Fwd: A transition effective, delightful, profound...

bill waal at toolsforchange.org
Tue Jan 27 21:28:21 PST 2009


Margo Adair and I will be there as well!

Bill

 

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Peggy
Holman
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 8:30 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Fwd: A transition effective, delightful, profound...

 

Many thanks to everyone who has "come out" as involved with Transition
Towns.  Seems like a movement that truly brings consciousness to being a
complex adaptive systems.    It also seems to be another step in Open Space
becoming just the way we interact.

 

BTW, we have some of the Transition Town folks from the Portland area coming
to Leadership in a Self-organizing World - www.selforganizingworld.net, May
14-17 at Sleeping Lady Mountain Resort in Leavenworth, WA.  I thought I'd
sent an invitation to the list but can't find any sign of it.  So, consider
joining us - myself, Anne Stadler, Harrison Owen, and a host of other
students of consciously self-organizing.  We expect it to be a very
inspiring and insightful gathering.

 

appreciatively,

Peggy

 

______________________________

Peggy Holman

The Open Circle Company

15347 SE 49th Place

Bellevue, WA  98006

425-746-6274

www.opencirclecompany.com

 

For the new edition of The Change Handbook, go to: 
www.bkconnection.com/ChangeHandbook 
 
"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt,
is to become 
the fire".
  -- Drew Dellinger

 

 

 

 

 

On Jan 20, 2009, at 3:43 AM, cliodhna mulhern wrote:





Hello Peggy

 

Sorry for being late to this conversation. I am a long time Open Spacer and
a committed Transition Towns activist...there are many of us out here. Th is
a genuine grassroots leaderless movement where communities are renewing
their sense of their own power, their own joy and their humanity...making
plans and sowing seeds for the new and better world that is arriving every
day...Conversation processes like OS, World Cafe and Ai are the heart of
communication in this movement...Everyone...go and find your local
transition initiative and be part of it...the time is now...we are the
people we have been waiting for...Cliodhna

http://transitiontowns.org

 

 

Cliodhna Mulhern
Flowstone
Mobile : 07929328513
Tel : 01244.312758

 

"I slept and dreamed that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was
service. I acted and learned that service was joy" 
Tagore

 


 

 

2009/1/18 Peggy Holman <peggy at opencirclecompany.com>

Has anyone been involved with the Transition Town movement?  It is
apparently large and growing.  It starts off  "when a small collection of
motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared
concern: how can our community
respond to the challenges and opportunities of Peak Oil and Climate Change?
(see Tom Atlee's article below)."  

 

And Open Space is a central organizing practice for them.

 

I'm curious whether anyone from this community has been a part of this
remarkable experiment.

 

appreciatively,

Peggy

 

Here are some excerpts from http://www.transitiontowns.org/:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


 What is a Transition Town (or village / city / forest / island)?

 It all starts off when a small collection of motivated individuals within
a community come together with a shared concern: how can our community
respond to the challenges and opportunities of Peak Oil and Climate Change?

 ... [They embark upon] a process of:

 * awareness raising around Peak Oil, Climate Change and the need to
undertake a community-led process to rebuild resilience and reduce carbon
emissions
 * connecting with existing groups in the community
 * building bridges to local government
 * connecting with other transition initiatives
 * forming groups to look at all the key areas of life (food, energy,
transport, health, heart & soul, economics & livelihoods, etc.)
 * kicking off projects aimed at building people's understanding of
resilience and carbon issues and community engagement
 * eventually launching a community-defined, community-implemented "Energy
Descent Action Plan" over a 15- to 20-year timescale 

 ... The community also recognises two crucial points:

 * that we used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability
on the way up the energy upslope, and that there's no reason for us not to
do the same on the downslope

 * if we collectively plan and act early enough there's every likelihood
that we can create a way of living that's significantly more connected,
more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted
treadmill that we find ourselves on today....

 

______________________________

Peggy Holman

The Open Circle Company

15347 SE 49th Place

Bellevue, WA  98006

425-746-6274

www.opencirclecompany.com <http://www.opencirclecompany.com/> 

 

For the new edition of The Change Handbook, go to: 
www.bkconnection.com/ChangeHandbook 
 
"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt,
is to become 
the fire".
  -- Drew Dellinger

 

 

 

 

 

Begin forwarded message:





From: Tom Atlee <cii at igc.org>

Date: January 11, 2009 2:29:02 PM PST

To: cii at igc.org (undisclosed list)

Subject: A transition effective, delightful, profound...

 

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   The concept of energy descent, and of the Transition
   approach, is a simple one: that the future with less oil
   could be preferable to the present, but only if sufficient
   creativity and imagination are applied early enough in
   the design of this transition.   --  Rob Hopkins


Dear friends,

I've been hearing more and more about a sustainability program called
Transition Towns in recent months.  And it is not just me:  it has gone
viral.  It is being initiated in communities around the world at an
ever-accelerating rate.  At the time of this writing, there are 126
communities who qualify as Transition Towns (see
<http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionCommunities>) --
despite the considerable criteria involved (see
<http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/Criteria>).  Beyond that,
there are about 600 more communities seriously considering it, all laid out
on Google Maps <http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/Mulling> to
help everyone find each other and start new groups...

(Note:  The links above are from the excellent Transition Towns wiki, which
is a delightful portal through which to explore this topic.)

First worked up as a student project in the UK in 2005, Transition Towns has
spread around the world in 3 years, entirely from the grassroots, truly
viral.  I feel like a late-comer.  It is almost embarrassing to be writing
to you about it now, in 2009, but I figure the world can use all the help it
can get right now, and building resilient communities is a "the more the
merrier" kind of undertaking.

The Transition Town movement is sometimes called the Transition Initiatives
movement because it has come to include cities, colleges, islands, and all
sorts of other communities in addition to towns.

And it is no surprise why it is spreading so rapidly.  Not only are these
folks incredibly pleasant, upbeat, and savvy about the use of the internet,
but the Transition Towns initiative offers a refreshingly creative channel
for people's growing unease about the slow-motion collapse of the old
structures and systems we've come to depend on.  It offers an inspiring,
fully adaptable and evolving positive vision of incremental change toward
sustainability that any community can realistically and pragmatically
implement -- one that can be launched by any group of ordinary citizens.
The Transition Town (TT) approach not only faces global-impact challenges
squarely, but suggests that we can "build ways of living that are more
connected, more enriching and that recognize the biological limits of our
planet."

   While Peak Oil and Climate Change are understandably
   profoundly challenging, also inherent within them is the
   potential for an economic, cultural, and social renaissance
   the likes of which we have never seen.  We will see a
   flourishing of local businesses, local skills and solutions,
   and a flowering of ingenuity and creativity.  It is a
   Transition in which we will inevitably grow, and in which
   our evolution is a precondition for progress.  Emerging
   at the other end, we will not be the same as we were:
   we will have become more humble, more connected to
   the natural world, fitter, leaner, more skilled, and
   ultimately, wiser.  -- Transition Towns Handbook

Perhaps most remarkable is that the Transitions Towns approach engages
people NOT by scaring them out of their wits or telling them what to do, but
by providing powerful motivations, possibilities, and ways for them to
explore creative local responses for and among themselves.  There is no
blueprint.  The guidance provided involves tools, ways of talking and
co-creating together, visons, and links to other people and resources
engaged in this effort.  What we do with all that is up to us.

Transition Town (TT) initiatives are formally about the "localization" of
communities to prepare for disruptions arising from the twin crises of
   (a) PEAK OIL -- not running out of oil, exactly, but when the world's
demand for oil exceeds its ability to produce it (and the current low price
of of oil will not last long:  see
<http://my.earthlink.net/article/bus?guid=20090106/4962e550_3ca6_15526200901
061823557235>) and
   (b) CLIMATE CHANGE and the extreme weather and other disruptions that
accompany it.

However, there are other crises that effective localization and community
resilience programs like TT can also prepare us for, from economic
depression (which we're already tasting) to the disappearance of government
services in a flood of red ink (see
<http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/01/08/deficit-projection-stuns-
congress> and
<http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/01/07/in-red-states-seek-tax-hi
kes/>) to solar flares disrupting our power grid and electronic control
systems (an eventuality NASA has deemed possible by 2012
<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C478024%2C00.html>).  We have gotten
ourselves into a kind of addictive dependence on globally vulnerable systems
whose potential (likely? current?) collapse dictates a prudent (inevitable?)
turn towards relocalization and resilience.

As peak oil expert Richard Heinberg points out, the sooner we start learning
to live without oil and the vast supply networks it feeds, the easier it
will be for us when the current set-up is simply no longer an option.

So all this community preparation would be a great idea, regardless -- and
I'd want to spread the word for that reason alone.  But when I researched
the TT approach, I found something even more intriguing to me, personally:
the Transition Towns process uses two of my favorite processes -- Open Space
and World Cafe.  In fact, I even discovered that the most visible co-founder
of this movement, Rob Hopkins, wrote in his Masters dissertation "Energy
Descent Pathways: Evaluating potential responses to Peak Oil"
<http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/system/files/msc-dissertation-publishab
le-copy.pdf>

       "'[F]or many commentators, the need for engagement
   points inexorably in the direction of new fora, such as focus
   groups, citizens juries or panels, round tables, "visioning",
   and new consensus conferences, in which, with no technocratic
   monopoly of information, the necessary deliberation can take
   place'. This arises from a growing realisation that environmental
   values are not preformed, rather that they 'emerge out of
   debate, discussion and challenge, as [people] encounter new
   facts, insights and judgements contributed by others'."
      "[Tom] Atlee's concept of 'co-intelligence' offers a tool for
   harnessing the power of communities to implement change.
   He defines its aim as being 'to increase the capacity of a
   society as a whole to act in a co-intelligent manner' and
   recommends the use of a wide range of facilitation and
   empowerment tools to enable this. 'Our goal...' he writes,
   'can become the creation of ways in which people can
   collaboratively arrive at solutions to their (and our) collective
   problems'. Some of the mechanisms cited by [Gene] Rowe
   and [Lynn J.] Frewer, most notably Open Space Technology
   and World Café, are also advocated by Atlee, and are
   increasingly being used around the world by groups working
   to initiate relocalisation projects."  (p. 41)

Wow.  It made my day to find that my work played a role in inspiring and
informing this intiative that just might make a decisive difference in how
things turn out in our world.

But back to the Transition Towns movement.  It has much to teach us.  Here's
my take on one set of its core principles:

The key to sustainability is RESILIENCE -- resilient communities, resilient
people, resilient cultures, resilient systems.  Resilience, TT folks like to
point out, means a community or system can bounce back after challenges and
shocks -- everything from food-supply interruptions to economic downturns to
energy crises.  Resilience is in many ways the healthy counterpoint to
obsessive efficiency.  Resilience makes healthy systems in which
life-serving productivity arises from their well-being and responsiveness.
Obsessive efficiency, in contrast, makes productive systems at the expense
of well-being, degrading people and trashing ecosystems to maximize
production and monetary profit.  When productivity is defined as units
produced and profits made per hour, rather than as life-value added, it
becomes the enemy of life.  The effort to create resilient Transition Towns
is an effort to make an evolutionary leap into a kind of economics that
focuses on supporting and adding value to life, not only in the OUTCOMES of
productive activity, but in the vitality of the activity, itself.

Three requirements for resilient systems are Diversity, Modularity, and
Tightness of Feedbacks.

DIVERSITY is about the variety of a system's elements and parts.  It shows
up in the idea that every vital function should be performed by more than
one entity (redundancy, which is essential for resilience) and that if a
community includes diverse people pursuing many various approaches to
challenges and providing different sources of resources, it can keep
functioning even if some of its parts fail.  And if one approach doesn't
work, there's a good chance another will.  When you want to nurture
diversity, you help people do what they are individually and collectively
passionate about and good at rather than formulating and managing master
plans into which you engineer human cogs.  This kind of "follow your energy"
self-organizing dynamic is where the Open Space process shines.

MODULARITY means that the whole scene works largely through groups or
communities who are
   (a) able to perform all the needed functions and
   (b) networked so they can share experience and information.
This is an alternative to having everyone dependent on centralized
governance and vast and vulnerable supply networks that pull everyone down
when they collapse.  Modularity enables the system as a whole to better
re-organize in the event of a shock.

TIGHTNESS OF FEEDBACKS refers to how quickly and strongly one part of the
system can respond to changes (good or bad) in another part.  This factor
involves good communication systems and, more importantly, local-ness.  The
more local our interactions are, the more the results of our actions are
obvious to ourselves and others, and the more readily consequences can
inform and shape our individual and collective responses through learning,
answerability, corrections, rewards and penalties, and all the other forms
of feedback.

Rob Hopkins stresses that Transition Towns is about cutting carbon and
building resilience.  Cutting carbon and building resilience. They go hand
in hand, each inadequate by itself, each helping the other, each with long-
and short-term implications.

There is MUCH more to the wisdom and practical know-how contained in the
Transition Team materials, but I'll leave it for you to discover.  I've
included a number of further links below -- including links to the basic TT
primer and Rob Hopkins' extensive TRANSITION HANDBOOK -- mostly sent to me
by people on this list (Thank You!).

I have a feeling that in the not too distant future a majority of folks
reading this will be involved, one way or another, in Transition Towns.  The
time is very very ripe.

Coheartedly,
Tom

=======================

For a quick, clear, and compelling introduction to the Transition Town
movement see this great article from the Christian Science Monitor*
<http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/09/11/communities-plan-for-a
-low-energy-future/>
and this great introductory talk by TT co-founder Rob Hopkins, about 6
minutes long
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGHrWPtCvg0>

For some no-talk inspiration about community engagement for the kind of
world we dream of, here's a wonderful slideshow -- with great music -- about
the many Transition Town communities being formed in New Zealand.  It's
about 4 minutes long:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APMTXrIL48A>

Here's an excellent talk by Rob Hopkins, about 18 minutes long
<http://www.ifg.org/programs/Energy/triple_crisis_av/panel5/3rob-v.htm>

Here's a PDF file about the Transition Network (14 pages), "Who We Are and
What We Do":
<http://www.transitionnetwork.org/Strategy/TransitionNetwork-WhoWeAreWhatWeD
o.pdf>

And here's a PDF file (51 pages) of the Transition Initiatives Primer:
<http://transitionnetwork.org/Primer/TransitionInitiativesPrimer.pdf>

These PDFs contain information and guidelines that show a lot of wisdom
about the psychology of an enterprise like this, and about connecting and
partnering with different segments of the community, including local
governments.

Here is the Amazon Link for The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins:
<http://www.amazon.com/Transition-Handbook-Dependency-Local-Resilience/dp/19
00322188/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227893553&sr=8-1>

Rob Hopkins' blog http://transitionculture.org/ includes, among much else,
an engaging account of his own family's efforts to give up their addiction
to "the car".

Here are a recent set of videos, about ten minutes each:  Rob Hopkins,
co-founder of the Transition Towns Movement, speaking at the Positive Energy
Conference in Findhorn this past Spring.  They are short and very enjoyable,
instructive, and inspiring.

First segment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kizxt14aPM8

Second http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbLsmR21gnk

Third http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwjGDtHGd9c

Fourth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciZc5vv5-yY

Fifth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0GYI5CJTkw

Sixth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db9KpaELhCg


-----------

*  NOTE:  I wanted to feature that excellent Christian Science Monitor
article on Transition Towns (ironically dated September 11, 2008) -- in its
entirety -- but the Monitor has done something with its website that makes
it impossible to cut and paste that article (and others?), so all I can give
you is the link and hope that you will take the trouble to click it.  I do
highly recommend it.

PS:  In researching this, I ran across this stunning fact: "Americans drove
100 billion fewer miles in the 12 months ending in October than they had the
year before, a decline of about 3.4%, the Transportation Department reported
Friday. Miles driven fell by 9 billion miles, or 3.5%, to 250 billion miles
in October compared with October 2007. So far in 2008, miles driven have
fallen 3.5% to 2.45 trillion miles."
<http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/energy/americans-drive-
-billion-fewer-miles-past-year/>.  I'm boggled that people can throw around
numbers like billions and trillions when talking about miles driven.  I then
stumbled on a chart showing miles driven each month from 1983 to 2007
<http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2008/05/06/nothing_but_flo.html> which
shows the yearly average was at 3 trillion miles per year for both 2006 and
2007 and will -- thankfully, painfully, undoubtedly -- be much lower for
2008.  At 20 miles per gallon (about average for the US), that's 150 billion
gallons of gasoline burned by American drivers during each recent year.  If
I were the earth, I'd be getting hot under the collar, too...  It is high
time to get our act together.  And it adds immense poignancy to Rob Hopkins'
blog entry on his own efforts to give up driving
<http://transitionculture.org/2009/01/07/five-months-and-counting-the-realit
ies-of-giving-up-driving/>


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