I have been getting involved in my town's fledgling Transition movement, and currently it seems like an uphill road - I have days of inspiration and days of feeling very discouraged - but I have been changed by this already. It's hard to describe. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, the Transition Movement basically takes as its starting point the fact that climate change is real, is happeneing, and that peak oil is real and is happening. It then suggests that, rather than waiting for the government to do anything about these things, or worrying that we'll turn into armed survivalists and it'll be the end of the civilised world, we start planning and changing our world now, starting with ourselves and with our communities. We re-localise, re-skill ourselves, establish local links, local trading, even local currencies, ahead of any catastrophic happenings in the enviornment, or running out of oil, so that when these things do occur, we will have 'resilience' built in to our communities. Plus it will make our communities nicer places to live in right now! Win-win!
Anyway, this is something to be inspired about. This is life-changing. Read The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience
by Rob Hopkins and start seeing the world differently. Check out The Transition Network for loads of information and help to become a Transition Town. Check out this blog for updates and other snippets.I can't do this justice in words. Reading The Transition Handbook made me feel hot and cold all over, it gave me shivers up and down my spine. It made me feel very depressed and very inspired. It was one of those books where you *just know* that you've come home. I think everyone should be given a copy. It should be required reading at school. Then maybe we'd have a better world.
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4 comments:
I confess I didn't like the book, it seemed to take a lot of words to say the things I already knew, but I'd very much like to get involved in the movement. Can't find out whether there's anything going on in the local area though.
I think you've worded that summary about what a Transition Town is really well. I will remember your post next time I find myself trying to explain what it is.
I really want to read the book but at the moment I know that I'm a little sensitive to the whole climate/peak oil subject and I'm a bit worried it'll feed my depression rather than inspire me!
I am thinking of getting my DH the book as a christmas present though as he is becoming more and more concerned about the effects of Peak oil on societies world wide. He still won't believe Climate change is real though! grr
Natalie
x
"even local currencies, ahead of any catastrophic happenings.."
Jct: Yes, even going to the ultimate revolution of taking back the power to create money from the private banks who loanshark it out and using that power to create our own chips we can borrow interest-free.
When the local currency is pegged to the Time Standard of Money (how many dollars per unskilled hour child labor) Hours earned locally can be intertraded with other timebanks globally! In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours. You can too.
U.N. Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments is for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture.
See http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers on growth of the international time-trading network.
I am reading tis book too, I agree scarey and inspiring at the same time.
Gina xxx
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