What is Transition?

according to the oxford dictionary:
” ..the process of changing from one state or condition to another… 2. a period of such change.”

hmmmm, really there’s a bit more to it…

-

Intro
It all starts off when a small collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: how can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change?

They begin by forming an initiating group and then adopt the Transition Model (explained here at length, and in bits here and here ) with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative (Transition Town Dorchester is an official Transition Initiative)….A Transition Initiative is a community (lots of them here) working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question:

“for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”

-

After going through a comprehensive and creative process of:

• awareness raising around peak oil, climate change and the need to undertake a community lead process to rebuild resilience and reduce carbon
• connecting with existing groups in the community
• building bridges to local government
• connecting with other transition initiatives
• forming groups to look at all the key areas of life (food, energy, transport, health, heart & soul, economics & livelihoods, etc)
• kicking off projects aimed at building people’s understanding of resilience and carbon issues and community engagement
• eventually launching a community defined, community implemented “Energy Descent Action Plan” over a 15 to 20 year timescale

This results in a coordinated range of projects across all these areas of life that strives to rebuild the resilience we’ve lost as a result of cheap oil and reduce the community’s carbon emissions, drastically

The community also recognises two crucial points:

• that we used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, andthat there’s no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope
• if we collectively plan and act early enough there’s every likelihood that we can create a way of living that’s significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.

More, more, more!…
If you want to find out more, check out this website www.TransitionTowns.org and lots and lots and lots of other Transition websites dotted all around our host; Planet Earth.

-
Cheerful disclaimer

Just in case you were under the mistaken impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact.

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

Everything that you read on this site is the result of real work undertaken in the real world with community engagement at its heart. There’s not an ivory tower in sight, no professors in musty oak-panelled studies churning out erudite papers, no slavish adherence to a model carved in stone.This site, just like the transition model, is brought to you by people who are actively engaged in transition in a community. People who are learning by doing – and learning all the time. People who understand that we can’t sit back and wait for someone else to do the work. People like you, perhaps…

-

!! Final point… Just to weave the climate change and peak oil situations together…

• Climate change makes this carbon reduction transition essential
• Peak oil makes it inevitable
• Transition initiatives make it feasible, viable and attractive (as far we can tell so far…)