Transition Towns

Two of us attended a Transition Towns Workshop this weekend in Vernon, BC:  it was unlike most workshops I've ever been to.  I was astonished, energized, strengthened, and inspired - you could have knocked me over with a typewriter!   Transition Towns are places that, led by an initiating committee,  are working to solve the problems of peak oil and climate change locally.   That sentence sounds impossible, doesn't it?  It isn't - the city that I have raved about previously, Portland, Oregon - is a Transition Town.  ( Portland's greenhouse gas emissions will be 10 % below 1990 levels this year! )

But it isn't just the successes that make the Transition Model so cool: coolness is implicit in its philosophy.  It is best describeds by the phrase "Transition is a party, not a protest!"  The model is democratic and inclusive; focuses on both exterior results and inner transformations, creates social connections and fun, and embraces uncertainty.  In fact, their UK website states:

We truly don't know if this will work. Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale. What we are convinced of is this:
■if we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late
■if we act as individuals, it'll be too little
■but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.

Check out their website at http://www.transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionNetwork
 Or research a Canadian city  - Victoria, BC, and Vancouver, BC are both transition towns. Or go to a Transition Towns workshop with your friends.  And start a party!
(Yes, the reference to "obsolete" technology was deliberate. )