take materials from the earth, make products, use them briefly and throw them away. This depletes resources, creates waste and sends value out of communities in both directions: raw materials leave cheap, and goods come back expensive.

How it creates dependence. Communities pay to import products and pay again to dispose of waste. Food scraps, wood, building materials and organic waste that could be used locally are trucked away or buried.

The shift we teach: from linear to circular. In a circular economy, waste becomes an input, materials stay in use, and value is created close to where it’s needed. This is the pressure the Sunshine Coast has worked on most directly.

I: Identity and Purpose

In many places, people are losing connection to culture, community and meaningful work. Languages fade. Young people leave. Traditional knowledge is no longer passed on. Screens, social media and constant digital attention pull people away from each other and from place, and as more tasks are automated, many wonder where they fit.

How it creates dependence. A community that has lost confidence in its own knowledge looks outside for answers. Purpose is a form of strength, and when it weakens, so does the ability to act together.

The shift we teach: from dependence to sovereignty. Sovereignty starts with identity. Knowing who you are and what you can do is the first step to deciding for yourself.

S: Systems Failure

Many of the systems that communities rely on are strained or were never designed for them. Health care, housing, transport, education and local government often struggle to serve small, rural and remote places. In Canada, Indigenous communities have faced this for generations, with policies and funding structures that have limited their ability to plan, own and build for themselves. Similar patterns exist for rural and remote communities around the world.

How it creates dependence. When systems fail, communities depend on programs, grants and approvals controlled elsewhere. Short funding cycles and complex rules make long-term planning difficult.

The shift we teach: from dependence to sovereignty. Where possible, communities can build their own enterprises, institutions and revenue so they’re less reliant on systems that don’t serve them.

I: Industry and Insecurity

Local economies are often built around a single industry, such as forestry, mining, fishing, tourism or a large employer. When prices fall, a plant closes or a market shifts, whole communities feel it. Meanwhile, ownership of many local industries sits elsewhere, so profit leaves the region even when times are good.

How it creates dependence. Jobs and income rest on decisions made in distant boardrooms. Raw materials are sold cheap and finished goods bought back dear, which is the heart of what we call extraction.

The shift we teach: from scarcity to abundance, and from extractive to regenerative. When a community sees its full range of assets and keeps more processing and ownership at home, its economy becomes broader and steadier.

S: Skills Gap

Many communities have unfilled jobs and unemployed people at the same time. The skills in demand, such as trades, technical work, circular economy practice, regenerative farming, digital tools and project management, don’t match the training available locally. Young people often leave to learn and don’t return.

How it creates dependence. If essential building, repair, growing, processing or management skills are unavailable locally, delivery may depend on outside capacity. Outside expertise can strengthen a project; plan how that expertise will also build lasting local capability.

The shift we teach: from scarcity to abundance. Skills are among the most important forms of abundance a community has, and the easiest to grow. Training local people to do the work is one of the strongest ways to keep value at home.

Pressures versus dependencies

It helps to separate two things that are easy to confuse.

A pressure is something you can’t control. The climate, global prices, a pandemic, a policy change in another country. You can’t make it go away.

A dependence is how exposed you are to that pressure. It’s the part you can change. If energy prices rise globally, a community that imports all its power is hit hard. A community that generates some of its own is hit less.

This difference is important because it turns a feeling of helplessness into a list of choices. You can’t stop the pressure, but you can reduce the dependence. That is the work of the rest of the course.

How the pressures connect

The six pressures don’t arrive one at a time. They overlap and reinforce each other.

A climate event damages roads and cuts supply routes. That exposes a food system that relies on imports. Prices rise, and people who are already stretched feel the squeeze. Young people leave for better opportunities and the skills leave with them. The industry that employed the town struggles and the cycle continues.

The connection also works in the other direction. A single well-chosen project can ease several pressures at once. A local composting and soil enterprise reduces waste, rebuilds soil, supports local food, trains workers and creates jobs. This is why we say the strongest opportunities come from connections.

What this means for you

You don’t need to be an expert in every pressure. You need to know which ones reach your place hardest, and where your community is most exposed. That knowledge shapes everything from what you build to who you build it with.

It also changes the story. The story of dependence is a story of things being done to a community. The story of abundance is about what a community can do for itself. Both are true. The skill is in seeing them together, which is what this module is for.