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It all starts off when a collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: How can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change, as well as exponential population growth and uncertain economic times?
They begin by forming an initiating group and then adopt the Transition Model with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative.
A Transition Initiative is a community working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question:
The community goes through a comprehensive and creative process:
· awareness raising around peak oil, climate change and the need to undertake a community-led process to rebuild resilience and reduce carbon emissions
· connecting with existing groups in the community
· building bridges to local government
· connecting with other transition initiatives
· forming groups to look at all the key areas of life (food, energy, transport, health, heart & soul, economics & livelihoods, etc.)
· kicking off projects aimed at building people's understanding of resilience and carbon issues and community engagement
· eventually launching a community-defined, community-implemented
"Energy Descent Action Plan" over a 15- to 20-year timescale.
This results in a coordinated range of projects across all these areas of life that strive to rebuild the resilience we've lost as a result of cheap oil and reduce the community's carbon emissions drastically.
The community also recognizes two crucial points:
· We used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there's no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope.
· If we collectively plan and act early enough, there's every likelihood that we can create a way of living that's significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.
Cheerful disclaimer:
Just in case you were under the impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact:
Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale.
What we are convinced of is this:
· If we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late.
· If we act as individuals, it'll be too little.
· But if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.
Here's a delightful video
slide show (with wonderful music)
about the many Transition Towns in New Zealand:
about the many Transition Towns in New Zealand:
What is a Transition Town?
.It all starts off when a collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: How can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change, as well as exponential population growth and uncertain economic times?
They begin by forming an initiating group and then adopt the Transition Model with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative.
A Transition Initiative is a community working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question:
For all those aspects of life that
this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we
significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil)
and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of
Climate Change)?
The community goes through a comprehensive and creative process:
· awareness raising around peak oil, climate change and the need to undertake a community-led process to rebuild resilience and reduce carbon emissions
· connecting with existing groups in the community
· building bridges to local government
· connecting with other transition initiatives
· forming groups to look at all the key areas of life (food, energy, transport, health, heart & soul, economics & livelihoods, etc.)
· kicking off projects aimed at building people's understanding of resilience and carbon issues and community engagement
· eventually launching a community-defined, community-implemented
"Energy Descent Action Plan" over a 15- to 20-year timescale.
This results in a coordinated range of projects across all these areas of life that strive to rebuild the resilience we've lost as a result of cheap oil and reduce the community's carbon emissions drastically.
The community also recognizes two crucial points:
· We used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there's no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope.
· If we collectively plan and act early enough, there's every likelihood that we can create a way of living that's significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.
Cheerful disclaimer:
Just in case you were under the impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact:
Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale.
What we are convinced of is this:
· If we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late.
· If we act as individuals, it'll be too little.
· But if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.
Adapted from http://transitiontowns.org