So has anyone heard of transition towns? We have a couple here in Geelong- Transition Bell (3215 postcode) and Transition South Barwon (for the Belmont area). Here’s a great definition of Transition Towns from the Transition Network website:
A Transition Initiative (which could be a town, village, university or island etc) is a community-led response to the pressures of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and increasingly, economic contraction. There are thousands of initiatives around the world starting their journey to answer this crucial question:
“for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly rebuild resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil and economic contraction) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”
Here’s how it all appears to be evolving…
It all starts off when a small 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, Climate Change, and increasingly, economic stagnation? They recognise several crucial points:
- to a certain degree, we all experience a life disconnected from our living environment, disconnected from our communities and disconnected from our landbase
- that our energy-profligate ways of living have depleted our resource base to critical levels
- that 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
- that we have to act now, rather than wait for the government or “someone else”
- 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.
For me, Transition Towns are important for finding out who does what locally- about finding local farmers to buy food from, local artisans for things you can’t make yourself, sharing skills and knowledge, bartering goods etc. As time goes on, they will become more and more important to our everyday lives.
