A fairly new initiative on sustainable energy, climate control, oil independency and environment is Transition Town. It started in 2006 in Totnes, England and spread like an oil sheet on water ever since. Now there are hundreds of towns, townships and communities that organise all kinds of activities on different themes around transforming local economy.
Philip Gortemaker from Hengelo, Holland, has taken the initiative in his home town in the Eastern part of Holland.

By Philip Gortemaker

Oilindepended

Major Transition Town themes are local food production, food cooperations, local sustainable energy production, local economy (Local Exchange and Trading Systems), social projects (‘A New We’), education etc.
Since federal governments seam to be unable to agree on global themes like peak oil, climate change, and CO2 reduction it is better not to wait and start by our self. Think Global, act Local!

Philip explains how it all works:

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 eventually adopt the Transition Model 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 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, and that 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.

(Source: http://transitionnetwork.org/)

Creativity

An initiative group can use its own local Transition Model and adapt to local culture and social structures. A Transition Town can be started in a large city, township, neighbourhood or rural community.

Peak Oil and CO2 reduction are important but other environmental issues can also be added to the BIG question.
Focusing too much on the effects of CO2 and peak oil can cause resentment. It is important to focus on local creativity and solutions.

Heart and Soul

It is obvious that we can not go on polluting the atmosphere and exploiting natural resources on the increasing scale of today and the near future.
What is so different from former environmental actions, like back in the sixties and seventies, is the lack of resentful thinking and anti-government feelings. Keeping your heart and soul in the right place is a new element that replaces negative thinking and fleeing into spiritual sects, political parties and anti-society communes.

Philip Gortemaker: ‘I like to advocate a new way of thinking.
Only a holistic view on global issues and also science will rescue our planet and humanity.
If al hologram is scattered in to small pieces, even the tiniest grain will hold all of the information and will be resilient enough to start over again. Thousands of small mosquitoes form a large cloud that can drive the dangerous rhinoceros of ecological collapse in to the abyss. That is how all Transition Town initiatives all over the world can work.’

Green World is what we all want. There is a lot of attention for Global Climate Conferences and we all want our governments to do something about global warming. But we can all do something ourselves on a much smaller scale and inspire our politicians. So I’d like to start a series on Greenyourope: How Green is: …

By Jan Gerrits

The first part is from Natasha Acres (Wow) about her company’s green policy. Feel free to send your own tips and tricks! The next piece will inform you about Transitions Towns.

Natasha Acres (Wow):

“Wow are pretty green – not a complete trailblazer but we try. We recycle all paper that we do use, however most of our work is now quite paperless – using online communications and management systems – having got rid of our hard copy job bags and filing system last year. We’ve down-sized the office to just the essentials. We moved into offices that don’t have air conditioning either.

On top of that we only endorse printing with FSC approved printers and our preferred suppliers print using vegetable based inks.

So, we’re trying, but we can always improve. We used to offset our carbon emissions but were told that these represent a bad way of dealing with carbon and it’s best to simply reduce the use.”

Is it really that long ago? Yes, it is. But the fact that it still feels like it happened just a while ago is very significant: the impact of the catastrophe was enormous. And yet it seems that politicians everywhere have not learned one bit. In Germany nuclear plants that were supposed to shut down are now kept operational for many years to come, and in Holland new plants must be built.

By Jan Gerrits

Actions

Luckily many people are still alert and keep warning governments time after time to seek for other, healthier solutions and to promote a change of life stile. Friday January 14^th 2011 a lot of environmental-, peace- and anti-nuclear groups will gather in Münster (Germany) to organise their Easter Monday Demonstrations on April 25^th 2011 in Nordrhein Westfalen, in Ahaus and Gronau. In Holland a similar action will take place in Almelo on Easter Monday.

Friday January 14^th 2011

18.00 hours

Cuba-Zentrum

Achtermannstrasse 12 (a 3 minutes walk from the station)

D-48143 Münster

Door Jan Gerrits

Die middag draagt het Rijk de grond over aan de Gemeente Enschede en de Provincie Overijssel en worden de plannen bekend gemaakt voor de gebiedsontwikkeling.

De betoging vindt van 13.30 uur tot 14.30 uur plaats bij de Deventerpoort aan de Oude Deventerweg te Enschede.

Arriverende bezoekers en genodigden worden daar geïnformeerd over de gevaren en nadelen van de voorliggende plannen om de voormalige luchtmachtbasis om te toveren tot een burgerluchthaven met eventueel incidenteel militair medegebruik. Om een luchthaven mogelijk te maken wordt een groot stuk natuur, o.a. een deel van het Lonnekermeer, opgeofferd om plaats te maken voor nieuwe infrastructuur, een parkeer- en bedrijventerrein en leisure-activiteiten.

Onafhankelijke deskundigen en wetenschappers waarschuwen voor een groot financieel fiasco. Minder dan 60 kilometer verderop ligt immers Flughafen Münster Osnabrück.

Wilt u meer informatie of wilt u ook aanwezig zijn bij de betoging belt u dan 06-15446329. Vanwege de strenge bewaking wil men namelijk graag weten hoeveel betogers er ongeveer verwacht worden.

There is always something going on when it comes to nuclear plants, nuclear energy and nuclear transport, because there’s no escaping it. I’d like to introduce some interesting German and Dutch websites to you so you can read about upcoming actions in Germany and Holland.

By Gerda Minkjan

Radioactivity knows no borders

Udo Buchholz (BBU) from Germany never misses a chance to inform as many people as possible about the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear waste.

To find out what is coming up:

Calender of Anti-Atom

And the website of the Bundesverband Bürgerinitiativen Umweltschutz

Dannenberg-Gorleben

I wish I could have been there: thousands of people tried to stop the Castor Train to Dannenberg-Gorleben November 6^th 2010.

Castor and the Christmas Spirit

Check this out:

Dutch Nuclear Power Station Borssele

Meeting with Wise, Greenpeace, St. Laka, Zeeuwse Milieufederatie and Platform Stop Borssele2, on November 10^th ,18.45 – 22.00, The Hub (Heemraadssingel 219) in Rotterdam.

More information in Dutch and in German.

If you also have news and information about upcoming actions in your region/country, please let us know so we can put it online!