TRANSITION TOWNS – A SERIOUS SUBJECT

If you have read my blogs over a long period you will know that I am very supportive of the Transition Towns movement.

I have to thank my good friend James Machin for keeping me fully abreast of many environmental issues. We marched together against the Cepsa refinery at Campamento in San Roque. He kept me in touch with the work of the Bucket Brigades in Gibraltar and the bay zone. He was briefing me on Peak Oil in the days when it meant little to a few – now Google ‘Peak Oil’ and you’ll see its one of the hot topics of our age debated from Wall Street to Wallsend.

The same is true of the Transition Town movement. It started in Ireland in a town that is very close to my heart and soul - Kinsale. There Rob Hopkins had worked with the students of Kinsale Further Education College in writing an "Energy Descent Action Plan" and one of them, Louise Rooney, set about developing the Transition Towns concept and presented it to Kinsale Town Council. This resulted in the historic decision by councillors to adopt the plan and work towards energy independence. There are now at least 100 such communities in the UK, Rob started the first in Britain in Totnes and James was instrumental in forming the first group in Spain – Ciudad de Transición Estepona.

Indeed the real challenge for our age is not that we have reached Peak Oil but also possibly Peak Food. Therefore in the coming decades our communities will have to cope with the decline in our conventional oil powered lifestyle and our ability to produce sufficient food to feed our people.

This is a serious issue that involves all the communities spread throughout the world. Communities within the Transition Town movement are encouraged to seek out methods for reducing energy usage as well as increasing their own self reliance. In short this is a matter that should concentrate all our minds – and depending on our ages the implications will impact on us, our children and our children’s children.

So why my concern? I have just visited a website – no names, no pack drill – that promotes the Transition Movement but at a coming festival offers workshops on giving hugs, music improvisation, body consciousness and magic – so you can visualize the transition.

Fine. I have no problems giving hugs but I find it easier to visualize a world that hasn’t made the transition than one that has. I also have nothing against festivals and am as happy to dance around a May Pole as the next man!

However my real point is this I believe the transition movement is a serious movement for everyday people and mustn’t be hijacked by those whose dreams are more important than reality.

If our communities are to make the transition, if the concept is to capture people’s imagination and more important inspire them to action then it has to be as a broad-based popular movement – one we can all identify with, one that deals with the real issues and not the abstract.

ESTEPONA: TRANSITION TOWN

I have written recently about Peak Oil and Peak Food. These are both linked to Transition Towns. This movement started in Ireland 4 years ago and now numbers some 600 communities throughout Europe. On November 4, Spain’s first Transition Town will be launched in Estepona.

Pioneering local environmentalist James Machin is very much the inspiration behind the launch of this project. He and others have been warning for some time that we are living at a crucial stage in human history.

James explained: “Humanity is at the point of a quantum structural change. This change will commence when the worldwide demand for oil exceeds supply. This moment is immanent, due to the phenomenon known as ‘Peak Oil’. Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.”

“The decline in oil availability will lead inevitably to a lower-energy, more localized future, in which we move from being consumers to being producer/consumers, where food, energy and other essentials are locally produced, local economies are strengthened, and we start to live within our means.”

During the transition period there will be problems, and so to prepare for these times, the ‘Transition Towns’ are coming into being. Hence James and other environmentalists have organized the ‘Transition Towns’ initiative in Estepona. The inaugural meeting will be held at the Centro Cultural Padre Manuel on November 4 at 20.00. (For further information contact James on 952 796124 or email machin@ya.com)

The primary objective of Transition Communities is to develop an ‘Energy Descent Strategy’ for the community. To achieve that three questions will be asked:

1. How will we experience oil shortfall in our community?
2. What does our community have that will work for us in a future with less oil?
3. What can we do as a community to prepare and respond?

James said: “I’m promoting the event using my donkey cart, which I've modified temporarily to be pulled by the bike. I'm leaving it in various key places around Estepona with the press release and a poster displayed. I ended up at Tolones in Ciudad Real the other evening when I chatted to the kids. They love the idea of Transition Town coming to Estepona.”