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
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