The Transition Movement Comes to America

Peak Moment 139: One response to the global crisis that is gaining enthusiastic momentum is the Transition Towns movement. Jennifer Gray, a pioneer in the Transition Initiative in the UK and cofounder of Transition US, describes it as "a community-led response to the twin crises of peak oil and climate change. It's ... positive, pro-active [and] engages the whole community in building resilience into their world." Sharing highlights from The Transition Handbook by founder Rob Hopkins, she elaborates on a flexible twelve-step process to empower community organizers in unleashing the creative genius of their community and building an Energy Descent Action Plan. One innovative aspect is backcasting: envisioning one's community in 20 years, and then designing steps to get from here to there. http://www.transitionus.org

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• community
• organizing
• resilience
• transition
• localization

[farberam]

the zeitgeist movement

[peakmoment]

@farberam, what do you mean?

[BlueEagle8]

We are not at a peak of anything. Everything ebbs and flows.

[peakmoment]

BlueEagle, you're right -- everything does ebb and flow. But some things may peak and diminish forever (or even go extinct, like dinosaurs). It appears we're at the point for oil and some other natural resources, and perhaps peak human population. With work, we may not be at peak human adaptability, creativity.

[farberam]

@peakmoment

we will have a transition, we at the zeitgeist movement support this assertion

[bobbygnosis]

@tonyjohnbradley You're a total hippie.

And I agree with what you say.

Peace, love and understanding.

[tonyjohnbradley]

@bobbygnosis Biodiverse mutualistic networks are much more powerful than oil and nonliving technology. If a decent amount of us devote ourselves to helping biodiverse mutualistic networks, which means not hurting any living beings, we will transform the planet through enormous jumps in evolution.

[bobbygnosis]

My point is only that the elite will probably still have access to oil and technology. The profane (you, me and everyone you know) will not have access to the level of technology we now take for granted. If everything continues we will literally live in the serfdoms of the middle ages. We symbolically do now, but it will be more conventional within the next hundred years if something isn't done.

Discuss. Examine. Understand. Act.

Your children will live in the world you leave behind.

[westkan]

As I understand it the Amish method, they give serious consideration to what technology they adopt or reject based on desired outcomes. Looking at the Amish I don't see their communities plagued with hardship. I can't deny their wealth is based in part on the general wealth of the country they live in, and that their way may not scale stressful to a national or global is scope.

[bobbygnosis]

"Burning one resource to [sic] create another"

- 2528997

Now apply that to electric vehicles.

[bobbygnosis]

I agree.

I just think it's a lot of time and energy put into something that will not yield long term benefits. I'm not saying that it won't help. I'm saying that it's not an answer. Since we're looking for answers it seems it'd be better to put time and energy into answers rather than stopgaps.

But then it isn't up to you or me. So this conversation is more or less moot.

Peace.

[2528997]

Next might come solar and wind farms to replace the 60% of the grid that is oil.

The idea of burning one resource to create another is absolute idiocy.