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Meeting the Challenges of Our Time

“The uncertainty of our times is no reason to be certain about hopelessness.”

– Vandana Shiva

The two toughest challenges facing humankind at the beginning of the 21st century are climate change and peak oil. While climate change is well documented and very visible in the media, there is much less public awareness around the issue of peak oil. And yet, the imminent decline of fossil fuel availability that peak oil refers to may well prevent the economic and social stability that is essential if we are to mitigate the threats posed by climate change. Transition Initiatives, designed to achieve relocalization at the community level, currently represent one of the most promising ways of engaging people and communities in strengthening themselves against the effects of these two monumental challenges, resulting in a life that is more fulfilling, socially connected and resilient.

The End of the Age of Cheap Oil

The impact of burning fossil fuels on our climate is now obvious to all except a few die-hard skeptics. Our streets are choked with cars. We are fed, clothed and warmed not by the produce of the land around us but by food, goods and fuel transported hundreds and or even thousands of miles—a system which is entirely dependent on abundant supplies of cheap oil. While a few optimists still talk about 10-20 years, a growing number of experts say cheap oil could be gone within just two or three years. With oil so deeply embedded in our way of life from transportation and food production to consumer products, the end the age of cheap oil will have a severe impact on the lifestyles we have become accustomed to.

Fifty years ago, the world was consuming 4 billion barrels of oil per year and the average discovery was around 30 billion. Today we consume 30 billion barrels per year and the discover rate is approaching 4 billion barrels of crude per year.” (Asia Times, May 4, 2005)

Why Transition Initiatives?

The Transition approach empowers communities to squarely face the challenges of peak oil and climate change, and to unleash the collective genius of their own people to find the answers to this momentous question:

For all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how are we going to drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change), significantly rebuild resilience (in response to peak oil), and greatly strengthen our local economy (in response to economic instability)?

Transition Initiatives make no claim to have all the answers, but by building on the wisdom of the past and accessing the pool of ingenuity, skills and determination in our communities, the solutions can readily emerge. Now is the time for us to take stock and to start re-creating our future in ways that are not based on cheap, plentiful and polluting oil but on localized food, sustainable energy sources, resilient local economies and an enlivened sense of community well-being.

The Viral Spread of Transition

At the forefront of this new approach is a growing band of communities who are adopting the Transition Model as they devise an entirely new way of thinking, living and working together to make our local communities more resilient and more abundant.

Since the “unleashing” of Transition Town Totnes, England (the first in the UK) in the summer of 2006, the Transition concept has spread rapidly around the world. To date, there are about 206 officially designated Transition Towns (or cities, districts, villages, or islands) in the UK, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S.; Transition Colorado (formerly Transition Boulder County) became the first official Transition Initiative in North America in May 2008. There are some 700 additional communities who are in various stages of becoming Transition Initiatives or considering whether they’re ready for this journey, and more join their ranks nearly every day.

Preparing for Energy Descent

The aim of a Transition Initiative is to pull the community together to explore the practicalities of rebuilding local resilience and reducing carbon emissions. Typically, solutions involve rebuilding a community’s capacities to meet its own essential needs in food, energy and economy, and together these strategies will form the backbone of the local Energy Descent Action Plan. This timetabled roadmap will define the strategic steps leading towards a life that has minimal reliance on fossil fuels and dramatically reduced carbon emissions, and one that profits from the abundance of resources and capabilities within our communities.

The Ingredients of Transition

Transition is an empowering collaborative process, designed to engage the entire community. Here are some of the initial steps:

  • Set up an initiating group
    Establish a core team to drive the project forward during the initial phases
  • Awareness raising
    Films, events and talks by experts can alert the community of the potential effects of both peak oil and climate change—the former demanding a drive to increase community resilience, the latter a reduction in carbon footprint
  • Lay the foundations
    Build connections to existing complementary initiatives and network with existing groups
  • Organize a Great Unleashing
    A memorable event that announces the Transition Initiative to the entire community
  • Form sub-groups
    Set up a number of smaller groups to focus on specific aspects of local life, tapping into the collective genius of the community
  • Use Open Space
    An innovative meeting technology that brilliantly encourages and captures all the creativity, intelligence and problem-solving ideas of the participants
  • Develop visible manifestations
    Demonstrate to everyone that your Transition Initiative has the determination and skills to implement practical solutions
  • Facilitate the Great Reskilling
    The Transition Initiative can reverse the “great deskilling” of the last 40 years by offering training in the vast range of lost practical skills—repairing, constructing, growing, etc.
  • Build a bridge to local government
    Get the local council on board, and they’ll provide significant support
  • Honor the elders
    These may be the only people in the community who know what a lower energy life is like; their involvement is crucial
  • Create an Energy Descent Action Pathway
    After about a year, you’ll be ready to develop the strategic plan…and then the real work of transitioning to a life beyond oil can begin.

Useful Reading On Peak Oil and Climate Change

  • The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century, James Howard Kunstler
  • The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Destruction of Petroleum Man, David Strahan
  • The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times, Albert Bates
  • Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, Richard Heinberg
  • Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, Richard Heinberg
  • Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change, Elizabeth Kolter
  • The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, Tim Flannery
  • An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, Albert Gore
  • Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, Mark Lynas
  • Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, George Monbiot
  • Transition Towns Wiki: www.transitiontowns.org
  • Transition Culture (Rob Hopkins' blog): www.transitionculture.org
  • Transition United States: www.transitionus.org
  • Energy Bulletin: www.energybulletin.net
  • Post Carbon Institute: www.postcarbon.org
  • Relocalization Network: www.relocalize.net
  • Global Public Media: www.globalpublicmedia.com

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