The Transition Timeline for a Local, Resilient Future by Shaun Chamberlin
White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009
ISBN 978-1-69358-200-1
The Transition Town movement started in Ireland and England in 2005 and now has extended all around the world. It is a local, town by town, citizens' movement which prepares people and communities for the transformation of our energy regimen in the face of Peak Oil and climate change. The idea is to envision a workable future taking climate and the decarbonization of our fuel cycle into consideration and begin practical steps to make the transition to that future. It is an extremely powerful exercise.
The transition vision: The nagging sense of a problem too huge to grapple with was replaced by the satisfaction of working together to improve the world's future.
In a culture which is attracted to catastrophe, the possibility of building a workable future without oil while ameliorating climate change is a radical thought. To envision a positive future has become a radical act. This book shows you how to become radically active.
"If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, International Herald Tribune, November 18, 2007
Well then, better get cracking. Here are some tools and techniques from Transition Timeline:
12 Steps of Transition
- Set up a steering group and design its demise from the outset. This stage puts a core team in place to drive the project forward during the initial phases.
- Awareness-raising. Build crucial networks and prepare the community in general for the launch of your Transition initiative
- Lay the foundations. This stage is about networking with existing groups and activists.
- Organise a Great Unleashing. This stage creates a memorable milestone to mark the project's 'coming of age'.
- Form sub-groups. Tapping into the collective genius of the community,, for solutions that will form the backbone of the Energy Descent Action Plan [EDAP].
- Use Open Space. We've found Open Space Technology to be a highly effective approach to running meetings for Transition Town initiatives.
- Develop visible practical manifestations of the project. It is essential that you avoid any sense that your project is just a talking shop where people sit around and draw up wish lists.
- Facilitate the Great Reskilling*. Give people a powerful realisation of their own ability to solve problems, to achieve practical results, and to work cooperatively alongside other people.
* "The Great Reskilling" is a Transition concept based around helping individuals and communities to learn the basic practical skills (growing food, repairing clothes, etc.) that many never learned in our cheap-energy dependent world.
- Build a bridge to Local Government. Your Energy Descent Action Plan will not progress too far unless you have cultivated a positive and productive relationship with your local authority.
- Honour the elders. Engage with those who directly remember the transition to the age of cheap oil.
- Let it go where it wants to go... If you try and hold onto a rigid vision, it will begin to spa your energy and appear to stall.
- Create an Energy Descent Action Plan. Each sub-group will have been focusing on practical actions to increase community resilience and reduce the carbon footprint.
Timeline tools #1. The 2030 School Reunion: a powerful tool for visualising the future.... The premise is that it is 203, and four residents of the town are meeting for a school reunion.... This is an exercise which requires a fair degree of forward planning, and some thinking in advance. You can find all the notes and information you will need to do this exercise at: http://transitiontowns.org/...
Timeline tools #2. Backcasting... the Transition approach is to start with a vision of how the future could be, and to work backwards... Let's say we decide that by 2015, any new house built in your community has to be a 'local passive house'.... That means by 2013 the local planning department needs to be familiar with the concept... James, S. and Lahti, T. (2004) The Natural Step for Communities: how cities and towns can change to sustainable practices. New Society Publishers.
Timeline tools #3. Transition Tales.... can be done with adults and children... imaginary news stories from 2030, which we then posted on YouTube... "A Day in the Life of 2030', looking back from 2030 to now...
Transition Tales Project at http://www.tinyurl.com/... and podcast of the Wondermentalist/Transition Cabaret at http://www.tinyurl.com/...
Timeline tools #4. Visualising the Future... a positive future... negative future... come back to the present... Be as specific as possible in comparing the two. Macy, J. and Brown, M. (1998) Coming Back to Life: practices to reconnect our lives, our world. New Society Publishers.... David Holmgren's Future Scenarios_, Foresight's Imtelligent Future Infrastructure: the scenarios towards 2055 and FEASTA's Energy Scenarios Ireland.
Timeline tools #5. Resilience Indicators... might be things like: the percentage of new buildings that meet passive house standards; the percentage of food consumed in the area that was grown in the area; the amount of people who feel they have certain skills; people's level of optimism that change is possible; number of people who are active members of car-share clubs...
Centre for Community Enterprise Community Resilience Manual and Tools & Techniques for Community Recovery and Renewal from http://www.cedworks.com
Timeline tools #6. 'The 2-Hour Energy Descent [Action] Plan for Transition Town Anywhere'...
LIFT Festival workshop on 2 Hour Energy Descent Plan at http://tinyurl.com/... and how to instructions at http://transitiontowns.org/...
"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think." Gregory Bateson
"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now." Chinese proverb
"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Howard Thurman
"Not everything that counts can be counted. And not everything that can be counted, counts." Albert Einstein
Summary of implications of different emissions scenarios: http://www.ipcc.ch/... (pdf alert)
Climate Code Red: The Case for a Sustainability Emergency by David Spratt and Philip Sutton
http://www.tinyurl.com/... (pdf alert)
http://www.futurescenarios.org
The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience by Bob Hopkins (Green Books, 2008)
http://www.transitionculture.org
Food Industry Sustainability Strategy May 2006 http://tinyurl.com/... (pdf alert)
Food Security and the UK December 2006 http://tinyurl.com/... (pdf alert)
Ensuring the UK's Food Security in a Changing World, July 2008, http://tinyurl.com/... (pdf alert)
Resilience in the Food Chain by Helen Peck July 2006 http://tinyurl.com/... (pdf alert)
The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy: A Life-Cycle in Trouble by David Fleming, The Lean Economy Connection, http://tinyurl.com/...
"Is Electricity Really the Lifeblood of Civilisation?" by Sharon Astyk, http://sharonastyk.com/...
Ted Trainer, Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain a Consumer Society, Springer Verlag
Rebecca Willis, Grid 2.0 from http://www.rebeccawillis.co.uk/... (pdf alert)
Tradeable Energy Quotas http://www.teqs.net
Under the TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas) scheme, every adult is given free energy rations, and all organisations (including the Government) must buy rations to cover their energy use. No energy can be used in the economy without the requisite rations, and the total number of rations issued is set by the carbon emissions budget of the country concerned, meaning that the achievement of emissions is guaranteed. These rations are tradable within the country, so that the energy-thrifty can choose to sell their surplus rations, earning a profit for themselves and creating additional flexibility in the system.
Happy Planet Index from New Economics Foundation, http://www.happyplanetindex.org
According to the latest listing, Costa Rica is the happiest and greenest country on the planet. Maybe this has something to do with that:
...President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, for example, argues that a climate-neutral economy is a competitive economy; and has unilaterally declared that his country will become completely carbon-neutral by 2021, as part of his 'Peace with Nature' presidential initiative...