The Transition movement emerged from the work of Permaculture educator, Rob Hopkins, and his students at a college in the town of Kinsale, Ireland. In early 2005 they created the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan, which was later adopted as policy by the Town Council.

It was the first strategic community planning document of its kind, and went beyond the issues of energy supply, to look at across-the-board creative adaptations in the realms of food, farming, education, economy, health, and much more.

After moving back to the UK to complete his doctorate, Rob decided to take the Peak Oil preparation process beyond the classroom and into the community. He started a series of talks and film screenings to raise awareness about peak oil.

This rapidly began to build momentum for some kind of a community response – a cooperative, phased process of transitioning away from its dependence on fossil fuels. and this was launched as Transition Town Totnes in 2006, at an event which they called "The Official Unleashing" of TTT, attended by 400.

Since then, they have taken off like a rocket and have delivered an extensive array of events and launched projects from planting nut trees to developing a local currency (Totnes Pound) to conducting energy audits and consultations for local businesses – all in collaboration with town council and other partnering organizations.

Since the beginnings in Totnes, the Transition model has since spread virally around the world as groups in other communities adopted the model and initiated the Transition process in their own locale.

Transition towns may be large cities, small villages or any area in between

Transition Initiatives exemplify the principle of thinking globally, acting locally. Leveraging local networks – operating in a way that gives a real authenticity that is often more difficult to establish on a larger scale without those local connections.

Start in Your Own Back Yard

The Transition Network was established in the UK in late 2006, to support the rapid international growth of the movement. Increasing high levels of interest in the US and other countries has led to the launch of national and regional hubs to take on the role of providing co-ordination, support and training to Transition Initiatives as they emerge.

Today, we have the ability to leverage technological tools to build networks of diverse and distributed efforts.

Some characteristics of Transition are that it is

Open Source & Self organizing: it is not centrally controlled, rather it is something people take ownership of and make their own

Solutions focused: it is inherently positive, not campaigning against things, rather setting out a positive vision of a world that has embraced its limitations

Iterative: it is continually learning from its successes and its failures and redefining itself, trying to research what is working and what isn’t

Sensitive to place and scale: Transition looks different wherever it goes

Historic: it tries to create a sense of this being an historic opportunity to do something extraordinary – and perhaps most importantly of all joyful.

Transition Initiatives start 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, climate change and the economic crisis?

This small team of people begins by forming an initiating group and then adopts the Transition Model with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative.

This point really rings true to me and it’s partly why I rarely go or engage in to climate change and peak oil talks…for me the most compelling argument for taking action is seeing alternatives to our existing system.

It is absolutely amazing to see individuals who have no activist backgrounds come to an event for the fun of it, are able to dig in and contribute to creating something tangible and really take ownership.

These are the people who become stewards because they are able to defend their own experience of something positive and meaningful in their community.

Goes way beyond the ‘10 steps to green your home”

EDAP – planning for the long term with a vision that sets out indicators to guide the transition process - it involves building a vision of what the community could look like in the future and then backcasting to the present.

It's early days, so we have a long way to go. But we understand how massive the task is, and we're giving it everything we've got.

Send reps to a Transition workshop near you.

Designate a liaison to your local transition group (ask Councilor Donna MacDonald in Nelson how this works)

Make sure whatever planning model you use (Natural Step, Smart Growth, etc.) engages citizens in planning AND action

Cheerful disclaimer!

Like every good sell this one comes with a cheerful disclaimer which goes:

In case you were under the impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact.

We truly don't know if this will work.

Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale.

Everything that covered here is the result of real work undertaken in the real world with community engagement at its heart.

These stories just like the Transition Model are brought to you by people who are actively engaged in transition in a community.

People who are learning by doing - and learning all the time.

People who understand that we can't sit back and wait for someone else to do the work.

People like you.