What Are the Steps?
The steps for starting a transition initiative are simple and direct. They may or may not happen in the sequence presented below. How these steps are implemented solely depends upon the awareness level and connections that already exist in a community. Generally a Transition Town initiative can expect to be about:
- Awareness raising around peak oil, climate change and the need to undertake a community lead process to rebuild resilience and reduce carbon.
- Connecting with existing groups in the community.
- Building bridges to local government.
- Connecting with other transition initiatives.
- Forming groups to look at all the key areas of life (food, energy, transport, health, heart & soul, economics & livelihoods, etc).
- Kicking off projects aimed at building people’s understanding of resilience and carbon issues and community engagement.
- Launching a community defined, community implemented “Energy Descent Action Plan” over a 15 to 20 year timescale.
Following these steps will result in a coordinated range of projects across all these areas of life that strives to rebuild the resilience we’ve lost as a result of cheap oil and reduce the community’s carbon emissions drastically. The community also will recognizes two crucial points:
- That we used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there’s no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope; and
- If we collectively plan and act early enough there’s every likelihood that we can create a way of living that’s significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.
The Powerdown Show – Transition Towns and Energy Descent Pathways from Rob Carr on Vimeo.
