Al Gore, Kurt Vonnegut and the siren voices

At the very start of his 2009 book, Our Choice, Al Gore, Nobel Prize winner and darling of so much of the environmental movement, quotes the message Kurt Vonnegut suggested we should leave behind for any passing aliens who may happen upon the wreckage of planet Earth. ‘Carved in great big letters on a Grand Canyon wall’, it would read:

We probably could have saved ourselves, but were too damned lazy to try very hard… and too damned cheap.

When you have stared at our current environmental problems for long enough and marvelled at how little we seem to be willing to do to save ourselves or our children, it is tempting to go along with Vonnegut. But both he and Gore are wrong. We are not too lazy or too cheap and the solutions on offer from Mr Gore will not solve our problems. Neither the problems we face nor the solutions that will deliver us have much to do with technology or making business and governments account for the true cost of energy, manufacturing, agriculture, transport, etc., mass individual action, or any of the other things Gore advocates. Yet it is in many ways a very good book.

The real problem is not our inability to understand or act upon our present problems. It is rather that we are already committed to another way of doing things that prevents us from taking up any of the credible solutions to our environmental problems. Perhaps it’s worth quoting Aldous Huxley again here:

In the nurseries, … the voices were adapting future demand to future industrial supply. ‘I do love flying’, they whispered, ‘I do love flying, I do love having new clothes, I do love…’

The siren voices of growth, consumption, free markets, entrepreneurship and all the rest are busily pointing us in quite the wrong direction. The resources and system needed to fix our problems are under the control of processes, systems and institutions and in the hands iof nterests that would be completely undone by actually carrying the solution.

So the political powers-that-be, who have spent the last three decades abandoning the idea that the world could be a better place only if it were a different place, would have to perpetrate a genuine revolution to get us onto the right track.

Perhaps the single most important thing is to stop thinking of the problem as primarily reflecting personal selfishness (even of investment bankers). Personal actions are certainly part of both the problem and the solution, but it will only have a peripheral effect so long as we fail to also think of both problem and solution in systemic terms. Vonnegut was writing as a novelist and entitled not to be read too literally. But those who fail to understand the nature of our economic system, and the necessities and pressures it places on individuals, institutions and other systems (e.g., the entire social and political systems) are merely standing on the beach trying to bail out the ocean while the tide is coming in faster and faster.

Remember, Odysseus was forced to listen to the Sirens only because there were no other options open to him. Likewise we have few options that will in any way improve our environmental predicament - unless we change our ship and the ocean we sail. Likewise, even our most venal bankers were only following the system. Given a different system, they might not have had the option of running the ship onto the rocks (oops, different part of the Odyssey).

A momentary lapse into defeatism

I have always felt very ambivalent about the 10/10 campaign. It seems so very unambitious. Most people can reduce their carbon footprint and general environmental impact by 10% by little more than scrutinising their current lifestyle and cutting out the worst excesses. Turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees too high, stop wearing flimsy clothes on cold days, fix poor insulation for a small outlay, stop buying gadgets, fashion, trinkets, food from the other side of the planet, drive more thoughtfully (and if possible stop driving altogether), turn off unused lights (and stop squandering electricity for pointless lighting in the first place), remember to turn the PC off, and so on. 10%? A piece of cake.

What is more, I have probably managed 10% with disproportionately little sacrifice. It took me seconds to reset the thermostat and turn off the radiators in areas I barely use. It took about a week to get used to rooms a couple of degrees cooler. It took not time at all to remember to turn off lights and shut doors. It will take a lot longer to step back from impulse buying and toys, but it’s not impossible – I’m not so addicted to consumerism that I have to go along with the entire glitzy, grubby farrago. Nothing too it, if you really want to make a difference. 10%? Why so little?

But that isn’t the problem I have with 10/10, or any of the many other exhortations to us (as individuals) to use less. 10% is a nice idea, but the correct answer is something like 85%. So if we achieve 10% in 2010, will we achieve another 10% in 2011, and then another in 2012? It’s not inconceivable, given a truly impressive level of sign-up (which has not, as far as I can see, happened so far).

But even 30% is long way from 50%, let alone 85%. Read George Monbiot’s Heat or David McKay’s Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air for a sense of just how far we really have to go. At that level, the only sensible answer is to look seriously at our core social, political and economic systems to see how they need to be changed to deliver the goods. Or rather, stop delivering them.

But especially since Copenhagen I feel like we not only still have a very long way to go but that we have taken completely the wrong road. Down this road, no matter what a few individuals do, things do not get better – no, they get only worse.

I’m not too worried by the flagging public confidence in the reality of global warming or the tiny holes knocked in the credibility of individual environmental researchers - not even the IPCC. Such upsets will be transient and have a marginal impact. Much more serious is the decision by so many national governments to do what can only be summarised as - nothing. For how else can we understand Copenhagen (which left the world’s environmental strategy even weaker than after Kyoto), or the news that the UK government plans to take its expenditure on environmental projects in the developing world from existing budgets, or Obama’s evident fear of doing anything whatsoever about his environmental promises for the foreseeable future, or the Chinese government’s unwillingness to make any significant contribution to climate change (other than to make it much worse, of course)?

But why is this so much more important than persuading individuals to make a start on their personal environmental impact? Because the number of individuals who were ever likely to take that road was never more than a small – perhaps tiny – minority whose collective actions would have no significant effect on our fate. To have a wider impact, they had to serve as a catalyst, as a demonstration to governments that the environment was a vote-winner. Only when they had learned that would governments start to take the action needed to transform not just the footprint of individual households or even a Transition Town but the collective footprint of (in the UK’s case) 60 million people or more.

And not just 60 million individuals. Unlike you and me, governments can directly transform the country’s physical infrastructure on a national scale, coordinate similar actions on an international scale, force big business to mend its ways, and all in all make the systematic changes that no assembly of individual persons can ever bring about. Even 60 millions individuals could not change the public transport system without government action, nor how we generate electricity, nor how developing countries go about achieving a civilised level of development, nor any of the rest.

But after Copenhagen? Nothing can expected from governments any more. Or at least, far too little even to deflect the crisis by more than a smidgen. Even worse, not only have they decided against going beyond Kyoto but they have plainly decided that the only solution to the world’s economic woes is to restore the economic system that got us into our current mess – economic and environmental alike. The only adjustments they plan to make are trivial, serving only to make the economic system a little less dangerous in narrowly economic terms, without any thought for the environmental consequences of a capitalist ‘business as usual’.

In such a situation, what is the point of an individual making a personal commitment to reducing their environmental impact? Does it make sense for individuals to take action off their own bat if the great majority are not only not doing practically nothing (a situation I can live with for a decade or two) but major organisations (political and economic) are never going to be moved in an environmental direction, and have in fact decided to head straight back down the road we all know leads only to global warming, ecosystems collapse and resource wars? What can we claim that individual environmental self-control can achieve after that – that we will succeed in putting off the evil day by 10 minutes?

So even if I do manage a 10% - or 25% or 100% - reduction, exactly what have I accomplished? On a personal level, perhaps it is still a lot. At the very least, if I can get my footprint down to a sustainable level (not a very meaningful proposition while I remain a member of such a destructive society), I can say that at least it wasn’t me, guv. But on a higher level? What have ‘we’ accomplished? In the absence of a broader, systematic impact on the whole way we (at worst) conceive of the environment and (at best) the way we manage our economy, a lot less than we might imagine.

Transition Romsey

In case you live in the Romsey, Hampshire area - they are thinking of starting a Transition Town initiative.

A meeting will be held on 30th October on Transition Towns at the Abbey United Reformed Church Hall, from 7.30 to start at 8 pm. Richard Barnett from New Forest Transition Community will be speaking at the meeting.

(See http://transitiontowns.org/New-Forest/New-Forest for more info on New Forest Transition Community.)

Transition Network: Newsletter Sept-08

Here's the long awaited newsletter for Sept08.

So much has happened since the last newsletter an (embarassingly long) while ago. Where to start...

"Official" initiatives and all the mullers

In the Japanese myth, the hundredth monkey represents the point at which a learned behaviour spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to ALL related monkeys once a critical number is reached. So it's somehow fitting that the 100th official transition initiative was Fujino in Japan.

For those at the conference earlier in the year, you may recall that we were at 50 in April. That means the number has doubled in less than 5 months - and the number of contacts on our database has just about doubled in that time too. The number of communities "mulling it over" has also pretty well doubled to nearly one thousand.

And it's not just the number that's heartening, it's the reach. Eight more "officials" from Australia, four more from the US, one from Chile and obviously, Fujino. Meanwhile, while we're busy clucking away in English, the Hungarians have been busy! For those that don't have conversational Magyar, "A 12 Lépés az Átmenethez" means 12 Step of Transition.It's starting fast, reaching far, and there's still a long, long way to go...

Software platform for Transition

We're kicking off a project to create a software platform that'll facilitate the 100th monkey syndrome and allow these initiatives to grow exponentially - a platform that will provide three main things:

• a quick and function-rich web presence for initiatives
• a community networking capability
• a knowledge collaboration and sharing system

The project programme has been drafted up, and we'll be facilitating several teams to take us through this process. So, if you'd like to get involved, here's the online form to let us know how you can help.

Let's unleash the techno genius within so our initiatives can scale up to the size and impact that's really needed to tackle the challenges and grab the opportunities that will be facing us in the coming years.

Introducing Transition Chat!

Transition Chat! is a new initiative co-ordinated by the Transition Network, which will provide a forum for people to share successes, failures, ideas, best practice and so on. Each session takes place on a Monday, between 2 and 3.30pm GMT (it can roll on if the conversation is particularly animated) and it is hosted in a web chat format. Pop them in your diary, the first one is Monday 8-Sept.

The Timetable
The first 10 have been arranged, and they offer a mixture of deepening your understanding of various aspects of Transition, the opportunity to ask the questions you struggle with to experts in the field, and chatting with other Transition folks. The timetable thus far is as follows:

• 8-Sept: Transition Network Structure Document: hosted by Rob Hopkins and Peter Lipman. An opportunity for anyone unable to make the discussion day on the 10th to input into this important document.
• 15-Sept: Transition Training Clinic session #1. An opportunity to ask all your practical questions, what is working and/or not working for you in the early stages of your initiative. Hosted by members of Transition Training.
• 22-Sept: Dr. Colin Campbell of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil answers your questions on peak oil (tbc)
• 29-Sept: The Transition Timeline. Establishing the assumptions underpinning our Energy Descent Planning. Hosted by Shaun Chamberlin, creator of the Transition Timeline
• 6-Oct: Inner Transition, Heart and Soul. Hosted by Sophy Banks
• 13-Oct: Transition Training Clinic session #2. Getting started, raising awaress, building a good head of steam.
• 20-Oct: Transition Cities. How to do this in the city? Hosted by Sarah Pugh.
• 27-Oct: Transition Training Clinic session #3 (tbc)
• 3-Nov: Peak oil and climate change: hosted by Dr. Jeremy Leggett.
• 10-Nov: Collaboration/leadership/structure. Hosted by Mike Jones of Transition Stroud.

How to Chat
To participate, follow this link, type into the box the name you want to be known as online - ideally your own name so we know who are are speaking to (not cheekymonkey18 or bigbob), and then follow the instructions. Do let us know what you think of it.

The Launch of the Lewes Pound, 9-Sept. Be There!

On Tuesday 9th September 2008 at the Foundry Gallery in Lewes, Transition Town Lewes will be launching the Lewes Pound, the second currency to be issued by a Transition initiative, the first being the Totnes Pound (although Brixton are at the early stage of planning their Brixton Brick). The evening will be hosted by the Mayor of Lewes, and will include short talks by Stewart Wallis, Executive Director, New Economics Foundation, Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist and author and Transition Network's Rob Hopkins.

It will be followed by a celebration with music from SkaToons, food from Bills, and drinks from local brewery Harveys, who are rumoured to have brewed a beer called 'The Lewes Pound' in its honour! The evening will be your first opportunity to get your hands on the new currency… don't miss it! It's not every day that a new currency is born! They also got some great exposure in Sunday's Observer and have also got their local Barclays Bank to accept and issue the notes.

Transition Network Structure Document - we need your input!

Hopefully by now you might have had a look at the draft Transition Network Structure document. This document arose from the Strategy Day in Bristol in April, and it sets out how this vastly expanding network might organise itself. So far people have fed back their thoughts and comments via the Network forum.

Now there are two more ways to input your thoughts and help to shape it. The first is through the Transition Chat session on Monday 8th at 2pm (see above). The second is to come to a get together to discuss it in Bristol, on Wednesday 11th September between 11am and 4pm, at the Half Moon in Bristol. Details here.

There will also be the opportunity for those of you who are unable to make it on the day to follow the event online, thanks to our fab scribe for the day, Steph.

Transition Towns Come to London: Tues 16-Sept, London

Building sustainable and resilient cities will be crucial to navigating an orderly route through the coming climate and energy challenges. This event will help move the discussions forward and identify practical ways we can all contribute.

Presenting at Transition Towns come to London will be:

• Mike Grenville of Changing Worlds - discussing Peak Oil and the urgency of action required
• Rob Hopkins, author of The Transition Handbook - speaking on how communities can respond effectively to climate chaos and the end of cheap oil, and describing how to start to build local resilient networks

Panel Discussion speakers include:

• Suzy Edwards of Camden Climate Action Network
• Duncan Law of Transition Town Brixton
• Mary Fee of LETSLink
• Lucy Neal of Transition Town Tooting

Next steps and more details:

• Registration
• Where: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1
• When: Tues 16th Sept, 6.30pm - 8.30pm
• Cost: £5 on the door (includes refreshments)

Transition Gathering Camp, 19/21-Sept, Sussex

Thanks to the sterling efforts of the South East Transition group, a transition gathering that welcomes all the family and provides a space to meet transitioners from other places will be taking place on 19/21-September-2008 in Sussex.

There will be a basic framework of activities and also space for sessions you would like to offer. Unplugged music, story telling, skills, questions, debate, open fires and much more.

It will be a time to gather together, a time to celebrate, to share good food, visions for our future, skills and knowledge, have fun, to connect and just be with each other.

The camp site is on a beautiful organic farm in the heart of Sussex at the end of the Bluebell railway line and close to the Ashdown Forest. Elena's kitchen will offer delicious food and a there will be a yurt sauna. Children most welcome.

Suggested donation for the weekend camp Friday and Saturday nights: Adult £25 and child £10 family £50 (no day tickets)

Next steps and more details:

• Registration
• Event Flyer
• Mike Grenville - contact@transitionforestrow.org
• 01342 825169
• Transition Forest Row
• South East Transition Initiatives

Transition Stroud: Open Homes for a sustainable future, 13/14-Sept

Transition Stroud have organised 12 homes around Stroud to open to the public so that they can see renewable energy in action, discuss energy efficiency and get advice on eco-renovations.

Over the weekend, in addition to a whole range of measures on different homes, there will also be a chance to see the largest PV generation in the country on private housing, see how co-housing works and there will also be tours of Tranquility House that has been dubbed by the Building Contracts Journal as 'the most energy efficient house in the world'. There are also two guided walks of the homes which are part of the Stroud's Walking Festival and a cycle route.

Here's the event flyer or check out the Stroud Open Homes website for all the details. Alternatively, contact Philip Booth, Project Coordinator - Transition Stroud, on 01453 755451.

University of Transition: development day, 11-Oct, Hereford

The focus of the day will be on Universities OF Transition. In other words, what educational structures and programs are needed to enable learning about all the technical, personal and other skills needed for the transition to a post peak oil, low carbon future.

Download the programme which sets out the purposes and objectives and outline plan for the day.

For more details, go to the Event thread on the forum.

Transition Training: going global!

If you want to get a picture of how Transition is spreading, take a look at the training schedule for the two-day "Training for Transition" course. The challenge is to build an army of trainers able to deliver this work, and a train the trainers course has already taken place and further ones are planned.

Transition for Wales: networking event, 25-Oct

There's lots of transition activity in Wales now and there's a big "all Wales" meeting on 25-Oct (probably in Builth ).

Keep an eye on the Wales forum for more information.

Low Carbon Communities Network: conference, Llangollen, North Wales, Saturday 4-October

Transition Network is working more and more closely with the groups that are aiming for low carbon or zero carbon within their community. For example, they'll be instrumental in helping us create the software platform noted above.

So we're very happy to help promote their 2008 Conference next month in Wales. All the details are on the conference website - it promises to bea highly participatory event, with a musical star turn by the wonderful Seize the Day.

On the programme are:

• Rachel Nunn, speaking about the Going Carbon Neutral Stirling Project
• Mark Lynas, Author of “Six Degrees, Our Future on a Hotter Planet”
• Ian Roderick, speaking about the Converging World (one of our main conference sponsors)
• George Marshall, Director of projects at Climate Outreach Information Network (COIN)
• Kevin Carey, Llanidloes Energy Solutions (LLES)
• Penney Poyzer (Broadcaster and journalist) will speak about the eco renovation of her home
• Jacqi Hodgson from Transition Towns Totnes will talk about energy descent planning
• Ben Brangwyn from Transition Towns
• Tracey Todhunter from Low Carbon Communities Network will present on new web based support tools for communities

Resources for your transition initiative

Lots on this page, so please add yours if you think it'll be useful to others. This includes a fully scripted peak oil, climate change and transition presentation that you may be able to slice and dice into something that suits your style of presentation.

A great little peak oil animation

And to finish off, here's a real gem, courtesy of Adrienne Campbell from TT Lewes - "... came across it in the Daily Telegraph website of all places!" Thanks Adrienne, you continue to be an inspiration to us all.

==============================================

And thanks to the rest of you, for helping take your communities on the journey beyond oil towards climate stability. It's a long road ahead, so let's remember to rest awhile, lest fatigue overburdens us. And I'm practicing what I'm preaching now, heading off for three weeks for a wedding (my own!) and a honeymoon in the mountains and gorges of Spain and France.Happy transitioning...

==============================================

Ben Brangwyn and all the rest of the gang at Transition Network==============================================
Unsubscribe rj.robinson@prometheus.org.uk from this list

Transition gathering, 19-21st September 2008

Mike Grenville of Transition Forest Row tells me that there will be a 'Transition Gathering' in September. More precisely...

"This first transition gathering will provide a space to meet transitioners from other places at an event that welcomes all the family.

The timing of the gathering leads up to the autumn equinox which will mark the emergence of transition initiatives.

From a basic framework of activities, the gathering will also provide space for sessions you would like to offer. Unplugged music, story telling, skills, questions, debate, open fires and much more. It will be a time to gather together, a time to celebrate, to share good food, visions for our future, skills and knowledge, have fun, to connect and just be with each other.

The camp site is on a beautiful organic farm in the heart of Sussex at the end of the Bluebell railway line and close to the Ashdown Forest.

Elena's kitchen will offer delicious food and a there will be a yurt sauna. Children most welcome.

Suggested donation for the weekend camp Friday and Saturday nights:

Adult £25 and child £10 family £50. (no day tickets) Register on the website: http://transitiongathering.ning.com/

Event Flyer http://www.changingworlds.info/TransitionFlyers/Tgathering-flyer.pdf

For more details contact Mike Grenville:
contact@transitionforestrow.org
http://www.transitionforestrow.org/
01342 825169

http://southeasttransitioninitatives.ning.com/ "

Go. Support them.

Accelerating the transition to transition

The time it currently takes to motivate a local community to set up an effective Transition Town group is, by conventional reckoning, a year and more. This is corroborated, I think, not only by the Transition movement’s own practical experience but also by the experience of organisational change experts.

I have recently managed a very small ‘transition’ of sorts in a well-known British company. It was only a relatively small change, that, in purely technical terms, it should have taken only about three months, even allowing for building absolutely everything from scratch. We were also fortunate in that practically all the participants understood and accepted (and in many cases actively demanded). Yet it still took more than a year to complete.

Why so long? It’s not hard to understand. Here are some factors that slowed us down.

1. There were far too few people involved. Basically it was me managing it full-time and a few part—timers doing the local changes.
2. Everyone apart from me had a day-job to do, so even when they positively wanted to join in, it was hard.
3. The important always gives place to the urgent. So every time I wanted to do something quickly, there were always a hundred other, more urgent things the people I needed to take action had to do.
4. Misalignment is another potentially fatal source of disruption. There is no shortage of other initiatives that the well motivated are also involved in. Right in the middle of my own change programme, the HR department kicked off an ‘excellence programme’, aimed at creating a qualitative leap in the company’s level of performance. I felt that this was a bit odd, given that we could not do ‘competent’ yet, but the real difficulty was that several of the key participants in my own scheme were effectively put on hold while their ‘excellence profiles’ were agreed.
5. Internal friction was another problem. Those who were actively involved were often at loggerheads about exactly what needed doing and exactly how it should be done. More delays, and in some cases a lot of muttering and unspoken resentment.
6. Resentment. Some participants ( and others who effectively refused to participate, even though the programme aimed to achieve goals they shared) resented the fact that they were not in charge.
7. Individual parts of the change programme were not well thought through, I am ashamed to say. I took too much understanding and agreement for granted. Given the Transition Network's own 7 Buts (which will resonate with every change manager in the country), there is no shortage of things of resistance points, of that need thinking through or that, conversely, can disrupt, if not sink, even a popular initiative.
8. Few of the individuals involved had any real experience of change management. Or rather, they had all been ‘changed’ by previous initiatives, often to the point of radical disillusion about the effectiveness of change itself. But they have few of the skills and knowledge needed to design, build and implement the change themselves. Again, given that the Transition process is unlikely to succeed unless it is taken up by a very large proportion of the population, this is even more of a problem for Transition than for the biggest corporate organisation.

Yet in other respects, I was very lucky. I did not have to face dissent from organised groups or the powers that be. The nature of the change was well defined in ways that had pretty much universal consent in advance. And I had done this many times before, and managed to avoid many of the standard elephant traps change programmes often fall into.

And so on. Hence the slow pace of change.

Yet this timescale can probably be cut very considerably. Each of the slowing factors mentioned above can be anticipated, prepared for and actively managed. The question is not whether such change is possible, but only how well it can be done.

Leverage, not numbers

Last night I attended the Guildford Environmental Forum (GEF), where Ben Brangwyn, one of the leading lights of the Transition Town movement and a founder the Transition Network. He talked and we asked questions for more than 2½ hours – which, bearing in mind that he had had a lousy journey from the far end of the country that day, was pretty impressive.

Late in the conversation, he discussed the ‘7 Buts’ – the reasons people give for not doing anything about the environment. No. 4 is ‘But no one in this town cares about the environment anyway’. In response to this, Ben told us about an old man who told him that, before the Second World War, almost no one had worried about what was coming. But 5% of the population could see the signs and took steps to prepare. So when war actually came, a good deal was ready. Britain’s legendary ‘turning on a sixpence’ (or the USA ‘turning on a dime’) depended heavily on the readiness created by a few.

I think this is a good metaphor for what the Transition Network should be doing. As well as actually making changes – proving the truth of the transition model by practical means – we should also be preparing to accelerate this process when suddenly not only a lot more people but also governments at every level need to get things done. As well as an ‘Energy Descent Action Plan’ (EDAP) each community should start to build a ‘Transition Mobilisation Plan’. And just as, like the EDAP, no one can tell a local community how to carry out their own transition, but they can certainly be provided with a proven toolkit for a very wide range of tasks, including plenty of built-in options and adaptability.

So part of the role of the Transition Network should, I think, be to create the readiness for when action is urgently needed and many more people are motivated to take action.

What ecolocalism won't achieve

I am currently tangentially involved in the Transition Town movement. I believe that it may well be able to make a real difference, albeit primarily as a demonstration to politicians that apparently unelectable policies can be made electable, and to the rest of us that something can be done quite quickly and easily.

yet it seems to me that there are limits to ecolocalism of the TT kind. Here are few examples:

1. All Transition Towns want to 'power down' their local community. But in the absence of corporate-level decisions, who can persuade my local Sainsbury's or Woolworth's to turn off their lights at night, and so on? Only an alliance of local groups - and one that has been able to agree not only a common policy, strategy and approach, but also to accept that some local inequalities are likely to persist.
2. Local authorities lack critical powers (especially regarding taxation and spending) that a truly radical localisation would demand.
3. There are some social functions that can probably never be localised. Health, education, welfare, security -although much can be done to localise, what is left over is likely to be very substantial indeed. Managing them will require common action and policies and organsiaitons that operate at a non-local level.
4. Many of the greatest problems facing the environment relate to organisations and systems that operate on a national or even global scale. Oil companies, governments, businesses of all kinds.

It will not help to refuse these problems, as it were. They will exist whatever local groups want. The only issue is how to manage them. That willrequire a concerted action that many localists will find difficult to stomach.

Transition Towns

Everyone should know about Transition Towns. They are local initiatives designed to galvanise local action to reduce a locality’s carbon footprints and energy usage. There are currently dozens of towns active in the UK, Europe, USA and elsewhere.

The Transition Network (an umbrella body in the UK) publishes a full-size manual on how to start up a Transition Town initiative, and provides training and an annual conference. And it links you to lots of friendly, helpful, enthusiastic people.

Most of all, they make me feel like someone somewhere is really doing something that everyone can join in with.