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Boulder's Transition movement offers grassroots action for more sustainable lives

by Cindy Sutter - Daily Camera

2009 April 10

Last month, 18 people came together in Louisville to dig up a yard to become a vegetable plot.

That's not too unusual nowadays: Boulder County nurseries report a surge in interest in home vegetable gardening, and a revival of World War II-style Victory Gardens is a trend nationwide. What makes this particular patch of dirt different is that it's part of an effort called Transition -- whose members have a goal considerably more comprehensive than supplying local families with fresh produce. They envision nothing less than a community that has made the transition away from fossil fuels to a sustainable, locally based economy, able to largely feed itself and create local jobs.

The Transition movement, which got its start in the United Kingdom, is a model being implemented in 150 communities in various countries, including locations in the United States. Transition Boulder County was the first Transition initiative in the United States, getting its start in May of last year. It is an extension of Boulder County Going Local, a re-localization group that has been in existence since May 2005. What's different about Transition, says Michael Brownlee, who heads the Boulder County group, is that it offers a more comprehensive plan to accomplish its goals.

The plan includes 12 steps, such as forming an initiating group, raising awareness, networking with existing groups, staging a large community event called "The Great Unleashing" to draw in the wider population, forming working groups from that event and working in the community to create an "energy descent action plan."

While the model might sound a little vague and squishy to outsiders, it's purposely designed that way to let each community come up with a plan that includes as many people as possible.

"I think more people are open to the reality that really deep change is necessary now," Brownlee says. "These are not minor adjustments in lifestyle, but changes in commitment that our whole society begins to take on."

Dan Matsch, manager of Eco-Cycle's CHaRM facility and its compost program, says he thinks the Transition movement can be extremely valuable.

"What's cool about it is that it's a sort of template that can be used around the world," said Matsch, who was involved in early Transition efforts in Lyons, but is now working on Food and Ag Policy Council, an advisory board to the County Commission on agricultural issues. "A great thing (about Transition) is that we're talking the same language. It unites us a little bit. We're not all trying to reinvent the wheel ourselves."

That kind of coordination is evident in Sand Point, Idaho, a place where Transition's bottom-up strategy of organizing is starting to have an impact, according to Brownlee. About 500 people out of a population of 8,000 showed up for the town's "Great Unleashing," with 125 people forming working groups. The town is now starting a communitywide agency that will guide the transition. Brownlee was a keynote speaker at the event, and he has also been to Totnes, England, where Transition got its start. There, among the more obvious aspects of Transition, are signs in local stores announcing that they accept the Totnes pound, a local currency.

In Boulder County, the numbers are much smaller, but growing, Brownlee says. About 57 people belong to Transition Boulder County and 126 people are in Transition Boulder. There are also groups in Louisville and North Boulder.

From here to there

The Transition group in Louisville got its start in November. Attendance at meetings has been as high as 45 people, who have heard lectures on energy efficiency and urban gardening, among other topics. The group is looking into a car-sharing program similar to Boulder's, and has also broken ground on a garden.

One of the group's founding members, David Greenwald, says the purpose of the first garden is for members to get experience with intensive small plot gardening with an eye to planting five plots next year.

Greenwald, a retired tech worker who also has a background in community development, envisions a Louisville 20 years from now in which at least half the households have solar panels on their roofs and vegetables growing in their gardens. About 200 cars would be available in the car-sharing program.

"The further down the road, the more practical it gets," he says.

The garden was practicality in action.

"Rather than plan stuff with a lot of meetings, we just decided to grow some stuff," Greenwald says. Two master gardeners are participating.

The garden dig came together through social networking on a Transition ning site. Ning sites are online platforms that allow people to create their own social networks. Boulder County's Transition ning came into being after Brownlee heard about New Zealand Transition's ning site, which allowed the group to communicate more efficiently. When Brownlee sought out the creator of the New Zealand ning in hopes of using the concept in Boulder, it turned out the ning expert, Les Squires, lived a few miles away in Louisville.

"I smile every time I think about it," Squires says.

He says social networking collapses the meaning of the terms global and local.

"How can something that's local be global? How can something that's global be local?" he asks. "Those are old-world terms."

The networks mean that knowledge can be shared widely, and that local events can come together quickly, as the vegetable garden dig in Louisville did. The 18 participants clicked that they were interested, showed up and got to work.

With the garden, Transition Louisville also took a rudimentary step toward a local currency. Participants will get credits for their labors that can later could be cashed in in the form of tomatoes or help with their own garden.

"It's nothing but accounting," Squires says of the local currency concept. "It's keeping track of debits and credits. It's the same as the old world, but now we don't have to do it with banks ... You can see where that got us, right?"

Changing behavior

Last year, when gas hit $4 a gallon, Transition folks were not surprised.

Many had been sounding the alarm about peak oil -- the point at which the world's oil supply reaches its high point, thereafter becoming increasingly expensive to extract. Many expect a "long emergency" in which the United States and other developed countries will be forced to make a wrenching adjustment to the end of the cheap fossil fuel on which much of their economic growth has been based.

After gas prices rose, however, they began to fall again as the global financial system, which was based on unsustainable credit, nearly collapsed, causing a deep recession. While the price of oil is lower, Americans have been left with a queasy feeling that their lifestyle may be in for a major readjustment.

"We thought peak oil would end the party," says Todd Siegel, initiator of Transition Boulder. "It's a lot more difficult to get the message out in a down economy. People are worried about trying to make their mortgage payment and put food on the table."

But, he says, "I believe it's all related and still as important as it ever was."

That's because the key idea behind Transition is building a sustainable community that is better able to insulate itself from globally driven shocks, whether they're caused by oil prices or problems in the financial markets. The Transition movement's advocates believe it can offer an orderly, community-based process to make the changes needed to live with fewer resources.

However, Siegel says, that doesn't have to mean a dreary, deprived life.

"I wouldn't say Transition is about transitioning to a spartan lifestyle," he says. "It's not about reverting to a more primitive state. It's about understanding the limits we face. If we preemptively decide to make the transition, we can take all the good stuff with us and move into the future that way."

By "good stuff" he means things like advanced medicine and technology, but probably not two-car, big-house families that gobble up huge amounts of precious energy. He envisions more multi-generational households with close community ties.

Siegel doesn't count himself among the "doomers," who think society as we know it will collapse.

"A lot of people, when they first (hear about) peak oil, their first instinct is to head for the hills with a bunch of ammo, guns and canned food," he says. "But they're going to have to replace the ammo and canned food sooner or later. If you don't have a community to rely on, that's not a good place to be."

Rather than the doom scenario, Siegel foresees cycles of recession in which the economy adjusts to changes in energy.

"Each time the economy adjusts, it will prosper, then come back into contact with the limits again, and go to another down cycle until it hopefully finds some kind of equilibrium in the future," he says.

As communities work through the cycles, Siegel says closer ties will develop. Although he lives in a large apartment complex, he currently gardens with his neighbors, people he didn't even know previously.

Transition members hope to see various groups evolve separately to solve local problems and come together in larger community to make them work.

"You don't have to be a brilliant community to organize," says Brownlee, Boulder County's Transition leader. "You just have to be passionate and willing to learn."


Contact Camera Staff Writer Cindy Sutter at 303-473-1335 or sutterc@dailycamera.co

www.dailycamera.com




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Started 2008.11.11 - Last Updated 2008.11.12