Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The brilliance of the Transition Movement comes largely from its narrative. This should not be surprising for much of human brilliance shines from our stories and tales, providing the glimmers and flashes of hopes in the face of the shadow of death. It is the foreknowledge of our own inevitable end, and the desire that life should nevertheless go on, that creates such strong narrative desire in humankind.
So why do we need an official Transition Movement? Maybe it was meant to light the sky like a flare in the dark and then fade away leaving only the inspiring retinal afterimages. Maybe the movement doesn’t need an organization. Maybe it isn’t really a movement at all?
In this episode we spoke with Rob Hopkins, the founder and figurehead of the Transition Movement, which is a grassroots community project aiming to increase self-sufficiency and address the ecological and economic crises currently faced by humanity.
The bus turning circle just off Tooting High Street is not a place that would usually inspire carnival, creativity and dancing in the street. As I say, not a place that would usually inspire great creativity, but that was until members of Transition Town Tooting started to look at it through their ‘Transition glasses’.
Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Insitute senior fellow, will deliver a keynote address on “Transition in the Age of Denial” at the Transition US National Gathering this July 28th.
An innovative project stemming from the Hubs group in partnership with Transition Network to create a clear framework for how Transition groups and municipalities can create sustainable change together This project has been collaboratively designed across borders and will map existing experiences of effective and systemic-change collaboration between local authorities and transition initiatives, worldwide. Launched in early 2017, the project will initially run until the end of 2018.
Here’s a talk that Rob Hopkins gave in May 2017 at the Triodos Bank AGM in Bristol, UK, on Transition and his hopes for the future.
We demand egalitarian treatment of others, and for others. Yet, do our own daily actions indicate that we value each other’s humanity equally? How does the Transition movement square with egalitarian, non-hierarchical practice?
We need to build local resilience and to redesign our communities in order to be able to adapt to the changes we are already facing while reconnecting among ourselves and with the planet.
Our chapter explores the Transition Movement of grassroots responses to climate change, peak oil and economic contraction, and seeks to place it in the broader context of commons-based responses to climate capitalism.
Ultimately what sustains me is a rather heady cocktail of stubbornness, optimism, a strong faith in the human spirit and in other people, rage, a deep wish to live a life of service to others, the thrill of seeing people step up and take their lives into their own hands, all coupled with a deep sense of urgency. It works for me.
The Transition movement comprises communities around the world and is dedicated to moving away from dependence on fossil fuels and resilience: personal, political and ecological preparedness.
