The Transition Town initiative has been a fast-growing movement in the United Kingdom for over a year, with more than 50 towns currently signed up. Now the United States is catching up as Boulder, CO becomes the first official transition town in the country.
The Transition Town movement started in Kinsale, Ireland when permaculture teacher Rob Hopkins started thinking about the possibilities of applying permaculture theories to entire towns, instead of just to individual plots of land. Hopkins’ Energy Descent Action Plan provides a blueprint for towns hoping to transition to a more sustainable way of life.
Boulder County Going Local is an ambitious effort to prepare the area for the ramifications of climate change and peak oil.
BCGL was only named an official transition initiative earlier this month, but it’s getting started with a bang. The organization has already launched a series of talks and workshops to teach residents how to survive with local resources entitled “The Great Reskilling”. Planned events include “High Altitude Gardening”, “Garden Design and Planting A La Permaculture”, “The Bountiful Pantry”, and “Solar Greenhouse Design”.
It is sobering to think about how few survival skills most of us have. Perhaps if more transition initiatives like Boulder’s take off, we can relearn the skills that fossil fuel-based industrialization has rendered useless.
More: Boulder Solar
Well done Boulder – welcome to the Transition Community. Later this year the Low Carbon Communities Network is hosting a conference for low carbon / transition communiites, maybe there are US communities who would like to join in by webchat / live blog and lest us know how things are going?
Tracey (Transition Chester – UK)
Co Founder
Low Carbon Communities Network
Very cool, Ariel! It’ll be interesting to see how things progress in Boulder (and to see which cities decide to follow suit). Thanks for letting me know about this!
Go Boulder! A friend who has been supporting the local initiative here on Waiheke, has just moved back there. He should be a good person to support this.
Simply fantastic! Our tiny town (village?) Of Wales,MA is starting to coalesce a seed of a movement to plan for localized food supplies relating to PO. Lots to learn!
We have formed a Transition Town Team here in Saranac Lake New York in the northern Adirondacks and will be launching our initiatives shortly with a public screening of “Escape From Suburbia”. The Transition Handbook, Rob Hopkins book has been invaluable to us. I would love to hook up with others in the north east. Feel free to contact me at: 518-891-0182
I remember when the transition town movement started. I interviewed Rob Hopkins and his colleague Catherine Dunne years ago:
http://globalpublicmedia.com/rob_hopkins_on_energy_descent_and_action_plans
http://globalpublicmedia.com/catherine_dunne_transition_design
Sandpoint, Idaho has been named as the 2nd Transition Town after Boulder. After months of coordination with local groups, we are holding our 1st community meeting on Nov. 14th with Michael Brownlee attending.
We can do this.