Building Community

Ingredients of Transition: Strategic local infrastructure

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The infrastructure required for a more localised and resilient future, the energy systems, the mills, the food systems and the abbatoirs, has been largely ripped out over the past 50 years as oil made it cheaper to work on an ever-increasingly large scale, and their reinstallation will not arise by accident. They will need to be economically viable, supported by their local communities, owned and operated by people with the appropriate skills, and linked together.

Making democracy work

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Something extraordinary happened in our city, Sopot in Poland: four out of five candidates for city mayor declared that they would like to introduce participatory budgeting. Participatory budgeting means that citizens are directly involved in deciding what the funds from the city budget are spent on. It is a great opportunity to make a turn towards sustainability, and for Transition initiatives or permaculture groups it is a tool to suggest concrete projects to achieve it.

Food and agriculture – Dec 15

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-Kicking the habit: why gardeners need to ditch their addiction to oil
-Leaked document shows EPA allowed bee-toxic pesticide despite own scientists’ red flags
-Saving our Soils and How the Old Peach Tree was Brought Back to Life
-Want to See My ASPO Conference Talk About Food?
-Urban Farming, Community Resilience and the Death of the Motor Industry in Detroit (Video)
-Planning Charitable Gifts to Your Favorite Food Organizations? Double Your Impact by Donating Dirty Stocks

Food: Tackling the oldest environmental problem: Agriculture and its impact on soil

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I want to talk about the 10,000-year-old problem of agriculture and how it is both necessary and possible to solve it. Were it necessary but not possible this idea would be grandiose, and were it possible but not necessary it would be grandiose. But it has passed the test of grandiosity.

Better than a food bank

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While The Stop is rooted in providing food to those who can’t afford it, it works on the premise that without food infrastructure, viable farms, civic engagement and personal empowerment, food banks are simply a stop-gap measure in the fight to eradicate hunger. The organization’s ability to harness a growing interest in local food has allowed them to not only boost their own programming, but also build local food infrastructure. The model is the envy of foodies and social activists alike, and a case study for municipalities in Ontario and beyond.

Preparedness for fuel supply disruptions

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This article is in response to last month’s article by Kathy Leotta and her colleagues, Observations on local governments’ preparedness for fuel supply disruptions. First, I congratulate Kathy on her earlier research and thank her for reviving this neglected topic in her most recent paper. The purpose of my submission is to support and supplement various observations made by the Leotta team.

Hand powered drilling tools and machines

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Hand-powered devices have been used for millennia, but during the last quarter of the 19th century a radically improved generation of tools appeared, taking advantage of modern mass production machinery and processes (like interchangeable parts) and an increased availability in superior material (metal instead of wood). One of the outcomes included an array of new drilling machines, but their heydays were over fast. These human-powered tools were not only a vast improvement over those that came before them, they also had many advantages in comparison to the power drills that we use today.

Oil supply emergencies: An annotated bibliography

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The literature on Liquid Fuel Emergencies is considerable, dating back to rationing during World War Two. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in the USA did some exceptional work for two decades (1975- 1994). Unfortunately, there have been relatively few studies during the past 15 years, with the notable exceptions of the comprehensive analysis by Alan Smart for the Government of Australia and Kathy’s research in the USA.

13 Transition-related(ish) books you might like to snuggle up with this Christmas….

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I haven’t done this for a while, so I thought it might be good to do a round up of some of the more influential and inspirational books that have passed across my bedside table over the last 6 months. In terms of books you might choose to offer people over the next few weeks’ festive period, there is of course no beating the ever-expanding Transition Books series (still time to order before Christmas), but here is a collection of 13 titles to inform, inspire, fascinate, entertain and enlighten (also please note the Amazon-free nature of the links provided…). Any books you’d like to recommend?

Noah’s Ark no kind of peak oil escape plan

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If you think peak oil will sink the economy and spark civil unrest, how best to prepare? In our greedy, wasteful and corrupt world, perhaps the story of Noah’s Ark sounds like the way to go. Protect yourself and your family, and then watch while all those who wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t prepare disappear in the Flood. But in today’s interconnected world, we may need to save society to save ourselves.