What is the Transition Initiative?

A very important initiative that has sprung up in the south west in 2005 is the formation of the Transition Towns Initiative. A Transition Town can be best described as ‘a small collection of motivated individuals within a community who come together with a shared concern: how can the community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change?’

The first Transition Town was set up in Totnes and today there are over 100 TTs around the world and over 600 who are ‘mulling over the idea’.

Transition Initiatives are based on four key assumptions:

• That life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable, and that it is better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise
• That our settlements and communities presently lack the resilience to enable them to weather the severe energy shocks that will accompany peak oil
• That we have to act collectively, and we have to act now
• That by unleashing the collective genius of those around us to creatively and proactively design our energy descent, we can build ways of living that are more connected, more enriching and that recognise the biological limits of our planet.

Full details can be found in The Transition Handbook – from oil dependency to local resilience. Rob Hopkins (2008) Green Books. Totnes.

The table above helps to define the Transition Initiative. There are also six underlying principles that underpin the Transition model which are encapsulated in an Energy Descent Plan. The six principles are:

1. Visioning – paint a future without oil where life has improved and developed
2. Inclusion – we need to include everyone – not just the ‘green’ ones
3. Awareness raising – if we are not all informed of peak oil and climate change we won’t act
4. Resilience – the changes ahead will be very challenging so our plans need to include solutions which will survive at the local level
5. Psychological insights – many of the barriers to finding solutions lie within our heads – psychology can help us overcome these
6. Credible and appropriate solutions – we need solutions which are of a scale, resilience and sustainability to solve the problem

In producing an Energy Descent Plan a scenario is agreed by the group, for example, as a community we must be oil independent by 2030 and we must cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2030.

A vision is then drawn up to illustrate the community flourishing in 2030 have achieved the above objectives. The final part of the planning involves ‘back casting’ from the vision date to the present and ascribing a series of actions that will be required every year across the following areas of daily life to achieve the objectives:-

• Food
• Youth & Community
• Education
• Housing
• Economy and Livelihoods
• Health
• Tourism Transport
• Waste
• Energy
• Marine Resources

There is a worked example of an Energy Descent Plan from Kinsdale in Ireland – the first produced in the world.

Arctic ice is thinning

A team of scientists from University College London have discovered that the ice sheet around the Arctic is thinning - in places but up to 49cm. As a result the overall volume of ice is decreasing.


This data is on top of other data which has spectacularly shown that the ice sheet is decreasing in area.

More information here.

Austrialian 'Stern' Report - gloom and doom

A report in Australia by economist Ross Garnaut billed as the Australian Stern Report states that carbon pollution levels are rising so fast that the world has no realistic chance of hitting ambitious climate targets set by Britain and the G8.

Since 2000, the Garnaut report says, global carbon emissions from fossil fuel use have grown by 3% each year, as economies of developing countries including China have boomed. This compares to annual growth rates of 2% through the 1970s and 1980s, and just 1% in the 1990s.

See the Guardian for further details

80% by 2050 to include aviation and shipping

Ed Miliband has agreed with environmental campaigners that the Climate Change Bill targets suggested by the Committee on Climate Change and agreed by the Government - see here should also include emissions from aviation and shipping.

Full details in today's Guardian.

This is amazing stuff - the speed that such huge cuts have been agreed and the 'ease' with which shipping and aviation has now been included almost implies 'they' know something we don't .....!

Richard Heinberg’s The Party’s over oil, war and the fate of industrial societies

Well , I’ve finally got around to reading this book. I have been aware of the message for a long time but I can say it has really been worth while reading the detail.

In essence the book warns that oil production is about to peak and as a result massive changes will reverberate throughout the world. Indeed the future of industrialisation and globalisation is unsustainable.

The book is divided into 6 chapters.

Chapter 1 reviews the laws of physics, energy in ecology and the role of energy in former dominant civilisations. The key point in the latter example is that that former civilisations (e.g. Myas, Minoans, Greeks & Romans) collapsed because their energy budgets collapsed.

Chapter 2 looks at the rise of energy use from medieval times to the present - the rise of wood through coal to oil.

Chapter 3 describes the concept of peak oil – i.e. oil is a non –renewable resource . It details the work of Hubbert and describes why his work is so important.

Chapter 4 assesses whether renewable sources of energy can replace the oil based alternatives – they can’t and the book describes why.

Chapter 5 entitled “A banquet of consequences” describes what the impacts on modern society of the peaking of oil. It is profoundly and deeply worrying.

Chapter 6 is a much more positive piece of writing giving hope of what can be done at the individual, community and national levels in preparing for the transition from oil to renewables and a different lifestyle.

The book is a really important contribution to the changes society needs to make in the light of diminishing oil resources. It is a useful additional information source to the bulk of climate change literature. It makes it plain that climate change policy cannot be seen in isolation from peak oil issues.

This book is in no large part responsible for the Transition Movement in the UK which started in Totnes, Devon earlier this century.

The book is a brilliant analysis of politics, geopolitics, geology, sociology, ecology and economics. Essential reading – I urge you to read it and get your elected politicians and senior managers to do the same.

Ed Milliband signs up to the Committee on Climate Change

The Government has signed up to the 80% cuts in CO2 by 2050 recommended by the Committee on Climate Change. This is excellent news and has received widespread praise.

There is however some concern being voiced that shipping and aviation have been excluded from these targets. No doubt this battle will continue. For more details see here.

Shifting Shores in the south west

The National Trust has just published this update report on its Shifting Shores campaign - the threats to our coast from climate change, sea level rise and increasing stormy weather . Both this report and the earlier national report can be downloaded from here.

The new report outlines lessons learnt already from work that the Trust has carried out. There are 5 critical messages.

1. Long term planning is essential
2. Work with nature not against it
3. Think and act in the wider context
4. Solutions need partnerships
5. Involving the public is critical.

The report also details 21 NT sites in the SW that are threatened by sea level rise. The report also poses 4 questions that need to be addressed.

1. How can people's awareness and understanding of the risks they face be raised?
2. What is the best way to decide the most sustainable approach to managing these risks?
3. How should tomorrow's coastline be managed today?
4. How can the costs of adaption be minimised and shared equitably?

Finally the report carries out an impact assessment covering

The impact on wildlife
The impact on the historic environment
The impact on the coastal economy
The impact on public access to the coast.