I went to a meeting last night of our local eco-group, and we had part of our meeting in the garden until it got a bit cooler. There was a report of how things went at the stall our group had last Saturday at a county show in Lawford. The theme for our stall was home composting, and a lot of people showed interest in it. But the main topic of last night's meeting was transition towns. We had a speaker from Transition Wivenhoe, a small town near Colchester which is in its early stages as a transition town. The transition towns movement in the UK started in Totnes, Devon, initiated by Rob Hopkins. As climate change speeds up and as the age of cheap oil comes to an end, we are all going to have to face the consequences of life without oil. This won't just affect people who drive or rely on oil-driven transport, but every single one of us who buys food from shops, who uses plastics, and who engaged in the economy, because our lives have become dependent on oil over the past hundred years or so. Most of our food bought from supermarkets and small shops has been grown non-organically, which means chemicals, which means oil. Unless we live in a cave, with no electricity or gas, never go anywhere, never buy food from the shops, never use plastic, and grow and rear all our own food, every single one of us in the west is dependent on oil, and over the past hundred years or so we have squandered it. Had we used it wisely, we would have had enough oil to last us for hundreds of years. One solution to the twin problems of climate change and peak oil is the concept of transition towns (TT). It is an idea whose time has come even if most people are still in denial about the problem of peak oil. The phrase coined by the green movement, Act Locally, Think Globally applies here, because TT is local solutions for local people to help combat a global problem. As the age of easily extracted and cheap oil comes to an end, we shall have to go back to eating food that is grown locally because food grown thousands of miles away will no longer be feasible when oil is either too expensive or just not available any more. We shall have to source our energy more locally and be more efficient with our use of it. We shall have to use cycles and walk more to get to places, and fly less or not at all. We shall have to build stronger local economies. All these issues are tackled by the TT movement and if handled successfully will make for greater resilience amongst communities. But there isn't much time left.
The speaker explained through diagrams and graphs the concept of peak oil, and described what a transition town may look like, although there is no one right model, no 'one size fits all', a model which governments are very fond of. People have basically the same needs everywhere, but each locality has its own traditions and culture, and so there is no blueprint for a TT just some ideas about how communities may become more self-reliant. Initiatives within TTs include land-share schemes to enable people to grow more of their own food, credit unions so that money stays within the local economy instead of being syphoned off as it is now by banks to go elsewhere, time banks or LETS schemes to boost the local economy and stop skills going to waste, car share schemes and bike-users' clubs, and local sourced energy. TTs seek to work in partnership with other community groups. It is not party political and not affiliated to any religious or philosophical group, which might alienate many people. Typically, community groups and facilities might include Women's Institutes, trade unions, credit unions, churches and mosques, village halls, schools and volunteer bureaux.
She referred to something called the 12 steps. This has nothing to do with Alcoholics Anonymous, although it could be thought of as a way of weaning ourselves off our addiction to oil. For a fuller explanation of the 12 steps go to the following link:
The talk certainly gave us all some food for thought. I am by nature, though a pessimist, and I can't see it happening in our town any time soon if at all. It is a very conservative area, and despite the credit crunch, there are 4x4s to be seen everywhere. As everywhere people are addicted to their cars, shopping, their holidays abroad, and all the other carbon-heavy activities of modern life. There is no tradition of radicalism in this area like there may be in some of the towns that have become transition towns. This is not to say it can't happen, because we shall all have to face the reality of peak oil some time in the future, whatever our political leanings are. But in my opinion, and it is my opinion, the towns with a more alternative tradition, such as Totnes and Brighton, were always going to be easier to convert to the idea of TTs than a conservative area like Clacton. If we do attempt to turn Clacton into a TT, it will be an uphill struggle. But despite these misgivings on my part, the TT movement has the potential to appeal to people of different political persuasions and none, and people of different faiths and none as long as it is not seen to be party political or the preserve of one party or interest group, or as just a white middle class thing. For this reason I think TTs could be the most important movement of recent years enabling local communities to be resilient in the face of huge challenges. The alternative might be too awful to contemplate.
Here are some websites on TTs:
http://www.totnes.transitionnetwork.org/
http://www.transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/Criteria
It is a week since I last had any tobacco, and I am feeling the strain! Several times over the past week I have had the desire for a rollup, but have resisted the temptation to go and buy some more baccie. But I don't know how much longer I can keep going without it. Certain words trigger off the desire, as do certain times of day and certain activities. It is not as if I have been smoking for years. I usually only smoke for a few weeks at a time, but not smoking leaves a gaping hole in my life. So I suppose I must be an addict to a degree!
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