Role of transition towns?

Feeling threatened brings people together. ‘Transition towns’ -- communities that try to create a future that addresses the twin challenges of diminishing oil and gas supplies and climate change -- currently have a high profile in the United Kingdom after being featured on long-running BBC radio soap opera, The Archers.

The transition concept came from permaculture designer Rob Hopkins, who worked with students at a further education college in the Irish village of Kinsale to develop an ‘energy descent action plan’.  His reasoning is rooted in ‘peak oil’: the time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline, with the extraction of remaining oil being more expensive and time-consuming. 

Self-reliance

Transition towns are encouraged to develop ways to reduce the amount of energy they use, and become increasingly self-reliant.  This can include:

• initiatives such as reciprocal exchange of goods and services – pioneering UK transition town Totnes has created its own currency, known as the Totnes pound, which local businesses accept, to facilitate this;
• growing food in community gardens;
• selling locally grown produce in the local area;
• matching waste from one business with another operation that can use it;  and
• facilitating the repair of oil items to avoid their disposal.

The term ‘transition towns’ is something of a misnomer; it can actually refer to communities of diverse sizes, including council districts, city boroughs and larger urban areas.  There are currently over 50 such communities in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.  The Transition Towns Movement aims to build a network of such movements, local and regional hubs connecting transitions towns within given geographical areas.  It envisages communities driving initiatives with the support of government at local, regional and national levels.

So will it work?

The concept of transition towns is consistent with the view that the most effective initiatives to target climate change tend to be at local and regional levels.  Awareness is likely to grow about transition initiatives as networks of communities emerge.  Nonetheless, organisers of transition towns are likely to struggle to achieve diverse community involvement in initiatives.  Indeed, transition towns in the United Kingdom are already characterised as ‘middle-class’, relatively marginal initiatives.

Nonetheless, some of the transition movement’s ideas could be transposed onto a larger scale, playing a role in town and city planning and energy use.  There are numerous approaches, on a global level, which appear to have the same goals.  Major cities such as London and Bogota have implemented schemes to facilitate cycling, while supermarkets increasingly emphasise local sourcing of fresh produce in their advertising.  Transition towns could raise awareness of initiatives to reduce energy use, and drive local and national policymaking in this area.