The Transition Companion

Making your community more resilient in uncertain times

Robert Hopkins

• Publisher: Green Books
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781900322973
• eBook ISBN: 9780857840554
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

In 2008, the best selling The Transition Handbook suggested a model for a community-led response to peak oil and climate change. Since then, the Transition idea has gone viral across the globe, from universities and London neighbourhoods to Italian villages and Brazilian favelas. In contrast to the ever-worsening stream of information about climate change, the economy and resource depletion, Transition focuses on solutions, on community-scale projects and on positive results. The Transition Companion picks up the story today, describing one of the most fascinating experiments now under way in the world. It shows how communities are working for a future where local enterprises are valued and nurtured; where lower energy use is seen as a benefit; and where cooperation, creativity and the building of resilience are the cornerstones of a new economy. The first part discusses where we are now in terms of resilience to the problems of rising oil prices, climate change and economic uncertainty. It presents a vision of how the future might look if we succeed in addressing these issues. The book then looks in detail at the process a community in transition goes through, drawing on the experience of those who have already embarked on this journey. These examples show how much can be achieved when people harness energy and imagination to create projects that will make their communities more resilient. The Transition Companion combines practical advice; the tools needed to start and maintain a Transition initiative; with numerous inspiring stories from local groups worldwide.

The Transition Companion

Making your community more resilient in uncertain times

“Get ready for a smaller world. Soon, your food is going to come from a field much closer to home, and the things you buy will probably come from a factory down the road rather than one on the other side of the world. You will almost certainly drive less and walk more, and that means you will be shopping and working closer to home. Your neighbours and your neighbourhood are about to get a lot more important in the smaller world of the none-too-distant-future.”

Jeff Rubin, Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller (2009)1

“Maybe all this [Transition initiatives] sounds a bit goody-two-shoes to you – a bit ecofreaky – but what’s wrong with that? We’ve been here before. When our food supplies were threatened in the last war the government urged us to dig for victory…and we did. Never in our history have we had a more healthy diet. And the fact is that people are responding to Transition schemes. They’re packing town and village halls around the country to support them. You don’t believe there’s any need even to think about this sort of thing? You reckon this latest oil crisis is just another scare and the danger of global warming is being exaggerated? Well maybe you’re right. I hope you are. But if you’re wrong, doesn’t it make sense to think local rather than rely on politicians at national and world level to get us out of the mess they’ve helped create?”

John Humphrys, Sunday Mirror, 25 November 2007

“It was a funny little path, winding here and there, dashing off in different directions, and sometimes even tying a knot in itself from sheer joy. (You don’t get tired of a path like that, and I’m not sure that it doesn’t get you home quicker in the end.)”

Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland (1946)

The Transition Companion

Making your community more resilient in uncertain times

Rob Hopkins

First published in 2011 by

Green Books,
Dartington Space, Dartington Hall,
Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EN

© 2011 Rob Hopkins
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in
critical articles or reviews.

Design by Jayne Jones

Print format ISBN 978 1 900322 97 3

PDF format ISBN 978 0 85784 040 0

ePub format ISBN 978 0 85784 055 4

To my family, Tessa, Mum, Dad, Jo, Ian, Jake, Archie, Steve, Hilary, Robert, Harriet and Helen.

To Colin Campbell, Richard Heinberg, David Holmgren and Howard Odum for sowing the seeds of this concept.

To the Transition Network team and to everyone testing the Transition model out, doing extraordinary work and having so much fun in the process.

To Geshe Jampa Gyatso, who taught me everything that really matters.

To my wonderful sons, Rowan, Finn, Arlo and Cian: take this world by the horns, boys.

To Emma: companion, lover, friend and wife.

Finally, to two of the twentieth century’s great geniuses lost to us in 2010/11: the dear David Fleming, and Captain Beefheart – both brilliant in very different ways, but brilliant nonetheless.

Contents

Forewords

Introduction

PART ONE: Why the Transition movement does what it does

Chapter 1: The emergence of an idea: a potted history of Transition

Chapter 2: Why Transition initiatives do what they do

Chapter 3: Where we might be headed: the power of future scenarios

Chapter 4: Resilience and localisation

Chapter 5: A taste of a powered-down future

PART TWO: What the Transition response looks like in practice

Chapter 6: Framing Transition

Chapter 7: The story of four Transition initiatives told using ingredients and tools

PART THREE: How the Transition movement does what it does – ingredients for success

Starting out

1. Coming together as groups

2. Inclusion and diversity

Tools for Transition No.1: Permaculture design

3. Respectful communication

4. Forming an initiating group

Tools for Transition No.2: Standing up to speak

5. Understanding scale

6. Measurement

Tools for Transition No.3: Transition Training

7. Visioning

8. Arts and creativity

Tools for Transition No.4: Running effective meetings

9. Awareness raising

10. Forming working groups

Tools for Transition No.5: Forming a legal entity

11. Building partnerships

12. The evolving structure

Tools for Transition No.6: Communicating with the media

13. Backcasting

14. Creating a space for inner Transition

Deepening

1. ‘Transition Towers’ – having an office, or not?

2. Practical manifestations

Tools for Transition No.7: Volunteers and volunteering

3. The ‘Great Reskilling’

4. How we communicate

Tools for Transition No.8: Financing your Transition initiative

5. Celebrating

6. Celebrate failure

7. “How are we doing?”

8. Local food initiatives

9. Momentum

10. Ensuring land access

Tools for Transition No.9: Supporting each other

11. Personal resilience

Tools for Transition No.10: Unleashings

Tools for Transition No.11: Healthy conflict

12. Education for Transition

Connecting

1. Forming networks of Transition initiatives

Tools for Transition No.12: Street-by-street behaviour change

2. Involving the council

Tools for Transition No.13: Becoming the media

3. Working with local businesses

Tools for Transition No.14: Energy Resilience Assessment

4. Oral histories

Tools for Transition No.15: Community brainstorming tools

5. Engaging young people

Tools for Transition No.16: Meaningful maps

6. The role of storytelling

Tools for Transition No.17: Speaking up for Transition

7. Pausing for reflection

Building

1. Energy Descent Action Plans

2. Social enterprise and entrepreneurship

3. Scaling up

Tools for Transition No.18: Community renewable energy companies

4. Strategic local infrastructure

Tools for Transition No.19: Tools for plugging the leaks

5. Appropriate technologies

6. Community ownership of assets

Tools for Transition No.20: Community-supported farms, bakeries and breweries

7. Strategic thinking

Tools for Transition No.21: Peak oil resolutions

Daring to dream

1. Policies for Transition

2. A learning network

3. Investing in Transition

Epilogue: Where might all this be going?

Appendices

Notes and references

Resources

Acknowledgements

Trailblazers and assorted sources of inspiration

Christopher Alexander, Peter Bane, Albert Bates, Graham Bell, David Boyle, Lester Brown, Colin Campbell, Fritjof Capra, Alec Clifton-Taylor, Phil Corbett, Martin Crawford, Chris Day, Charles Dickens, Dr Carlo DiClemente, Chris Dixon, Richard Douthwaite, Matt Dunwell, Paul Ekins, Ianto Evans, Simon Fairlie, David Fleming, Masanobu Fukuoka, Clive Hamilton, James Hansen, Stephan Harding, Tim and Maddy Harland, Peter Harper, Lea Harrison, Robert Hart, Emilia Hazelip, Richard Heinberg, Colin Hines, Arthur Hollins, David Holmgren, Barbara Jones, Ken Jones, Martin Luther King, Naomi Klein, Satish Kumar, John Lane, Andy Langford, Jeremy Leggett, Aldo Leopold, Bernard Lietaer, Richard Mabey, Joanna Macy, Marcus McCabe, Bill McKibben, Dennis Meadows, Bill Mollison, George Monbiot, Sterling Morrison, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Howard and Elisabeth Odum, Harrison Owen, Rosa Parks, Jonathan Richman, Dr Stephen Rollnick, Mark Rudd, Kirkpatrick Sale, E. F. Schumacher, John Seymour, Vandana Shiva, Michael Shuman, Andrew Simms, Chris Skrebowski, Linda Smiley, Gary Snyder, Sufjan Stevens, Ruth Stout, Tom Vague, Don Van Vliet and Meg Wheatley.

Collaborators, idea-shapers and co-conspirators

Gary Alexander, Paul ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• PART TWO: What the Transition response looks like in practice
• PART THREE: How the Transition movement does what it does – ingredients for success
• Epilogue: Where might all this be going?