Free Transition Towns Webinar
With Becky and Bill Wilson
of Midwest Permaculture
and Transition U.S.

Thursday, Sept. 22nd, 2011
7:00-8:00pm (CST)

 email transition@midwestpermaculture.com to register

Transition Towns

What is the Transition Town Movement? 

For us, the Transition Town Movement is the people part of permaculture.

Permaculture primarily looks at how to design the physical environment to support human populations in harmony with the natural environment.  It’s about the physical world.

The Transition Movement (which was inspired by permaculture) looks at how to encourage a culture to actually ‘want’ to create this sort of compatibility with its environment and once people show up to do this work, how to support them in getting along so that they might have success in creating permanent cultures.

 

Our Relationship to Transition Towns

We (Bill and Becky Wilson) have been trained by Sophy Banks and Naresh Giangrande of the International Transition Network along with 18 other graduates to deliver the 2-day Training for Transition (T4T) workshop.
This is a training for those interested in what is at the heart of Transition and how to get a Transition Initiative started in one’s own community.


The First Transition Training Group in the U.S.
San Francisco, CA, December 2008

 

The Transition Model has been built upon the recognition of the following:
• Climate Change and Peak Oil are real and will have a profound effect on the way we live in the future.
• In this future, energy will become increasingly more expensive and it is better to plan for it than be taken by surprise.
• Industrial society has lost the resilience to be able to cope with energy shocks.
• It is to our better interests to act together and to act now.
• Regarding the world economy and the consumptive patterns within it, as long as the laws of physics apply, infinite growth within a finite system (such as planet earth) simply isn’t possible.
• We demonstrated phenomenal levels of ingenuity and intelligence as we raced up the energy curve over the last 150 years, and there’s no reason why we can’t use those qualities, and more, as we negotiate our way down from the peak of the energy mountain.
• If we plan and act early enough, and use our creativity and cooperation to unleash the genius within our local communities, then we can build a future that could be far more fulfilling and enriching, more connected and more gentle on the earth than the lifestyles we have today.

The Transition approach empowers communities to squarely face the challenges of peak oil and climate change, and to unleash the collective genius of their own people to sustain themselves and thrive, by:

  • Drastically reducing carbon emissions (in response to climate change);
  • Significantly rebuilding resilience (in response to peak oil);
  • Strengthening local economy (in response to economic instability)

Now is the time for us to take stock and start re-creating our future in ways that are not based on cheap, plentiful and polluting oil but on localized food, sustainable energy sources, resilient local economies and an enlivened sense of community well-being.

 

In The News
Some Good Articles on The Transition Town Movement

The Energy Bulletin
April 3, 2010

New York Times Article
(April 16, 2009 – It’s longer, but full of details)

Enjoy this 20-minute audio clip From 10/1/08
NPR Radio Interview on
WBEZ’s ‘Worldview’
with Jerome McDonnell 

 

The Transition Town Movement
with Bill Wilson
(This is an 11MB file and may take a minute to download.)

You may also Click Here for the full 40-min. interview that includes an additional 20-minutes with Rob Hopkins.
Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture
Guest – Bill Wilson

 

Bill and Becky lead some of these trainings.

 

Networking
These links will take you to some of the essential websites that will
connect you with what is happening and possibly with others interested in your area.

 

 

 

 

Cheerful disclaimer about Transition!
As it appears on the website of Rob Hopkins and the Transition Network UK

Just in case you were under the impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact.

We truly don’t know if this will work. Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale.

What we are convinced of is this:

  • if we wait for the governments, it’ll be too little, too late
  • if we act as individuals, it’ll be too little
  • but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.

Everything that you read on this site is the result of real work undertaken in the real world with community engagement at its heart.  There’s not an ivory tower in sight, no professors in musty oak-paneled studies churning out erudite papers, no slavish adherence to a model carved in stone.

This site, just like the transition model, is brought to you by people who are actively engaged in transition in a community.  People who are learning by doing – and learning all the time.  People who understand that we can’t sit back and wait for someone else to do the work. People like you, perhaps…!

Final point Just to weave the climate change and peak oil situations together…

  • Climate change makes this carbon reduction transition essential
  • Peak oil makes it inevitable
  • Transition initiatives make it feasible, viable and attractive (as far we can tell so far…)