The daily news highlights the environmental and health costs we are paying, and the unstable future we are facing. The choice before us seems clear: We can stand by old habits and suffer, or find new ways to adapt and thrive. Transition organizations and towns provide such a choice – giving you a chance to collaborate with others to begin the shift toward a stable, sustainable world.
A Transition Town is a place where there’s a community-led process that helps the town/village/neighborhood/organization become independent and sustainable. This process begins when a small group of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: How do we sustain ourselves and thrive as a community in these changing times? How do we significantly increase resilience (in response to peak oil), drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change) and greatly strengthen our local economy (in response to economic instability)?
These core concerns lead to homegrown, citizen-led education, multi-stakeholder planning and (eventually) to grassroots community initiatives that seek to mobilize the larger community and build shared resilience in the face of these modern day concerns. Transition Initiatives work to create a fulfilling and inspiring local way of life that can withstand the shocks of rapidly shifting global systems. It’s happening in over a thousand highly diverse communities across the world – from towns in Australia to neighborhoods in Portugal, from cities in Brazil to rural communities in Slovenia, from urban locations in Britain, to islands off the coast of Canada.
Title: Local Visionaries: Transition Groups Plant the Seeds for a Homegrown Future
Author: Rachel Trachten Fall
Publication: Edible East Bay
Date of Publication: Winter 2012
URL: http://www.ediblecommunities.com/eastbay/harvest-2011/transition-groups.htm
Title: International Energy Crises Make the Case for Change: Towns Lead Transition
Author: Frances Beinecke
Publication: Shareable
Date of Publication: March 24, 2011
See also: “Transition 101”, Transition US: http://transitionus.org/transition-town-movement and
Transition Network News: http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news
Student Researcher: Robert Usher, San Francisco State University
Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows, San Francisco State University