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A peak into the future
Sarah Lewis, Guardian
Described as ‘a social experiment on a massive scale’, the Transition Town movement offers positive ideas for low-carbon living
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When Waterstone’s recently asked 150 MPs about their favourite summer reads, number five on the list was a book from an environment group that only two years ago almost no one had heard of. But in that time, the Transition Town movement has grown from a classroom idea to a sprawling international network, which many think holds some of the answers to our environmental problems.
The idea behind transition towns is simple: if you have no faith that governments will take meaningful action on climate change and “peak oil”, then you can come together as a community to do something about it.
It’s an idea gaining rapid ground. Last week saw the second anniversary of the setting up of the first transition town, in Totnes, Devon, and also the arrival of the 100th, Fujino in Japan. Communities in each have committed to break free from oil addiction and move, over a period of 10 to 20 years, from a high-carbon economy to a low one. Meanwhile, there are 900 “mullers”, people considering setting up their own “franchise”, including Ambridge, fictional home to Radio 4’s Archers.
(10 September 2008)
Communities plan for a low-energy future
Judith D. Schwartz, Christian Science Monitor
‘Transition initiatives,’ begun in Britain, aim to empower people to tackle effects of climate change and decline of oil.
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A year ago, Pat Proulx-Lough felt so overwhelmed by reports about climate change that she couldn’t even listen to the news. “My husband was finishing a dissertation on water resources, and I became hopeless and fearful,” says Ms. Proulx-Lough, a therapist in Portland, Maine.
Fast-forward to summer ’08 and Proulx-Lough is not just hopeful, but excited about the future.
What happened? She tapped into the Transition movement.
Transition Towns (or districts, or islands) designate places where local groups have organized to embrace the challenge of adapting to a low-oil economy. As the movement’s website (www.transitiontowns.org) states, it’s an experiment in grass-roots optimism: Can motivated citizens rouse their neighbors to act in the face of diminished oil resources and climate change?
“We don’t know if this will work,” says Ben Brangwyn of Totnes, England, who in 2007 helped launch the Transition Network to support Transition Towns worldwide, “but if we leave it to the government it will be too little, too late. If we do it on a personal level, it won’t be enough. But if we do this as a community, it may be just enough, just in time.”
The Transition movement is high-concept and hands-on, combining homespun common sense and camaraderie (bread-baking workshops, “seed-sharing Sundays”) and sophisticated 21st-century organizing (Skype audio conferencing, online wikis, open space technology).
(11 September 2008)
EB contributor Jim Barton writes:
Great article. CSM even quotes the 12 steps, as opposed to alluding to them.
Thou shalt go green
John Weiss, Colorado Springs Independent
Rev. Richard Cizik brings his bold ‘creation care’ message to Colorado Springs
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When the Rev. Richard Cizik talks, his message isn’t what one might expect from the most prominent public voice representing the national organization of America’s evangelical movement.
Religion and social issues aside, Cizik, 57, has become well-known the past few years for pushing a theme not usually associated with the evangelical movement: taking care of the Earth.
Last June, speaking at the Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, Cizik outlined the foundation of his evolving philosophy.
“Right now, we are in a defining moment in human history, when not only is our politics itself changing, and not only is our church really changing radically — for the good — but the very nature of power itself is changing,” said Cizik, whose official title is vice president for governmental affairs of the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Evangelicals.
“About 230,000 years ago, man controlled fire. Now he could warm his food and his shelter. Just several centuries ago, after man learned how to harness fossil fuels, steam energy transformed our world by powering our industrial revolution. Today, faced with “peak oil’ and rising worldwide demand for limited resources, our challenge now is to move away from fossil fuels and turn towards various forms of solar energy.
“Those nations and organizations — including our church — that change their thinking and their behavior will thrive. Those that cannot, or won’t, will not survive in the ways they should.”
(11 September 2008)
On the transformative potential of community-scale food production
Stephanie Paige Ogburn, Gristmill
This spring, someone transformed the vacant lot across the street from my in-town apartment here in Cortez, a town of 8,000 in southwest Colorado. Until the transformation, I had never really noticed the parcel of land. It wasn’t an after-hours hangout, was never vandalized, and was thus invisible to me as I ran, biked, or drove by it nearly every day.
tomato garden
That all changed in May, when the piece of ground formerly cloaked with the standard vacant-lot quilt of red clay dirt and desert weeds got plowed. That expanse of newly-turned, fresh red dirt, baring its face to the desert sun, was hard to miss.
At about the same time the plowing occurred, the dead and dying elm trees surrounding the lot were cut down. The place now had full sun, and was transformed not only physically, but also in my imagination. I walked over to the fence separating the field from the street, gazed at the empty field and thought to myself, could this be a future garden?
I sort of doubted that the plower’s intention was to garden the space. People here have lots of heavy machinery, and sometimes they seem to use such machinery for things like plowing a field under just for kicks, or to kill the weeds, or maybe to show their kids how the tiller connects to the riding lawnmower.
But then one day a lone man in jeans appeared, with a truckload of tomato and pepper plants.
In the space of a couple evenings, he placed the plants in the ground. As the weeks passed, a sprinkler appeared, squash sprouted, and rows of sweet corn lined up at the garden’s periphery. I saw the gardener harvesting out there one night, beer can in hand. Since he didn’t seem to be around all that much, plenty of weeds made their home in the space as well. But the cultivated plants survived, and by August I could look out my front window and spy a well-heeled garden just across the street. It was kind of inspiring.
I’ve always enjoyed growing plants, but this year particularly, I’ve noticed the power of a simple garden — to feed, to teach, to inspire, to beautify. And gardens here are growing and thriving, and, importantly, they’re, everywhere.
(10 September 2008)
Wherever I lay my hat
Daneeta Loretta Saft, Guardian
Daneeta Loretta Saft and her husband have joined the growing ranks of full-time ‘couch surfers’ – exchanging chores and skills for bed and board. She says it’s a green and utopian lifestyle, but what do the host families think?
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I never thought I would spend my honeymoon on other people’s couches in London, but that’s what happened after my husband and I got kicked out of our flat. In three months, our energy bills trebled and so did the prices at our local supermarket. Freelance clients weren’t paying, cash flow became non-existent, choices had to be made between eating and paying the rent. We chose eating. Our landlord asked us to leave. What I didn’t realise was that we would be entering an emerging group of full-time couch surfers; people who have found a more communal, environmentally friendly, even utopian, way of living.
We are not homeless. We have choices. We are not sleeping rough. But, right now, we don’t have a fixed address. And, strangely enough, after eight years in the UK, I finally feel settled. Maybe it’s my itinerant roots. My grandmother started her career as a migrant worker in the orange groves of Florida. Later, when she had her own farm, there was always an extra person or two sleeping in the shed. And, there have been times over the past 20 years when I have been without an address, for mostly economic reasons. In the late 1980s, when petrol was cheaper than rent, I spent three months driving across America and staying with friends. But this time, it feels more permanent.
… Communal dwellers? Semi-permanent couch surfers? Whatever you call people like us, we are growing in number. We live for free in sheds, spare rooms and lounges, sometimes rotating, sometimes staying for months. We share resources, and pay our hosts in chores and skills
… Another semi-permanent free-housing situation that has been around since the early 1970s is Wwoof-ing. Formerly an acronym for Working Weekends on Organic Farms, it now stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and is a programme administered by Lili (Low-Impact Living Initiative) in Buckinghamshire. Farmers offer free accommodation and food in exchange for your helping hands.
… Ben thinks the trend will continue as the housing market slumps, and people become more concerned about the environment. “Maybe this is the new social housing. Instead of the council putting you up, it’s your friends. And if you can find non-monetary ways to pay them back – that works for everybody.”
As for the host families, Nicola says they get a lot out of having people stay. “It helps the children to be open-minded and prepares them for the world out there,” she says. She doesn’t like British attitudes towards owning property. “We are a community, we should have people coming into our houses. It creates memories and shared experiences.”
(11 September 2008)
