Dowser on organizing for resilience: The Transition Towns Network
As PopTech focuses its attention on the theme of resilience this year, we'll be highlighting stories from on and off the web that exemplify many facets that define the field. Recently, we were drawn to the following post on Dowser by Rachel Signor, which we've excerpted here:
A while back, Dowser wrote about Bellingham, Washington, a town that is consciously developing its local economy in order to withstand the global recession. Across the world, communities are forming around principles of sustainable, locally-based living, with awareness that natural resources—like oil—are finite, and an understanding that sustainability is more than a choice in a grocery store; it’s a way of life.
One example of such communities is the Transition Towns Network. This global network is focused on transitioning out of a reliance on increasingly-less-cheap petroleum. Resilience, according to Transition Town philosophy, is one step further than sustainability—it asks us not only to change what we consume or reduce our impact on the planet, but to actually prepare ourselves for a radically different system of production and consumption. The key is self-sufficiency.
There are now 320 Transition Town initiatives in 14 countries, according to a video made by Rob Hopkins, an ecological designer who founded the Network in 2005. In most cases, the towns in the Network engaged in specific initiatives and workshops, as well as potluck events and meetings where people can connect around issues related to resilience—such as neighborhood leadership, permaculture, or alternative currency.
Arguably, much of what goes on in the Transition Network is happening already, in cities everywhere: urban agriculture, crowdfunding, and other kinds of social enterprises are aligned with principles of resilience. But the Transition Network offers a support base, as well as a handbook to the Transition Town design model, a 12-step guide to organizing a community toward non-reliance on oil.
Read the rest of this post on Dowser.
Image: Dowser via the Transition Towns Network
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