The Transition Town movement is a community led response to the challenges of Peak Oil, Climate Change and Economic Instability. It has grown out of the work of Rob Hopkins, a permaculture teacher, writer and lecturer who lives in Totnes, England. With people hearing about the work taking place in Transition Town Totes, the Transition movement spread virally around Britain and subsequesntly started to spread around the world, now having a presence in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and America.
Rob Hopkins
The Transition Initiative, as it is is also known, looks to encourage and tap into the collective genius of those who live in a community in order to build resiliency in that community. Resiliency is an ecological principle meaning the ability to withstand whatever shocks might challenge a given ecosystem. Transition looks to bring that concept into our built human environments.
The Trasition Movement looks not to fight against what is in existence in order to bring about change, but for any given community, town, or neighbourhood to vision what they would like a resilient community to look like in their locale and to work towards bringing that about. It is an asset based model, looking to tap into the skills and resources that are already sitting within a community
The Transition Initiative was first presented as 12 Steps or Ingredietns in Hopkins' "The Transition Handbook." More about them can be found here. This year, 2011, Hopkins will be publishing a new book, "The Transition Companion." In it, following four years of the Transition Movement's growth and experience building around the world, Hopkins delves deeper into the Transition model and it's Ingredients, fleshing them out into many more than 12 and so presenting a richer set of tools for communities to get their hands on.
At the end of the Transition Network Conference in July 2011 (workshop write ups, videos, interviews can be found here), Hopkins summed up the three days by saying:
An article in the Guardian last week asked “has the green movement lost its way?” I think that is the wrong question. The right question should be “has a new, emergent culture which embraces resilience and localisation, equity and partnership, even scratched the surface of its potential?” I think the answer is a resolute no. We’ve all had a taste of that this weekend.
Grounding itself in the enormity of the task that it is looking to tackle, Transition looks to work from its Cheerful Disclaimer. This says:
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.
Follow the links below The Transition Movement menu for my writings and interviews on the Transition movement.