Ooooby Flashmob

Admin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:31:54 +0000

Pete and I called an Ooooby Flashmob on Thursday, at Rupa’s cafe in Freeman’s Bay. 21 people showed up and after a brief presentation on Ooooby by Pete, I ran a compressed “World Cafe” event that had people focus around one practical question. You can get a sense of the buzz from these two short videos. At the end of the hour we had allocated, people continued to talk and exchange notes and ideas and contacts. It was a highly successful, spontaneous gathering of people passionate about local food.

The question was: “What projects can be started now to support access to local food in Auckland?” The responses from everyone are summarised here on Ooooby.

Thanking you for your support

Admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:31:55 +0000

Thank you to all the people, who have made financial contributions in support of the growth of the Transition Towns work in Aotearoa.

Over the holiday period, I met a young man who has been quietly depositing a small and regular amount of money into an account which I have been drawing from. Without his and others contributions that have been coming in from many of you who I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, I would almost certainly have been out in the job marketplace, looking for some “regular” paid employment. Instead I have been able to maintain a focus on the Transition work and together we have layed a solid foundation. I’m confident that the Transition Towns network will continue to be a shining light in what for many are challenging times of uncertainty and change.

Together we have created a body of knowledge and ideas, and engaged in much courageous discussion, on the Transition Towns website. We’ve linked many people and communities through our shared understanding and values, standing for a creative and proactively designed energy descent and ways of living that are “more connected, more enriching and which recognise the biological limits of our planet”.

We have done this without creating an institution or structured organisation, though some lively discussion has taken place around the pros and cons of that approach. Instead we have taken individual and collective responsibility for the tasks at hand and got on with the job. We have organised ourselves locally around projects and events that we have decided are most needed, and funded them ourselves without recourse to a central organisation. This is a major achievement and a consequence of this self-responsible, self-funding, self-organising is that our collective efforts have built a substantially resilient Transition network.

My reading of the trends, is that this year is going to herald even more radical changes than we have been witnessing in the past few years. This will show up in more moves to increase the power of many of the already powerful corporations and their preferred and well funded politicians. Radical changes will also come as we re-design systems of local exchange, and build local economic tools and activity. I believe this is a time to embrace uncertainty, and know that we are moving into a time of great opportunity. The structures and artifices of human society that we have assumed to be “just the way it is” are becoming seen as simply agreements about how we live and function, and none are set in stone.

This year will see many new tools for supporting change, and when we get shaken in our complacency, it is a perfect time to take another step towards the future we want to create.

—

The Great Unravelling – An idea for a novel written in the future

“It all began when the economic system started to crumble. Not that it was a total surprise. A few people had been talking about it for years, and had been warning the few who cared. Most were so caught up in the consumption cycle they couldn’t imagine it any other way. Change is funny like that, if it was in existence when we were born we assume that’s just the way it is, and don’t question it. The operating system for money had been around for a few hundred years, so it seemed like it would go on for ever. But history teaches us that change comes almost unexpectedly for most.”

Where would these notes end up? he thought. The idea of starting it, offering a few words to get it going, and then letting others add and edit at their will, seemed delicious and a bit bold, yet he was reminded of his friend Pedro’s observation that “Wisdom comes from being able to see things from many different points of view”, so the idea of a collaborative writing project seemed natural.

One of the side effects of losing such a core part of people’s reality – money – was that it brought into question so much more. The structures of life and society began to be looked at with a quizzical eye, and reality was hard to define sometimes. Assumptions had become dangerous things that were often proved wrong. People were wising up by the time the coins and paper were gone from circulation, in all but the smallest of countries, and when the one world currency had been proposed, on the heels of the Amero. The peer to peer systems of exchange were being developed all over the world. As each community discovered its advantages, in generating value and building genuine wealth, they became the most significant stream of exchange, funding social services, schools, and infrastructure.

Ideas and ways of doing things were already flourishing. The big trees that made up the forest were falling, and while their crashing was a little frightening at times, the new light that came in and now hit the forest floor for the first time, gave rise to the abundance of creativity that would create the world we live in now.

Transition Towns Aotearoa statistics

Admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:35:28 +0000

Of course we all make our own unique story out of what we see, one that suits and supports our world view, but what I like about numbers is that it is easier to see things, then discuss how we see them and more easily challenge each other’s perception. My friend Pete Russell helped me gain a respect for the numbers, so here’s what the last year looked like for the website of Transition Towns Aotearoa New Zealand - www.tt.org.nz.

Here is the story I read into these Google Analytic statistics.

166,000 people in this country and elsewhere (44% came from 177 other countries), are up for serious discussions about the changes we all perceive and how to best respond.

The following list shows those conversations that grabbed people’s (your) attention.

They display a willingness to take a serious look at the financial issues of our day, a desire to support and discuss a current ecological issue and a desire to share knowledge and ideas around some fabulous examples of people taking responsibility – at all levels – from the very personal, to those with a wider community focus.

The solutions that show up here are very practical and local. suggesting people are perceiving and planning for a different kind of future, than the ones commonly offered by our dominant media channels, who would have us continue our reliance on global systems.

The top 10 articles

Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/1461

Electric Vehicle – Toyota Starlet Conversion
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/459

Video: financial crisis presentation
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/1370

Self Sufficiency books online
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/1514

The GARBAGE WARRIOR wants to build an Earthship in NZ!
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/1418

Fruit Tree Planting – Action Plan (Kingsland)
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/942

Community Power : The Waitati Energy Project
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/426

Transition Town Expo (Wellington)
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/1911

Enuf is Enuf – Poison Free NZ
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/2168

Waitati Edible Gardeners group
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/427

—

Top 10 resource pages

Local groups
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/groups

What are Transition Towns?
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/1667

12 Key Steps to embarking on your transition journey
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/12steps

Events
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/event

Forum
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/forum

What is a Transition Town — Island, Suburb, Community, Region?
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/18

Local news
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/localnews

Online Video
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/node/184

Starting your own Transition Town/Initiative
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/startyourowntt

Get involved
http://transitiontowns.org.nz/getinvolved

Gratitude

Thank you to all the people, who have contributed so much to making this site relevant, real, honest, respectful and an inspiration. The site has been hosted and supported by Rimu Atkinson, with only the most modest support.

Staying in the flow of gratitude, I thank the many people who have offered various forms of support over the last couple of years. Your donations and encouragement have allowed me to maintain an ongoing focus on this most amazing movement towards relocalisation of our communities. Together we have built a wealth and store of practical wisdom on this site, which will continue to increase in value as we reduce reliance on global systems and build strong, local systems, which use the wisdom and creativity we have been hiding away for a rainy day.

I feel privileged to have been able to play a small part in the spread of these ideas, and trust that the Great Turning is underway, as David Korten writes:

This is a defining moment in history, and in each of our lives: an opportunity, and a calling, to be part of an extraordinary movement toward a life-sustaining global community – the Great Turning

An opportunity to ‘go beyond’ what we know

Admin — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:17:00 +0000

I’m heading off to Prana Festival for a week, so you won’t get any updates from me for a while. I’m going to offer some talks and a workshop on the Transition Towns model and what I have seen as it’s unfolded in New Zealand over the last two years. I’ll leave you with this video and a few thoughts of my own.

The video is of Dmitry Orlov speaking for a hour unpacking and describing collapse of civilisation, from his perspective of having witnessed it in Russia and studied the trends and signs of it in the US.

Sometimes I wonder if the transition is going to be sudden or a gradual. Though I don’t spend much time pondering, as I figure either way there is work to be done and fun to be had, if we are to reduce the suffering that tends to accompany changes we resist.

“Resistance to change is the action taken by individuals and groups when they perceive that a change that is occurring as a threat to them. Key words here are ‘perceive’ and ‘threat’. The threat need not be real or large for resistance to occur.”

This morning a friend sent me a review of Stewart Brand’s book “Grow up Greens”. Stewart was the author of The Whole Earth Catalogue, and it was surprising to read his views.

Climate change really means Mother Nature is preparing to rid herself of humans. If we are to survive, we can no longer worship her, we must fight back with smart weapons. So we have to embrace nuclear – there is no other source of clean energy which can sustain our societies.

Ignoring for the moment that turning to nuclear seems like clutching at straws, I feel that Stewart’s suggestion that we need to replace the current energy sources with another source to maintain things as they are, is expressing a resistance to change, and missing the opportunity to ‘go beyond’ what we know (the familiar).

What is so great about our society that we have to maintain it at all costs, and use ‘weapons’ to do so? Sure there are plenty of great qualities in the human sphere which we can build on, but none are dependent on maintaining the level of consumption (of energy) that has characterised the last 50 years.

Consumption has been driven by an increasingly sophisticated marketing psychology and has been part of the corporate mechanism designed to extract wealth from a system in which a few grow ever more wealthy and the many become increasingly reduced to statistics. But this is no longer necessary, and we now have the means to bypass conventional economic systems, and create peer to peer exchange tools that generate real value.

If there is one thing we can do today, that would have a huge impact on our ability to ’survive’ perhaps it might be to inspect our values, because I suspect that if we do this for real we will find that the values we think we hold, are mostly tho se fed to us through the TV world of corporate media. If we change our consumption habits, end conflict and recognise we are all in this together, we have a chance to access the collective wisdom and design a new way of living that embraces and cares for all of humanity.

Posted via web from Transition TV

Something to jump out of bed for…

Admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:21:30 +0000

Rob Hopkin’s thoughtful response to the failed Copenhagen event.

So how about this, as a co-ordinated approach for the next time there is such a gathering, which will again, no doubt, be trailed as ‘the last chance to save the planet’? We (that is, those who care passionately about climate change and the need for a proportionate response), confound expectations, and stay at home. Using the web-based technologies we now have at our disposal, we co-ordinate an international festival of meaningful change. We stay home and insulate whole streets, create community gardens, work meaningfully with our local authorities to do projects with them, eat local food diets for the duration of the conference, live without cars, insulate our schools, set up an area of the settlement in question as a model for what it would look like transitioned. We start bringing the future that we can imagine but which is still beyond the comprehension of so many, into focus. We would have enough lead-in to the conference to be able to do something meaningful and which tells a powerful story. We could even chip in what we would have paid to get there towards helping to resource it.

Copenhagen in 4 short videos, led by Naomi Klein

Admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:19:36 +0000

Dec 9th – Naomi Klein, author, acivist, and columnist for The Nation, tells The UpTake’s Jacob Wheeler what she thinks of Obama’s language of hope permeating the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen. In short: The action and funds it would take to make a real difference are not even on the table.

Klein does find hope, however, in the new alliances forming around the environment. Organizations previously focused on international trade and poverty are starting to work on climate change.

Pointing out the obvious. The political will to bail out fraudulant bankers, and invest in war, is greater than the political will to support changes that could leave the planet in better shape for future generations.

Naomi Klein, columnist for The Nation, asks: “A lot of people say, give Obama time. The guy was just elected – what do you say to that?”

Nnimmo Bassey, the Nigerian-born chair of Friends of the Earth International, says: “Give Obama time? The world cannot afford to give any more time. Now we’ve come to the brink. It’s time for decision.” Bassey compares our current situation to a soccer game. We’ve had plenty of chances to address global warming, but now we’re at the moment of “sudden death.”

The largest climate change march in history

December 12, 2009, thousands of people representing a broad coalition of climate and environmental organizations, activists, and other civil society organizations marched from Christiansborg Palace Square to the Bella Center.

The goal of the march was “to work towards a strong, binding climate agreement that is both fair and effective to minimize the dangerous climate change.”

Despite some arrests, the overwhelming sentiment was positive and peaceful, culminating in a massive vigil outside Bella Center, where U.N. climate talks resume Monday.

Posted via email from Transition TV

In Transition – The Movie now on Youtube

Admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:32:49 +0000

I saw this film at a Transition Nelson event a month or so ago, and was quite touched to know that I have been one of so many people, who have contributed to the growing Transition movement here in New Zealand. A big thank you to the makers, for having created this film and now for having the courage to make it available in its entirety on youtube.

Watch all six videos in sequence:

Posted via email from Transition TV

Let’s Do It! Anything is possible

Admin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:28:13 +0000

"Let's Do It!" – a grassroot initiative to clean up the country from illegal waste in just one day. There was over 10 000 tons of illegal waste lying around all over Estonia and it was an outrageous plan — to clean it all up on one day! More than 600 volunteers were working to make it all happen with only 3 full-time employees. On May 3, 2008 with help of 50 000 volunteers more than 10 000 tons of garbage gathered and Estonia was cleaned up from illegal waste.

A friend sent me this and I unsuspectingly clicked play. I grinned, chuckled, laughed, cried and wept to see the power of imagination and collective action. 50,000 people coming together for one day to achieve something great. Sure beats sitting in front of the TV!

Some friends who coordinate Grey Lynn 2030, a Transition Towns initiative in Auckland. This kind of action epitomises the guiding principle they use for all their meetings:

Positive vision, Practical action

If you know of more stories like this, please let me know.

Posted via email from Transition TV

The Story of Cap & Trade

Admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:07:21 +0000

The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the "devils in the details" in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what’s really required to tackle the climate crisis. If you’ve heard about cap and trade, but aren’t sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you. www.storyofstuff.com/capandtrade

For a long time, I have had an uncomfortable feeling about the Copenhagen talks. I couldn't help thinking that giving "world leaders" a mandate to meet up and design some solutions that they think are a good idea, is like giving them a big stick to beat us with. Sorry to put a downer on an event that so many seem to be hanging their hat on as the solution to the climate change problems. This approach doesn't seem to acknowledge that the solutions are going to have to come from us, in our lifestyle changes, and by tapping into the collective and creative genius of motivated communities. This film has given me some of the background to why I haven't signed on yet.

Posted via email from Transition TV

Rob Hopkins speaks about Transiton Towns at TED

Admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:30:42 +0000

Over the last few days I have been posting a number of videos on the subject of money. The financial implosion is almost certainly directly related to the state of our global energy reserves. Since Transition Towns look the energy issue and its related Climate issue squarely in the eye, I thought it was time to hear from Rob Hopkins about how people in communities all over the world are responding, to these very real challenges of the day.

Oil – as we love it and leave it.

We’ve been astonishingly lucky [to have lived through the oil age]. Let’s honour what is has brought us and move forward from this point, because if we cling to it, and assume that it can underpin our choices the future it presents to us is one that is really unmanageable. By loving and leaving all that the oil age has done for us we are able to begin the creation of a world which is more resilient, more nourishing, and in which we find ourselves fitter, more skilled and more connected to each other.

Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition movement, a radically hopeful and community-driven approach to creating societies independent of fossil fuel.

Where I live in New Zealand, the Transition model has been growing steadily, and offers a means for people to get involved and take some practical action towards building the brighter future they know is possible.