Above: Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Town, explains the movement.

What is the Transition Town movement?

Transition Towns are a global movement of people living trying to live their lives without fossil fuels.

Our society, and in particular our food production systems, are dependent on oil. From running the agricultural machinery needed to farm the land, to producing fertilisers and pesticides, to producing plastic packing and then transporting the goods to the supermarket (and everything else in-between) – our love affair and dependence on oil is endemic.

Supplies of oil are not infinite and at some point they will run out – this is known as Peak Oil.

The Transition Town initiative is a positive response where communities work together to prepare for a life without oil, and it’s gaining momentum across the globe at a phenomenal pace.

Spread via word-of-mouth and virally on the internet groups work together on initiatives such as growing their own food, cutting down on oil-dependent plastics such as plastic bags and even launching their own currencies.

This is a movement of people who are not waiting for Government, or anybody else to wake up to this problem – they are taking action themselves.

Power to the people.

How did this movement start?

The Transition Town movement was co-founded by Rob Hopkins. Rob worked as a teacher of permaculture for many years. In 2004 he had a light bulb moment as he began to realise the problems posed by peak oil. He knew that once the oil ran out life would never be the same again.

With a background in finding positive, practical solutions to environmental problems Rob applied the same zeal to issue of peak oil. By turning the problem in on its head – he was able to identify that within this troubling problem lay an incredible opportunity.

And it’s this positive, upbeat approach that characterises the Transition Town movement.

Find out more:

Read Rob Hopkins’ website or follow him on Twitter @robintransition

What does being a Transition Town mean?

Resilience is a central theme to the Transition Town movement. Resilience refers to a community’s ability to adapt, grow and respond to a life without oil – not collapse at the first sight of oil or food shortages.

A good example of how our society has become fragile and dependent on oil is the UK truck drivers dispute in 2000. With dwindling petrol supplies the UK economy was brought to the brink within three days – Sir Peter Davies, then Chairman of Sainsbury’s, warned that food shortages would appear in days, not weeks.

A Transition Town would be resilient enough to withstand this kind of crisis – it would be growing it’s own and sourcing food from local producers.

The Transition Network write…

The community self-organises to respond in four phases.

First, the small initiating group starts a programme of awareness raising and hooking up with existing groups. They articulate the rationale for adopting/adapting a transition approach and show the creative responses that the community might embark upon.

Second, as the group becomes larger, it self-organises in groups in all the key areas such as food, transport, energy, housing, education, textiles etc, and creates practical projects in response to that big question (such as community supported agriculture, car clubs, local currencies, neighbourhood carbon reduction clubs, urban orchards, reskilling classes). Most Transition Initiatives are in this phase.

Fourth, they begin implementing the EDAP, sharing successes and failures with other Transition Initiatives that are travelling the same path. As of June 2010, it looks like only Transition Town Totnes have embarked on this phase – see their Totnes EDAP site.

Third, when the initiative is sufficiently competent with these concepts and practices, it embarks on an EDAP (Energy Descent Action Plan) process. This is a community-visioned and community-designed 15-20 year plan that creates a coordinated range of projects in all these key areas, with the aim of bringing the community to a sufficiently resilient and low CO2-emitting state. A very small handful of Transition Initiatives have embarked on this phase.

How do I start or join a Transition Town?

First stop would be to check if your town is already a Transition Town.

Use this handy Transition Town locater

If you would like to start a Transition Town in your community a good starting place is the Transition Network website.

Also Rob Hopkins has written a book, The Transition Handbook, which is the bible for turning your community into a Transition Town.

Transition Town Totnes was one of the first established and has a great, informative website.

Find out more

Read:

The Transition Network website.

Transition Town Handbook by Rob Hopkins.

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