At 7pm April 27th, 2011… we had our first open invitation meeting to form the “Transition Kaw Valley Initiative”.  We had 13 1/4 (bambino) in attendance, and some very enthusiastic folks ready to make something HAPPEN.

We’re are going to have another showing of the movie “The Economics of Happiness” ASAP at the Delaware Street Commons… ALL are invited.  Stay tuned for more details in the SAN Weekly Sustainability Newsletter.

If you’d like to get up to speed, you can download THE TRANSITION PRIMER right HERE,

…and get the entire TRANSITION HANDBOOK right HERE

Are you subscribed to the SAN Sustainability Newsletter?  If not… you better hurry up and sign up.  Do it HERE.

TRANSITION KAW VALLEY ¤ TOWARDS AN ENERGY RESILIANT COMMUNITY

Wednesday, 27 April 2011, 7:00pm
700 Mississippi St., Lawrence KS 66044 (Michael’s office above garage)

The Kaw Valley Transition Initiative is addressing climate disruption and peak oil inflation at the local level, a relocalization effort similar to hundreds around the globe.  Wednesday’s meeting will be a round table sharing of people’s vision, resources, and skills that can contribute to furthering Transition Kaw Valley.

The Transition movement was begun by Rob Hopkins in Great Britain and in the U.S. is coordinated by Transition US based in Sebastapol CA.  They help local initiatives with resources and publications, and they have trainers available to conduct local training sessions.  For more info, or to get on the S.A.N. Transition Kaw Valley e-mail list, contact them at <morlinc@sunflower.com>.

The 7 Principles of Transition

1. Positive Visioning

Transition Initiatives are based on a dedication to the creation of tangible, clearly expressed and practical visions of the community in question beyond its present‐day dependence on fossil fuel. Our primary focus is not campaigning against things, but rather on creating positive, empowering possibilities and opportunities. The generation of new stories and myths are central to this visioning work.

2. Help People Access Good Information and Trust Them to Make Good Decisions

Transition initiatives dedicate themselves, through all aspects of their work, to raising awareness of peak oil and climate change and related issues such as critiquing economic growth. In doing so they recognize the responsibility to present this information in ways which are playful, articulate, accessible and engaging, and which enable people to feel enthused and empowered rather than powerless
Transition initiatives focus on telling people the closest version of the truth that we know in times when the information available is deeply contradictory. The messages are non‐directive, respecting each person’s ability to make a response that is appropriate to their situation.

3. Inclusion and Openness

Successful Transition Initiatives need an unprecedented coming together of the broad diversity of society. They dedicate themselves to ensuring that their decision making processes and their working groups embody principles of openness and inclusion. This principle also refers to the principle of each initiative reaching the community in its entirety, and endeavoring, from an early stage, to engage their local business community, the diversity of community groups and local government authorities. It makes explicit the principle that there is no room for ‘them and us’ thinking in the challenge of energy descent planning.

4. Enable Sharing and Networking

Transition Initiatives dedicate themselves to sharing their successes, failures, insights and connections at the various scales across the Transition network, so as to more widely build up a collective body of experience.

5. Build Resilience

This stresses the fundamental importance of building resilience i.e. the capacity of our businesses, communities and settlements to withstand shock. Transition initiatives commit to building resilience across a wide range of areas (food, economics, energy etc) and also on a range of scales (from the local to the national) as seems appropriate ‐ and to setting them within an overall context of the need to do everything we can to ensure environmental resilience.

6. Inner and Outer Transition

The challenges we face are not just caused by a mistake in our technologies but are a direct result of our world view and belief system. The impact of the information about the state of our planet can generate fear and grief ‐ which may underlie the state of denial that many people are caught in. Psychological models can help us understand what is really happening and avoid unconscious processes sabotaging change. E.g. addictions models, models for behavioral change. This principle also honors the fact that Transition thrives because it enables and supports people to do what they are passionate about, what they feel called to do.

7. Subsidiarity: self‐organization and decision making at the appropriate level

This final principle embodies the idea that the intention of the Transition model is not to centralize or control decision making, but rather to work with everyone so that it is practiced at the most appropriate, practical and empowering level, and in such a way that it models the ability of natural systems to self organize.

Transition Kaw Valley

According to the annual conference of the Iowa Environmental Council, Europeans use 50% less energy per person than Americans.  If Europeans live comfortably while using less energy, there is no reason that we cannot decrease our energy consumption and still be comfortable.  Why is it important to use less energy?

Conventional energy sources such as oil, coal, gas, and nuclear are either at or near the limits of their ability to grow in annual supply, and will dwindle as the decades proceed — but in any case they pose unacceptable hazards to the environment.  The safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is 350 parts per million, but the current level of 392ppm is causing climate disruption: unprecendeted heat waves, droughts, crop failures, glacial melting, ocean acidification, violent storms, etc.  And contrary to techno-optimists, there is no combination of known renewable energy technologies that can fully replace the level of fossil fuels our society depends on.

And why is it important to create solutions in our local community?  In July 2010, the U.S. Senate did exactly nothing about climate change, preserving a perfect two-decade bipartisan record of no action.  In spite of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, deepwater oil exploration is still allowed, oil from Canadian tar sands will be piped across Kansas, and the Kansas Legislature wants another coal plant here.

In the absence of government and corporate concern, the Transition Town Movement calls for local solutions from local citizens. Vibrant and grassroots, the Transition model seeks to build community resilience in the face of such challenges as peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis.  It represents one of the most promising ways to engage people to strengthen their communities against the effects of these challenges, resulting in a life that is more abundant, fulfilling, equitable and socially connected.  As energy author Richard Heinberg states: “Our central survival task for the decades ahead, as individuals and as a species, must be to make a transition away from the use of fossil fuels – and to do this as peacefully, equitably, and intelligently as possible.”

The Transition Town Movement began in the United Kingdom, and is currently spreading around the world.  The Transition model is based on a general set of real-world principles and practices, arrived at by experimentation and observation of communities working to reduce carbon emissions and build resilience.  The Transition Movement believes that is up to our local communities to step into a leadership position on the following:

• Using our creativity and cooperation to unleash the collective genius within our local communities will lead to a more abundant, connected and healthier future for all

• Peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis require urgent action

• Adaptation to a world with less oil is inevitable

• It is better to plan and be prepared, than be taken by surprise

• Industrial society has lost the resilience to be able to cope with shocks to its systems

• We have to act together and we have to act now

• We must negotiate our way down from the “peak” using all our skill, ingenuity and intelligence

Suggested Readings:

“The Transition Handbook” download at http://www.sethink.com/transitiontownbroadcasts.htm

“The Transition Primer” – download at http://www.transitionnetwork.org/resources/transition-primer

“The Long Emergency” by James Howard Kunstler – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Emergency

“Peak Everything” by Richard Heinberg – http://richardheinberg.com/220-peak-everything

Suggested Viewings:

“Rob Hopkins: Transition Initiatives” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGHrWPtCvg0

“Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkLewiR0tiE

“Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil” – http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php

“Exponential Population Growth” with Dr. Albert Bartlett – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdOk521m9WA