Ystradgynlais & District
Transition Town

TRANSITION TOWNS From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience The Transition Towns concept is based on the assumption of increasingly radical changes in the near future. These changes will be brought about by Climate Change and Peak Oil. Transition Towns is a challenge to confront the problems involved and to deal with them at a local level. Everyone is aware of the changes that Climate Change may bring. World-wide, scientists are no longer in doubt that the global climate is definitely warming. Records are constantly being broken, both for individual temperatures reached and the timing of seasons, and for the extreme nature of climatic phenomena. Plants, animals and insects are to be seen at hitherto unheard of times. In Britain, primroses may start to bloom in August and bloom throughout the winter till late spring, swallows may arrive up to a month early, bees and butterflies may be seen in winter. Rainfall has been of exceptional intensity in recent years, leading to widespread floods in many parts of the country. In Europe excessive heat has led to destructive forest fires. Tropical storms are increasing in frequency and ferocity. Ice sheets are melting, leading ultimately to a rise in sea levels, with potentially catastrophic effects on low-lying land or even whole countries. The list goes on and on.

While it is conceivable that other factors may also be playing a part, as they have done in previous ages, what is now accepted is that it is our present lifestyles which are causing change at a rate unprecedented in the history of the Earth, and which may ultimately trigger runaway climate change, with results that we can only guess at. Climate Change, or 'Global Warming' is caused by the Greenhouse Effect, brought about by a substantial increase in 'greenhouse' gases trapping more and more heat in the Earth's atmosphere - largely brought about by human activity.

Peak Oil is the other half of the story of change. It is not the point at which the last drop of oil is used, but rather the point at which the availability of oil peaks, followed by increasing scarcity, and the subsequently increasing costs of production, until extraction is no longer economically viable. For the last 150 years or so, the world has become ever-more reliant on oil and other fossil fuels, in almost every aspect of our lives. It is hard to imagine life without it. Yet the peak of oil production is very near if not actually already past.

So, how did this scenario of radical change bring about Transition Towns? Rob Hopkins, a teacher of Permaculture and natural building, became aware that there was a need to make the transition to a lower-energy future. He found no existing response to the problems from local communities. He put in train a sequence of events that lead to an event in the Town Hall of Kinsale, Ireland in February 2005. Called 'Kinsale in 2021: Towards a Prosperous Sustainable Future Together', the event set out to discover the ideas of the community about how Climate Change and Peak Oil would affect them and what might be done to lessen the impact. A year-by-year plan followed of how Kinsale could be in the future and from then onwards more and more Transition Towns developed, until by 2008 thirty four initiatives were in place, largely in Britain, but including some from elsewhere. Many more are now 'Mullers' – towns or districts that are in the process of working towards becoming full Transition Towns.

Transition Towns are based on four key assumptions. These are explained in the following quote from Rob Hopkins' book, 'The Transition Handbook – From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience':

1. That life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable and that it's better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise.
2. That our settlements and communities presently lack the resilience to enable them to weather the severe energy shocks that will accompany peak oil.
3. That we have to act collectively, and we have to act now.
4. That by unleashing the collective genius of those around us to creatively and pro-actively 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.

Starting from these assumptions, local communities explore ways to work together to ease the transition to a lifestyle less reliant on fossil fuels, and at the same time to lessen their impact on the planet. Different Transition Initiatives have evolved different responses. However, the philosophy underpinning them depends on the ethics of Permaculture – 'a design system for the creation of sustainable human settlements'. (ibid) This encompasses all aspects of life – social, economic, cultural and technical. In practical terms this may involve activities such as skill-sharing, LETS schemes, Freecycle, public awareness-raising, liaising with relevant local groups, relearning traditional skills, sharing gardening projects, running courses and workshops, even large projects such as starting a hydro-electric scheme.

There is no guarantee that Transition Towns will work – but, come on, it's worth the effort! You will learn more, make friends, have enormous fun – and may also save the world!