What a stimulating 24 hours!
Well, what a stimulating 24 hours I've had over the weekend! The next step of my life's journey seems to have taken me into the Transition Movement - more specifically into the steering committee for Transition Chichester. For the un-initiated, a
- That life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable, and that it's better to plan for it than be taken by surprise.
- That our communities currently lack the resilience to handle the severe energy shocks that peak oil will bring.
- That acting as a community is the right level of response.
- That by unleashing the genius of the local community to design our energy descent, we can build ways of living that are more connected, more enriching and that recognise the biological limits of our planet.
As Transition Chichester, we have been putting on various events since the summer, raising awareness and beginning to gather together like-minded people who want to get involved. This weekend we had down Dr David Fleming, the creator of the concept of Tradeable Energy Quotas and a leading environmental thinker. On the Friday evening he gave a public lecturer in the centre of
Friday evening was stunning and Saturday completely different and refreshing, with so many things being discussed. The constant theme that kept coming up, though, was community: how can we begin to model the kind of community life that is going to be needed if we are to build resilience to withstand the shocks that are surely coming? From a Christian perspective, of course, this idea of community shouldn't just come because we need to respond to present challenges, but because we believe that this is how we have been designed: beings-in-relation, because we worship the God who is Community.
I don't have all the answers (did I even need to say that?!) but would love to be in a creative dialogue about this. What ideas do you have? How can we begin to model this? I look forward to hearing from you!
I was very interested in your link with Transion Chichester. I would be very interested in developments. Chesterfield which is fairly local to us also has a Transion movement but I would be interested in how to start something like this up in a small market town such as where I live in Dronfield. There are several active environmental groups and a fairtrade group but I know very little about how much is actually involved.
Nice to hear from you, Margaret. I think the Transition thing is really exciting and I'm privileged to be involved with a great group of people who are doing it in Chichester. The steering committee had a meal together last night and i told them about your comment. One of them said that the best thing to do is book a date and get on with it! Book a date to show one of the standard films (I can give you details) and start talking and inviting people and see what happens. Talk to the environmental and fairtrade groups too. There is no upper or lower limit to how much is involved and every initiative is different. Go onto the Transition Towns website and look at the sites for various groups to see the kind of things that they are doing. And read Rob Hopkin's, 'Transition Handbook'. Let me know how you get on!