For my money the Transition Town / Transition Initiatives concept has the potential to be the most important environmental movement in the western world, for it addresses peak oil, climate change in a holistic, productive framework, drawing on local skills and natural resources to relocalise economies in ways which can address a whole range of social, economic and environmental issues.   It can be done in ways which capture the imagination with plausible visions of a better, lower energy society.

That’s a broad and challenging brief — especially since it means working with lots of other brilliant, disturbed, bored, confused, creative, messy humans.   But with the triplet threats of climate chaos, energy peak and economic crises dancing around us, some brave souls are starting work on the projects locally.

Melbourne and surrounds Transition Groups

Transition Bell: transitionbell.groupsite.com

Transition Boroondara: See: www.transitiontownboroondara.org

Transition Darebin:  Some Darebin residents held a public meeting a couple of months ago and folks who were there are now in the process of forming a steering group.  Look out for an online presence and ways to get involved soon.

Transition Southern Inner Melbourne: See: www.transitiontown-melbourne.blogspot.com

Transition Mount Alexander:  Have no web presence yet, but you can contact via www.masg.org.au

The Community Harvest Project (Yarra Valley): Not technically a Transition project, but inspired by them, doing some great stuff on the ground: www.communityharvest.org.au (beta new site) www.communityharvestproject.org.au (old site, with project desription)

I’m sure there are more too, those are just the ones I know about.

Upcoming workshops

Municipal Association of Victoria conferences.  Never mind the price tags ($690 for the day)…  these conferences are at least bringing councillors and council workers together around some important concepts.

• Smart Urban Peak Futures – Future-Proofing Melbourne’s Vulnerable Fringe. Aug 19 & 20. Includes Janet Millington and Sonya Wallace from Transition Sunshine Coast, Australia’s most advanced Transition Initiative
• The Future is Relocalisation – Communities in Transition Conference.  Sep 1.

Kinglake Ranges Permaculture workshop:

• Training for Transition. Aug 8 & 9.

For more information on the Transition concept see www.TransitionTowns.org

Hopkins’ The Transition Handbook has just been released.  I don’t have my copy yet, but knowing the history and Rob’s writing here’s what I’m sure is a suitably gushy review:

Review of The Transition Handbook

By Richard Barnett, editor of Pulse.

The newly published Transition Handbook is so important that I am tempted just to confine this review to five simple words ‘You must read this book!‘ But to do so would, of course, completely fail to communicate its message which is, I believe, so profound and inspiring that I want to do my very best to encourage its spread far and wide. Rob Hopkins is described on the book cover as ‘The Founder of the Transition Movement’. I would add to that that he is a superb communicator, visionary and one of the most important thinkers in our chaotic 21^st century world.Like many people I have been hearing snippets about Transition Towns for quite a while now. It seemed an interesting, if faintly ‘New Agey’, thing adopted by the usual suspects and really rather marginal at best. But now I know what it’s all about and for the first time in years I can feel genuine hope for the future.

The subtitle for the book is ‘From oil dependency to local resilience’ and that’s exactly the journey you are taken on when you read it. It’s divided into three sections – The Head, The Heart and The Hands – in other words get your mind round the need, become impassioned and then get working. It will engender very different reactions in readers depending on their current point of view and understanding. But I guarantee that everyone will feel a sense of change once they have read it.

The first section, The Head, starts with some familiar territory – climate change. Hopkins succinctly presents the key facts and issues that have gained so much attention in the last few years. He then moves on to what might be regarded as more esoteric ground – Peak Oil. Reactions to reading that term will have already occurred when you read it. For some it will be a reasonably well understood concept, for others something that has vaguely entered their consciousness, still others may not have come across it.

Wherever you stand at the moment I guarantee that you will learn more by reading this book. For the uninitiated, Peak Oil describes the point at which production of the world’s finite store of ‘liquid gold’ starts to decline in real terms. There is much debate about when this will happen, or indeed whether it has already happened. But one thing is certain – it will occur, and it will require fundamental shifts in the way we live. The price alone, of what will be increasingly scarce commodity, will dictate a radical new approach to energy and global economics.

Hopkins’ feels that oil has brought with it so many wonderful things that we have become addicted to it. And he invokes the language of addiction to consider how we wean ourselves of it. The ‘cost’ of our addiction in one sense is that the nature of communities and local networks that existed pre ‘The Age of Cheap Oil’ has vanished and our current world is shakily reliant on global infrastructures powered by cheap energy.

The twin threats of climate change and peak oil, which have to be viewed together, require drastic action to prepare for a way of life that can be sustainable. This is a scary prospect but Hopkins presents a positive framework within which to undertake the changes. The Transition Town model begins with the notion of building ‘resilience’ back into our villages, towns and cities so that they can continue to function without the underpinning cheap energy we currently take for granted.

Resilience is a truly positive and dynamic concept. It urges us to rediscover the potential for local production of food, services and goods that was commonplace only a few decades ago. To rebuild the kind of networks and close links that enabled people to actually know who lives next door and talk face to face with craftsmen and food producers. To rediscover how best to make use of local resources for building.

This is no rose tinted pipe dream. There are Transition Town initiatives in place across the UK. It is a fast growing movement that makes so much sense. Importantly it is about change coming from the community upwards rather than being imposed from above. And the book is packed with ideas, examples and suggestions that will help us all to move in this direction.

I could write pages about what I have just read but the best way I can conclude is to return to my original idea and say ‘You must read this book!‘

More at: www.transitiontowns.org and www.transitionculture.org

Community lunch questions future

How to plan to live better and more economically, high levels of consumerism, and questions of future energy use, were just several of the topics covered at a fascinating community lunch, held at Mitchell Community House in Wonthaggi last week.

Guest speaker and member of the Bass Coast Sustainability Education Group. Jessica Harrison, led a lively discussion outlining the Kinsale Community Energy Descent Plan. Kinsale is a small seaside town in Ireland, similar to Wonthaggi in many respects.

The townspeople are among the first in the world to take charge of their future, by developing a step by step plan to take the town towards sell-sufficiency in energy and food production by 2021.

A captivated audience participated in discussion on the possibility ofusing such as plan in Bass Coast. Many people indicated that they were keen to be involved in future meetings to discuss various ideas and approaches.

Anyone interested in more information can contact Mitchell House co-ordinator Jan Bourne, on 5672 3731.

An earlier paper "established a basic method for assessing oil vulnerability via a spatial index that measured a combination of car dependence and socio-economic status at the level of the Census Collection District. We termed our original index the ‘vulnerability index for petroleum expense rises’ (VIPER). "

The latest paper "examines the spatial vulnerability of Australian urban areas to fuel price and mortgage interest rate rises."

"The report maps the extent of mortgage and oil vulnerability at the local scale. We note that outer and fringe suburban areas where there are higher proportions of households with mortgages, where car dependence is greater and where incomes are more modest are the most vulnerable to rising fuel price and interest rate impacts."

"To assess how the impact of these three factors is likely to be distributed across Australian cities we have created a new index, the ‘vulnerability assessment for mortgage, petrol and inflation risks and expenditure’ (VAMPIRE)." 

The report is available for free download [PDF]. 

Topics included:

• Local case studies highlighting the relationship between planning, community development and wellbeing;
• Examples of successful integrated planning;
• Exploring strategies for achieving integrated local planning;
• Using the latest Census data for local planning

The powerpoint presentations are available at the website.

Feedback from the conference was organised in such a way that presenters were given a score.  Sheesh!  Congratulations to then Mornington Peninsular Shire Council CEO Dr Michael Kennedy on 4.6 points, and the runner up Emma Williams on 4.2.  For real though, these look like some great resources and potential contacts to draw on.