Thanks for this post Harold. Yesterday I found a web page that adds to my optimism amidst radical changes being forecasted.
http://www.energybulletin.net/22674.html. Australians have been exploring how to build resilience also. They call it permaculture -- along the same lines as sustainable, green and self-regenerating lifestyles. My optimism is attached to the "Earth Steward" scenario where oil supplies deplete rapidly, but climate changes occur slowly. David Holmgren predicts that suburbia would be ruralized into small, self-sustaining communities, much like you describe as getting disconnected from the global supply chains.

I got this link from Chris Corrigan's blog in British Columbia: Parking lot. http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/
He facilitates "open space" group processes for communities in transition. I just discovered his four year-old blog last week and am finding it full of compatibles with informal learning, communities of practice and conversational processes of transformation.

Tom