Transition Towns Training – SF, December 6 and 7, 2008.
This past weekend I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with folks who are looking into the future and not talking only about the doom and gloom scenarios that certainly will befall pockets, if not most of humanity, if we continue down the path of consumption, ignorance, and denial that we are currently walking.Instead, this weekend was more about accepting that we are going to live in a world that will need to go through a period of transition away from our reliance on cheap, abundant liquid fuels and into one that is short on dense, transportable energy and one that is affected by climate change that is most inevitably upon us.
The event was called “Transition Towns Training.”Transition Towns is a movement started in England about 4 years ago.This is on their home page: “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 put forth a series of steps, or ingredients, that communities can implement if they want the transition to be smoother.“We are all in transition, whether we like it or not, some of us are just not aware of it.”Through increased awareness we have much to gain, including a less panicked population, more time for preparation and the most valuable resource of all, in my opinion, engaged humans bringing forth their individual knowledge.
We met on the northern coast of San Francisco as the moon was in its third quarter.A sunny and warm beautiful morning with the Golden Gate off in the western horizon, 52 unique individuals came together to be led through Training for Transition by founders(of the training) Sophy Banks and Naresh Giangrande.After beginning with some protocol for group discussion - one hand up to be next, two hands up to respond to the immediate point, and a T to indicate a technical response - we moved on to different group mingles.We aligned by geographic location, community (however we defined it) size, our community’s progress in transition, and how long we have been ‘involved’ personally, with introductions and discussing why we are here going around among each new set of neighbors.The group came together with many goals, among them:
To form groups
Learn practical ideas
Gain and share inspiration
Explore the role of technology
To create jobs
To gain a sense of wider contacts
We then moved into an exercise where we shared knowledge about peak oil, PO, and climate change, CC.Much of this information was known generally to most of the group, so the importance of understanding the problem before moving onto solutions was made clear.I will state here my high regard for both Sophy and Naresh as instructors.The methods employed allowed for all members of the group to be engaged and helped facilitate communication between the Transitioners.In our talking of peak oil, climate change and solutions, we were encouraged to leave out opinions, and instead to present facts in as balanced a way as possible.
We discussed how to close the loops; using less resources à producing less waste à using the waste as a resource was emphasized.We have plenty of ‘energy’, but not liquid fuels.
Naresh then spoke of 4 potential future scenarios, after we had a mutually defined reality based on PO and CC.Starting from the top:
Blue line - shows what most seem to believe, that growth will continue without end, even if we must go into space at some point
Pink line- that green technology will emerge and at such a level to enable us to maintain our near current way of life
Yellow line- an Earth Stewardship approach that has the world using much less energy in order to maintain a balance with the rest of life on earth.
Blue line- a Mad Max scenario, which may be where we end up if transition does begin soon on a large level.
Naresh also recommended Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” and Starhawk’s “Fifth Sacred Thing” and inspired us with this quote by JFK- “The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who can dream of things that never were.”
After lunch, which surprisingly was everyone fend for themselves (the only drawback for me all weekend), we began with a visioning experience looking forward 20 years into the future to see what life was like then.The resounding view was a positive one, of more community, more shared meals, a simpler life.
Along the way we would need to hold different events for different groups based on who was present and what stage they were at-
Pre- Contemplation
Is there a problem?
Talks, films, info sessions, potlucks
Contemplation
What needs to be done?
Solutions detailed, reasons for change
Preparation
What will I do?How?
Reskilling, timetable, transition teams
Change
Keep going and/ or try something else.
Support, celebrations, deepening work
When we begin meeting, there are some first steps to keep in mind:
Get to know others in group- this may take time
Set intent
Establish ground rules
Take time, meet a few times without putting pressure on results
Set a when will we finish task- ie we cannot grow food for all of ‘town’ but we can celebrate when we install 5 gardens.
The first day wrapped up nicely and with many tired folks, as much work was done.As many folks were staying at the hostel also located at Fort Mason, I offered to pick up some food for a communal dinner, an offer only one other member of the group accepted, though we met some great folks travelling through SF over our lentil, rice, and broccoli dinner superbly prepared by a gracious guest and chef.Some other Transitioners did enjoy the meal the next day for lunch.
The moon set a little later on Saturday, falling into the Pacific just after midnight.
Day2-
The mourning process will be long and hard.There is much that we will lose as we accept that a transition is coming.We need to put that energy into something positive.On that note I will head out to the spiral gardens and continue this after the sun has set.
Back home after recovering much primo topsoil to put new plants into.
The afternoon began with a discussion about our Beliefs in the Industrial Growth System.These brainstormed ideas could loosely be placed into these 5 categories:
The world will not meet our needs àCreate excesses to compensate
Worthlessness is felt àWe use external things to gratify us
We are powerless- we have lost confidence in our own abilities àSo we dominate nature and other people
We have concern for our safety à So we arm ourselves, protect ourselves
We are separate from nature àWe seem to know celebrity news but not our neighbors
We then moved into a talk about psychotherapy, and how we develop their world view as they grow up in this world.Most experience a duality of the brain- one part saying all is well and we are safe and the other saying we must watch out for ourselves.We adapted by doing things that first bring us partial success and then by repressing memories of the good and bad split within our thoughts.Here again I felt that awareness raising was critical to helping the people as a whole from fully crossing over to ‘everyone for themselves’ as the situation deteriorates.
We will find our own place, where we belong.
The question was raised- what do we who have transitioned do when the hungry come knocking on our doors- we must open our doors or we have not transitioned.(but when has opening the doors ever led to anything positive?)
We may all be hungry together, but sharing the human experience is the key.We have to chance to reclaim our humanness, our femininity.
Remember the law of 2 feet- when not engaged, use your 2 feet and go somewhere else.This leads us to the ‘open space’ model of discussion.Those with a topic to discuss wrote their idea on a post it, and we merged ideas to get about 8 topics and then broke to different tables to discuss our ideas in a free form model, with some people staying put and others floating about the room.When opens space starts it starts, and when it ends it ends, and whoever comes are the right people, and whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
Lunch Sunday ended with a brief discussion about the state of the economy, and if I was trying to be optimistic before this talk it faded again, hopefully the denial will not try to come up again.Money is debt- thanks to the Federal Reserve and their lovely policy of charging us interest on all the money the print and lend us- that is citizens of the US.Two scenarios for the economy-
There are resource constraints, peak oil is upon us- economy looks bad now, and if oil prices go up again the economy spirals down
There is more oil- the economy can hang on until the peak hits, which is inevitable.
When peak oil becomes apparent, Wall Street will crash.
Perhaps the most powerful part of the weekend was a visioning experiment where ½ of us journeyed 7 generations into the future and then came back to listen to a present day transitioner describe what it is like going through transition and what their role during transition was.This brough a level of realness, we are going into the unknown, and having the chance to talk about what it ‘was’ like and what we did helped, for me, move my ideas forward.My dominating idea is to bring food production to more urban/ suburban areas by planting food in peoples backyards, frontyards, and eventually streets.I see this as being a very local movement with most ‘farmers’ travelling less than a mile to work, with local nurseries to help with teaching and propagation and soil making, with many homes slowly making the conversion to graywater and solar, and many more community meals being shared and information being shared, and community growing and happening in many places.I wrote more about this here.
If you had a piece of land that was yours to care for, what would you do?
Now turn this around and treat yourself that way, as you are a part of the earth.
If you are tired, rest.If you are hungry, eat.Take care of yourself, LOVE YOURSELF.
Thank you for you interest in my experiences at Training for Transition.Since last weekend I have met many others in the east bay who are looking to get a transition movement, including POGO, peak oil group of Oakland, who screened just Power of Community.We have a long way to go and not much time.Please contact anyone from transition, there are groups set up in every state now, or feel free to contact me directly if you want to talk.Thanks do much.Love to all.
Many of us seem to think all we need to do is get Obama elected and he will take care of the rest. And the scientists will find a new liquid fuel for our cars as well.
We vote every day with our dollar and our actions. This faith, hope, or whatever you want to call it in our leaders to come is unjustified. It is only through the actions of all, or most, that change will come. Why should obama care about sound economic policy, energy policy, agricultural policy, or climate policy if we don't, as evident by our excesses all over the spectrum?
Drive less, grow some food, have a neighborhood potluck, read a book, buy locally produced food, pick up the trash in front of your house, and encourage other to do the same. One day it will be cool to care about others and the planet. We vote every day, many times a day.
Stop down-talking coal and oil until you stop using electricity and using products made from or transported to you with oil. There is nothing that will come even close to matching the billions of btus produced from fossil fuels. The sooner we accept that the sooner we accept the climate will change or we will change our lifestyles- dramatically.
Grows food plants along with herbs, fruit and nut trees
Weekly farmers market
In poorer neighborhoods
Sells cheap
Goal of bringing quality food to poorer, urban communities.
Expand to installing nursery plants into backyards
For free
For work or trade
For cash
Find donors, grants, government funds
Umbrella under a non profit
Care of gardens
for free, if needed
training provided to residents
multiple levels of support to be offered
Market services door to door
Local based work force
Expand nursery
library
kitchen- indoor and outdoor, solar oven
workshop space
i.seed collecting
ii.germination
iii.nutrition
iv.medicinal herbs
v.companion planting
vi.politics
vii.justice
viii.potlucks
ix.cooking
x.many more
Being neighborhood based, early nurseries would be role model for expansion into unplanted neighborhoods, using as much local resources, both materials and labor, as possible.
Ideas inspired over the past 2 months, moving to a 4 season growing environment, participating at spiral gardens, seeing the need to grow food where people are, educating the people about how food, and energy, is produced, and finally put to paper after the ‘food policy for the next administration’s dialogue at uc <st1:place w:st="on">Berkeley on oct 1, 2008.www.enviro.berkeley.edu/amr.
Food Policy for the Next Administration, Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley, Oct 1, 2008- notes
i.We must go back to the garden and have incentives, possibly through health care, for feeding people healthy food.
ii.Teach Children
1.How to garden- environment
2.How to prepare food- community
3.Basics of Nutrition- health
iii.Plant 5 arce White House Lawn
1.Hire a White House Farmer
2.Encourage Youth to become food producers
iv.We need a polyculture approach, a systems approach
v.We need millions of farmers to replace the oil and chemicals that currently grow food
"The world had changed," said the Morgan Stanley spokesperson yesterday, and you can mark that down as the understatement of the year.
She was explaining the company's decision late Sunday night to convert back into a bank holding company some 75 years after the Glass-Steagall act sundered the House of Morgan into J.P. Morgan, the bank, and Morgan Stanley, the investment firm. Under pressure from the Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs made the same choice this weekend.
And so, in a single week, the era of the independent investment bank has ended. Wall Street as we've known it for decades has ceased to exist. Six months ago there were five major investment banks. Two -- Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns -- have failed, Merrill Lynch is selling itself to Bank of America, and now the last two are becoming commercial banks. Adam Smith, that great market disciplinarian, is punishing excesses and remaking American finance long before Congress can get into the act.
Both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will have two years in which to arrange their affairs to conform to the capital requirements and other rules that govern such commercial banks as Wells Fargo, BofA and Citigroup. That will mean less leverage -- assets that are perhaps 10 times their capital bases instead of the 20 or 30 to 1 they have sported as investment banks. That in turn means less risk and almost certainly less profit and lower compensation.
In exchange, they will be able to accept consumer savings deposits as a ready source of funds. They also get the promise of greater stability and continued access to Federal Reserve lending facilities such as the discount window. To be more pointed, they'll have a better chance at survival, not least because they also will be able to avoid certain "mark-to-market" accounting rules that have forced writedowns on troubled securities.
This year's market turmoil had called into question the viability of the investment-banking business model as far back as March, with Bear Stearns's collapse. The Fed gave the remaining banks access to emergency lending, but it was clear from the start that this taxpayer lifeline wasn't sustainable without a greater degree of federal oversight. What Morgan Stanley and Goldman did Sunday night was to choose their poison -- submitting themselves to commercial banking regulation rather than have it imposed on them either through legislation or merger, as Merrill recently did in selling itself to BofA.
The result will be a sturdier but also less-innovative financial system than we have had in recent decades. That has its benefits; we're paying the price for some of the more dubious innovations right now. The new system will have more capital and less direct lending through such vehicles as asset-backed securities. Direct lending is highly efficient and has provided funds for many useful ends. But it is also riskier in a panic because it lacks a capital cushion to absorb the losses when asset values decline. In another sign of this new world, Morgan Stanley followed the weekend's news by announcing that it had sold a 20% stake to Japan 's Mitsubishi.
Wall Street's transformation also means that private equity companies and hedge funds will be the new financial innovators and move further onto investment banking's traditional turf. But both hedge funds and private equity have intrinsic limitations on their ability to raise money and fund their activities, so neither is a perfect substitute for the former role of the investment banks.
In some sense, the pure-play investment bank was itself a regulatory artifact. In the depths of the Depression, separating the investment functions from the banks was considered necessary for the stability of the commercial banks. Thus Glass-Steagall was born, and this week that separation can finally be said to be undone.
As for the long-term effects, expect them to be as hard to predict as the full effects of Glass-Steagall were in 1933. Adaptation and innovation have been hallmarks of our financial system since before there was a Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. If Congress is wise next year as it attempts to reorganize our financial system, it will recognize the benefits of a sturdier system without crushing its ability to innovate.
how many of us actually care enough to get out of our comfortable lifestyle and speak out. to expect us to be 'led' to a better future is ignorant. we must build the future ourselves. we the people.
What has happened to us? All wrapped up in how important our lives are, how great we as a nation are, how busy we are and choosing not to learn about how our agriculture policies affect the farmers of the world, our drug policies are wreaking havoc everywhere, our energy policy will cause endless war, our meat industry often show just how low as a species we can sink with regards to any form of respect for other life, and more.
come on people- let's do what needs to be done- now!
at one point i thought all americans would be ok, if you were lucky to be born here then you were lucky to be in the greatest country there is, but overall we don;t even care about each other.
if i got mine then la di da.
don't dwell on the negatives. see the good in the world. don't be a downer. i've heard that a few times.
three things-
1. we are producing less oil than we did as a world 3 years ago- in 20-30 years we will probably be living using about 50% of the oil that we use now. how will that affect you lifestyle, your work, and your recreational activities- just think about it
2. the food production of the earth will decline as we have less fuels, fertilizer, soil, water, and more frequent storms and droughts. this will lead to a decrease in the population of earth. imagine that we are at 6.5 billion people now and in 50 years may be at 3 billion- carrying capacity. how will we get there from here? what different methods do we see our kind and compassionate leaders using?
3. capitalism requires growth- both in population and in energy use. we are moving to a world of less energy, food, and people. how does negative growth affect capital markets?
i don't think i am a pessimist, but let's take this to the personal level. we all know cigarette smoking kills- not only the smoker but the people around them. yet many of us smoke- a blatant disregard for our health and the health of those in close proximity to us. now some say that we are going to begin to care about people that are not us more than we care about us? i doubt it. nothing against smokers as there are many things we all do that we know, deep down, are not good for us individually or as a whole.
many seem to have faith in technology, or in people 'getting it', waking up, becoming 'aware', but i ask you- how many do you know with solar panels, who grow 10% of their food, don;t use fossil fuels more excessively than they should. how many of the 'aware' are actually living lifestyles that do not harm other human beings?
but things can be different. if we each make the steps we can- ask for help along the way, admit our ignorance in how to live without all the goodies that have made our lives so cozy.
the time will come when our enemy will not be 'drugs' or 'terrorists' but instead overconsumption, greed, and fear of not having enough and ignorance. we will look at non recyclers and excessive users in a bad light. this will not be easy as the enemy then will be us, our friends, neighbors, and relatives rather than drug pushers and the taliban.
we must not judge but welcome those who are willing to move to a more sustainable path. we must also do what we can to speed up this move, as it is not happening anywhere near fast enough.
i do not see myself as pessimistic in discussing the end of this day, as i see the new day coming and am looking forward to living in it.
we know what to do- and along the way we will be guided. lose the fear and be willing to accept change. only together will we make it. individually we will not survive.
when will we care- when our investments disappear? when our job is lost? when our friend or family member loses their house? when the lights go out? when the grocery store doesn't have any food? when china begins to march on the middle east? when rations for electric and gas are initiated?
I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe,
But at least I'm enjoying the ride.
or
We don't own this place, though we act as if we did,
It's a loan from the children of our children's kids.
The actual owners haven't even been born yet.
But we never tend the garden and rarely we pay the rent,
Some of it is broken and the rest of it is bent
Put it all on plastic and I wonder where we'll be when the bills hit.
We can run,
but we can't hide from it.
Of all possible worlds,
We only got one:
We gotta to ride on it.
Whatever we've done,
We'll never get far from what we leave behind,
Baby, we can run but we can't hide.
I'm dumpin' my trash in your back yard
Makin' certain you don't notice really isn't so hard
You're so busy with your guns and all of your excuses to use them.
Well, it's oil for the rich and babies for the poor,
We got everyone believin' that more is more,
If a reckoning comes, maybe we will know what to do then.
Peak Oil will soon generate problems for individuals and families around the globe: unemployment; bankruptcy; inability to pay for heating oil, higher education, mortgage, and rent etc; the need for family members to share residences and expenses; violent street crime even in previously safe neighborhoods; the separation of family members (due to high airfares, the high cost of gasoline, or gasoline rationing); and anxiety and depression.
Families that have a common understanding of Peak Oil problems can provide mutual support and group problem-solving, and they are more likely enjoy life and survive the Peak Oil catastrophe. Young people who understand Peak Oil are more likely to study what makes sense for the future. Informed people who are unemployed can work collectively for their future and use their resources for contingency planning, instead of looking to panaceas and technological fixes.
Educating family, loved ones, and friends about Peak Oil and its impacts is a formidable challenge. Most people believe strongly that a national commitment and technology will solve energy problems and support a stable economy. Denial concerning Peak Oil is pervasive at all levels of society. Frustration in educating family members about Peak Oil is common, as revealed on the Peak Oil Blues website.
It helps to remember that people avoid the reality of Peak Oil from weakness, not strength. Peak Oil is personally frightening and many fear for family and friends. Educating about Peak Oil is the right thing to do, so be patient. It sometimes takes weeks, months, or years to get through to people. Learn from the experiences of others on the Peak Oil Blues website. Here are some ideas to consider in educating family, love ones, and friends.
Studies by major independent government agencies and scientific organizations are the most credible sources for convincing many people that Peak Oil is real and will have serious impacts soon. I wrote a 48 page Peak Oil Impacts Report based on such sources, and the sources can be referenced directly from the report (which can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed). It is hard to deny studies by the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. General Accountability Office, U.S, Congressional Research Service, and major scientific institutions. Many governments have sponsored Peak Oil studies. Use these authority symbols to your advantage.
You can tell your family or friends that Peak Oil is a serious issue that you personally need to discuss with them, and that you want them to read the report for factual information in order to have a well-informed conversation.
The report was written by a recently retired professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire, where he was director of the Master of Public Administration program for many years. In that capacity he worked with hundreds of local, state, and federal officials on government planning. Based on this report, he gave a Peak Oil presentation to the New Hampshire Town Managers Association last January and a variety of audiences in Albany, NY in June.
If they read short convincing articles, you may then convince them to read the 48 page report. You can also ask them to read the first page summary of the report and the summaries of the report by the U.S. General Accountability Office, which is covered in my report.
The September 2008 ASPO-USA Peak Oil Conference included a very credible group of speakers, including Neil King Jr., the international energy reporter for “The Wall Street Journal.”
An Internet search of the term “peak oil” yields some 4,400,000 hits.
“Energy Bulletin” provides much scientific information and a Peak Oil primer.
The “Transition Movement” and Portland (Oregon) Peak Oil Task (and other cities’ efforts) show that some towns and cities are planning to prepare for Peak Oil.
There are many videos on Peak Oil on Google or Yahoo.
If anyone asks why more people don’t know about Peak Oil, the following explains this conspiracy of silence. Both private and national oil company executives and their allies in business and government have lied to the media and public about oil reserves in order to create an image of corporate financial growth. This has increased their salaries, stock investments, stock options for retirement, and large consulting fees to produce phony research. The media and government officials have believed the lies and have conveniently avoided giving the public bad news about future. And most leaders and people across the globe believe that there must a new energy source for continued prosperity and economic development, so why worry about Peak Oil?
Patience is a virtue.. It takes time for people to think about how vital oil is for the economy and what life will be like without oil in the future. Patience -- even many who are aware of Peak Oil are in denial about the future. They accept Peak Oil, but not its impacts. Patience -- belief systems that were developed over a lifetime are difficult to change. Patience.
In the comments option, please offer additional ideas for educating family, loved ones, and friends about Peak Oil.
Cliff Wirth is a policy analyst who writes and speaks about Peak Oil impacts, alternatives, survival, preparations, and relocation. He holds a Ph.D. in Policy Analysis and a Master's degree in Public Administration and taught policy analysis, energy policy, public administration, global urban politics, and Mexican politics at the University of New Hampshire for 27 years.
Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:
"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."
Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.
The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.
And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Falling for whom? NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work.
NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.
Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What's this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?
It has everything to do with it. This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it's because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Here's the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened.
This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars! I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something
-- NOW! Here's what you can do immediately:
1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they've made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what's the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.
2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).
3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.
When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!
Yours,
Michael Moore MMFlint@aol.com MichaelMoore.com
P.S. Having read further the details of this bailout bill, you need to know you are being lied to. They talk about how they will prevent golden parachutes. It says NOTHING about what these executives and fat cats will make in SALARY. According to Rep. Brad Sherman of California, these top managers will continue to receive million-dollar-a-month paychecks under this new bill. There is no direct ownership given to the American people for the money being handed over. Foreign banks and investors will be allowed to receive billion-dollar handouts. A large chunk of this $700 billion is going to be given directly to Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. There is NO guarantee of ever seeing that money again.
P.P.S. From talking to people I know in DC, they say the reason so many Dems are behind this is because Wall Street this weekend put a gun to their heads and said either turn over the $700 billion or the first thing we'll start blowing up are the pension funds and 401(k)s of your middle class constituents. The Dems are scared they may make good on their threat. But this is not the time to back down or act like the typical Democrat we have witnessed for the last eight years. The Dems handed a stolen election over to Bush. The Dems gave Bush the votes he needed to invade a sovereign country. Once they took over Congress in 2007, they refused to pull the plug on the war. And now they have been cowered into being accomplices in the crime of the century. You have to call them now and say "NO!" If we let them do this, just imagine how hard it will be to get anything good done when President Obama is in the White House. THESE DEMOCRATS ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS THE BACKBONE WE GIVE THEM. CALL CONGRESS NOW.
The idea here is generally that we need to accept that peak oil is real, our lives will be different when we use less oil, and that a transition period is needed to move from oil dependency to being less dependent.
The movement started in England a few years ago and many towns there, in Australia and a few in the US have adopted some of their ideas.
What is a TransitionTown (or village / city / forest / island)?
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.
A Transition Initiative is a community, town, or city 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
12 Key Steps to embarking on your transition journey
To begin with, it is important to note that although the term “TransitionTown” has stuck, what we are talking about are Transition Cities, TransitionIslands, Transition Hamlets, TransitionValleys, Transition Anywhere-You-Find-People.
#1. Set up a steering group and design its demise from the outset
This stage puts a core team in place to drive the project forward during the initial phases. We recommend that you form your Steering Group with the aim of getting through stages 2 – 5, and agree that once a minimum of four sub-groups (see #5) are formed, the Steering Group disbands and reforms with a person from each of those groups. This requires a degree of humility, but is very important in order to put the success of the project above the individuals involved. Ultimately your Steering Group should become made up of 1 representative from each sub-group.
#2. Awareness raising
This stage will identify your key allies, build crucial networks and prepare the community in general for the launch of your Transition initiative.
For an effective Energy Descent Action plan to evolve, its participants have to understand the potential effects of both Peak Oil and Climate Change – the former demanding a drive to increase community resilience, the later a reduction in carbon footprint.
Screenings of key movies (Inconvenient Truth, End of Suburbia, Crude Awakening, Power of Community) along with panels of “experts” to answer questions at the end of each, are very effective. (See Transition Initiatives Primer (1MB pdf) for the lowdown on all the movies – where to get them, trailers, what the licencing regulations are, doomster rating vs solution rating)
Talks by experts in their field of climate change, peak oil and community solutions can be very inspiring. Articles in local papers, interviews on local radio, presentations to existing groups, including schools, are also part of the toolkit to get people aware of the issues and ready to start thinking of solutions.
#3. Lay the foundations
This stage is about networking with existing groups and activists, making clear to them that the TransitionTown initiative is designed to incorporate their previous efforts and future inputs by looking at the future in a new way. Acknowledge and honour the work they do, and stress that they have a vital role to play.
Give them a concise and accessible overview of peak oil, what it means, how it relates to climate change, how it might affect the community in question, and the key challenges it presents. Set out your thinking about how a TransitionTown process might be able to act as a catalyst for getting the community to explore solutions and to begin thinking about grassroots mitigation strategies.
#4. Organise a Great Unleashing
This stage creates a memorable milestone to mark the project’s “coming of age”, moves it right into the community at large, builds a momentum to propel your initiative forward for the next period of its work and celebrates your community’s desire to take action.
In terms of timing, we estimate that 6 months to a year after your first “awareness raising” movie screening is about right.
The Official Unleashing of Transition Town Totnes was held in September 2006, preceded by about 10 months of talks, film screenings and events.
Regarding contents, it’ll need to bring people up to speed on Peak Oil and Climate Change, but in a spirit of “we can do something about this” rather than doom and gloom.
One item of content that we’ve seen work very well is a presentation on the practical and psychological barriers to personal change – after all, this is all about what we do as individuals.
It needn’t be just talks, it could include music, food, opera, break dancing, whatever you feel best reflects your community’s intention to embark on this collective adventure.
#5. Form sub groups
Part of the process of developing an Energy Descent Action Plan is tapping into the collective genius of the community. Crucial for this is to set up a number of smaller groups to focus on specific aspects of the process. Each of these groups will develop their own ways of working and their own activities, but will all fall under the umbrella of the project as a whole.
Ideally, sub groups are needed for all aspects of life that are required by your community to sustain itself and thrive. Examples of these are: food, waste, energy, education, youth, economics, transport, water, local government.
Each of these sub groups is looking at their area and trying to determine the best ways of building community resilience and reducing the carbon footprint. Their solutions will form the backbone of the Energy Descent Action Plan.
#6. Use Open Space
We’ve found Open Space Technology to be a highly effective approach to running meetings for TransitionTown initiatives.
In theory it ought not to work. A large group of people comes together to explore a particular topic or issue, with no agenda, no timetable, no obvious coordinator and no minute takers.
However, we have run separate Open Spaces for Food, Energy, Housing, Economics and the Psychology of Change. By the end of each meeting, everyone has said what they needed to, extensive notes had been taken and typed up, lots of networking has had taken place, and a huge number of ideas had been identified and visions set out.
The essential reading on Open Space is Harrison Owen’s Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide, and you will also find Peggy Holman and Tom Devane’s The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future an invaluable reference on the wider range of such tools.
#7 Develop visible practical manifestations of the project
It is essential that you avoid any sense that your project is just a talking shop where people sit around and draw up wish lists. Your project needs, from an early stage, to begin to create practical, high visibility manifestations in your community. These will significantly enhance people’s perceptions of the project and also their willingness to participate.
There’s a difficult balance to achieve here during these early stages. You need to demonstrate visible progress, without embarking on projects that will ultimately have no place on the Energy Descent Action Plan. In Transition Town Totnes, the Food group launched a project called ‘Totnes- the Nut Capital of Britain’ which aims to get as much infrastructure of edible nut bearing trees into the town as possible. With the help of the Mayor, we recently planted some trees in the centre of town, and made it a high profile event (see left).
#8. Facilitate the Great Reskilling
If we are to respond to peak oil and climate change by moving to a lower energy future and relocalising our communities, then we’ll need many of the skills that our grandparents took for granted. One of the most useful things a Transition Town project can do is to reverse the “great deskilling” of the last 40 years by offering training in a range of some of these skills.
Research among the older members of our communities is instructive – after all, they lived before the throwaway society took hold and they understand what a lower energy society might look like. Some examples of courses are: repairing, cooking, cycle maintenance, natural building, loft insulation, dyeing, herbal walks, gardening, basic home energy efficiency, making sour doughs, practical food growing (the list is endless).
Your Great Reskilling programme will give people a powerful realisation of their own ability to solve problems, to achieve practical results and to work cooperatively alongside other people. They’ll also appreciate that learning can truly be fun.
#9 Build a bridge to Local Government
Whatever the degree of groundswell your TransitionTown initiative manages to generate, however many practical projects you’ve initiated and however wonderful your Energy Descent Plan is, you will not progress too far unless you have cultivated a positive and productive relationship with your local authority. Whether it is planning issues, funding issues or providing connections, you need them on board. Contrary to your expectations, you may well find that you are pushing against an open door.
We are exploring how we might draft up an Energy Descent Action Plan for Totnes in a format similar to the current Community Development Plan. Perhaps, one day, council planners will be sitting at a table with two documents in front of them – a conventional Community Plan and a beautifully presented Energy Descent Action Plan. It’s sometime in 2008 on the day when oil prices first break the $100 a barrel ceiling. The planners look from one document to the other and conclude that only the Energy Descent Action Plan actually addresses the challenges facing them. And as that document moves centre stage, the community plan slides gently into the bin (we can dream!).
#10 Honour the elders
For those of us born in the 1960s when the cheap oil party was in full swing, it is very hard to picture a life with less oil. Every year of my life (the oil crises of the 70s excepted) has been underpinned by more energy than the previous years.
In order to rebuild that picture of a lower energy society, we have to engage with those who directly remember the transition to the age of Cheap Oil, especially the period between 1930 and 1960.
While you clearly want to avoid any sense that what you are advocating is ‘going back’ or ‘returning’ to some dim distant past, there is much to be learnt from how things were done, what the invisible connections between the different elements of society were and how daily life was supported. Finding out all of this can be deeply illuminating, and can lead to our feeling much more connected to the place we are developing our TransitionTown projects.
#11 Let it go where it wants to go…
Although you may start out developing your TransitionTown process with a clear idea of where it will go, it will inevitably go elsewhere. If you try and hold onto a rigid vision, it will begin to s ap your energy and appear to stall. Your role is not to come up with all the answers, but to act as a catalyst for the community to design their own transition.
If you keep your focus on the key design criteria – building community resilience and reducing the carbon footprint – you’ll watch as the collective genius of the community enables a feasible, practicable and highly inventive solution to emerge.
#12 Create an Energy Descent Plan
Each subgroup will have been focusing on practical actions to increase community resilience and reduce the carbon footprint.
Combined, these actions form the Energy Descent Action Plan. That’s where the collective genius of the community has designed its own future to take account of the potential threats from Peak Oil and Climate Change.
So far, we have taken many practical actions in Totnes. However, they add up to just a mere fraction of the final range and scope of initiatives that are currently being devised by our community.
Regarding specific timescales for Energy Descent Action Plans, here’s part of a presentation made to Glastonbury at their inaugural “Shall we become a TransitionTown meeting?” in April 2007.
“You may be wondering about timescales for Energy Descent Action Plans. There are no rules - each community will embark on a plan that’s right for them in terms of timing. Kinsale took a window of 15 years, Lewes is looking at 20.
If you're looking for greater precision and specified dates, here's my response:
When I recognise the effort that's gone into setting today's meeting up and the effort that each of us has made in getting here and devoting most of our Saturday to these pressing issues, when I think of all the wonderful efforts of pre-existing groups in Glastonbury that hopefully will be incorporated into, and reenergised by, a wider "transitioning" initiative, I say that the work has already started.
And if I look at what we need to do to create the communities that we're happy for our grandchildren and their grandchildren to grow up in, then that work certainly won’t finish in our lifetimes…"
Incidentally, the embryonic steering group at Glastonbury decided at the end of that day to indeed adopt the TransitionTown model for designing their lower energy and more resilient future.
Criteria for becoming an official Transition Initiative
We’ve established a draft set of criteria that tells us how ready a community is to embark on this journey to a lower energy future. If you’re thinking of adopting the Transition Towns model for your community, take a look at this list and make an honest appraisal of where you are on these points. If there are any gaps, it should give you something to focus on while you build the initial energy and contacts around this initiative.
Use this form when you're ready - and this isn't something you can rush - to tell us about your initiative, your core team and your response to the criteria.
We've introduced this slightly more formal approach to registering Transition Towns/villages for a couple of key reasons:
Our trustees and funders want to make sure that while we actively nurture embrionic projects, we only promote to "official" status those communities we feel are ready to move into the awareness raising stage. This status confers additional levels of support such as speakers, trainings, wiki and forums that we're currently rolling out
In order to establish coordinated programmes (such as combined funding bids to the National Lottery) we need a formally established category of Transition Initiatives that we're fully confident can support and deliver against such programmes.
We've seen at least one community stall because they didn't have the right mindset or a suitable group of people, and didn't really understand what they were letting themselves in for.
These criteria are developing all the time, and certainly aren’t written in stone.
an understanding of peak oil and climate change as twin drivers (to be written into constitution or governing documents)
a group of 4-5 people willing to step into leadership roles (not just the boundless enthusiasm of a single person)
at least two people from the core team willing to attend an initial two day training course. Initially these will be in Totnes and over time we'll roll them out to other areas as well, including internationally. Transition Training is just UK based right now, but that's going to have to change – we're working on it.
a potentially strong connection to the local council
an initial understanding of the 12 steps to becoming a TT
a commitment to ask for help when needed
a commitment to regularly update your Transition Initiative web presence - either the wiki (collaborative workspace on the web that we'll make available to you), or your own website
a commitment to make periodic contributions to the Transition Towns blog (the world will be watching)
a commitment, once you're into the Transition, for your group to give at least two presentations to other communities (in the vicinity) that are considering embarking on this journey – a sort of “here’s what we did” or #here's how it was for us" talk
a commitment to network with other TTs
a commitment to work cooperatively with neighbouring TTs
minimal conflicts of interests in the core team
a commitment to work with the Transition Network re grant applications for funding from national grant giving bodies. Your own local trusts are yours to deal with as appropriate.
a commitment to strive for inclusivity across your entire initiative. We're aware that we need to strengthen this point in response to concerns about extreme political groups becoming involved in transition initiatives. One way of doing this is for your core group to explicitly state their support the UN Declaration of Human Rights (General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948). You could add this to your constitution (when finalised) so that extreme political groups that have discrimination as a key value cannot participate in the decision-making bodies within your transition initiative. There may be more elegant ways of handling this requirement, and there's a group within the network looking at how that might be done.
a recognition that although your entire county or district may need to go through transition, the first place for you to start is in your local community. It may be that eventually the number of transitioning communities in your area warrant some central group to help provide local support, but this will emerge over time, rather than be imposed. (This point was inserted in response to the several instances of people rushing off to transition their entire county/region rather than their local community.) Further criteria apply to initiating/coordinating hubs – these can be discussed person to person.
and finally, we recommend that at least one person on the core team should have attended a permaculture design course... it really does seem to make a difference.
Once you can demonstrate to us at Transition Network that you're on board with these, you open the door to all sorts of wonderful support, guidance, materials, webspace, training and networking opportunities - not all ready right now, but we're working on it.....
