ThinkLady

Just dropped in to see what condition my transition was in

If you’re interested in the Transition movement but haven’t had time to read The Transition Handbook or visit the Web sites, you can thank writer Jon Mooallem and the New York Times for a terrifically reported, detailed and erudite article, “The End is Near! (Yah!)” (love the title) that provides a comprehensive portrait of this burgeoning movement.

Many, many provocative jewels here. Pros and cons fairly presented and questions raised (and we should always be asking questions!). Lots of food for thought in the whole magazine issue too, which has a green focus for Earth Day, but this story in particular reminded me of what good journalism is and can be … a reflection of society to educate, provoke thought and stir our souls.

Money quotes:

· What Reuter said he felt was wonderful about the Sandpoint Transition Initiative was how quickly it was rejuvenating people’s faith that the changes they craved were worth working for. “To say the group has only created a community garden so far really isn’t sufficient,” he told me. “It’s something really more substantive: they’re bringing people to the process.” … The movement wasn’t going to unify everybody in Sandpoint, he said: “I know that’s their dream, but I just don’t see it happening.” But it was inspiring for Reuter to watch the group emerge as one fervently turning gear in the larger mechanism of self-governance.

· … as Reuter saw it. “Government used to be the place in our community where people came together and made civic decisions,” he told me. “That’s what we should do again, and that’s what’s going to bring us back together: not having government be this force somehow outside of us, that’s bearing down on us or annoying us, but as a force that we actually embrace and want and that does what we want.”

· For a wide range of not-always-consistent reasons, people in Sandpoint decided that Transition could help them build the world they wanted. And now, only because enough people stepped forward and made that decision, Transition actually looked like a good tool for the job. They were picking it up by whatever handle they grasped. They were swinging it as earnestly as they could.

More highlights from the story:

· But those living on the land, whether out of a left- or right-wing ideology, do have a lot in common, including an astounding amount of resourcefulness.

· When I asked her later what she made of the exercise, Hellar told me: “First of all, I’m not a good-feelings, touchy-feely kind of person.” She added, “People wanted to talk about where we can put community gardens, how can we make our downtown more viable.” John T. Reuter, a Republican city councilman a few seats over, told me that when Berta told them to hold hands, he was looking around the room, counting up the people he knew Transition just alienated.

· Now, maybe because our various crises have escalated, or because it costs so much to disappear into your own parcel of wilderness, opting out no longer feels like a possibility. One of Transition’s more oblique arguments may be that we can’t escape anymore. We have to work together to remake the places where we already live.

· Karl Dye, head of the Bonner County Economic Development Corporation, told me, “All the things Transition’s doing basically line up with what we’re trying to do, which is create better-paying jobs.” He saw a lot of promise in Lanphear’s group, though he also said: “If you start a business to produce food locally and there are opportunities to make money by taking it to other areas, you’re going to do it. You may believe in Transitions and local production and local consumption, but hey, man, we’re still Americans.”

· A minister told me she was glad that Transition wasn’t “a greenie, hippie, far-out thing.” But Michael Boge, the City Council president, seemed to complain of exactly that, telling me he didn’t understand why the group had to cheapen a good idea by “inventing a new word for it and wrapping themselves in that catchphrase.” (The new word Boge objected to wasn’t “Transition”; it was “sustainability.”)

· Still, Boge, who owns five drive-in restaurants and is active in a long-distance motorcycling club called the Iron Butt Association, told me that he felt allied with Transition’s ideals. “I’ve bitched about this to my friends for years: we need to make a concerted effort to get off fossil fuels,” he said. “And I truly believe that with the country and God behind us, we can do it.” Transition was a prism, offering a slightly different view of Sandpoint depending on how each person turned it, but always shooting out lots of rainbows.

· The vibe was much more Alice Waters than Mad Max. (Jeff Burns, a local food activist who joined the food working group, was a conspicuous exception. “Some people on the food group want to feel good,” he told me, “and some people want to figure out how to feed 40,000 people in case the trucks stop rolling.”)

· Transition doesn’t claim its method is mathematically guaranteed to succeed. It simply posits that our best hope is to “unleash the collective genius of the community” and hope all the right pieces spill out. “We truly don’t know if this will work,” Rob Hopkins asserts in a mission-statement-like document called the “Cheerful Disclaimer!”

· “The genius of the Transition message, as I see it, is that it takes what we should be doing to avert these crises and turns it into something that sounds inviting and

positive and uplifting,” Richard Heinberg, a Transition U.S. board member, told me in Sebastopol … Heinberg said he worries that Transition risks losing people in the elation it inspires. He has been debating with Hopkins whether, in addition to devising a long-term descent, Transition should emphasize preparing for disasters that Heinberg says are unavoidable or already unfolding, like volatile gas prices or “being sideswiped by economic catastrophe and weather disruptions.”

· I was also surprised by the degree to which Transition members were intermixing with city authorities. Shortly after the Great Unleashing, Shelby Rognstad, a young cafe owner and an early Sandpoint Transition Initiative board member alongside Kühnel and Lanphear, was appointed to the town’s planning and zoning commission — a significant position, because Sandpoint was writing its first new comprehensive plan in 30 years.

Whole article here. Transition Town OKC project here ::: www.goinglocalokc.com.

Why you should save the dates for "We Shall Remain"

“A Native American taught me that the division between ecology and human rights was an artificial one, that the environmental and social justice movements addressed two sides of a larger dilemma. The way we harm the earth affects all people, and how we treat one another is reflected in how we treat the earth ... The movement has three basic roots: environmental activism, social justice initiatives, and indigenous culture's resistance to globalization, all of which have become intertwined."

Our fate will depend on how we understand and treat what is left of the planet's surpluses -- its lands, oceans, species diversity and people. The quiet hub of the new movement -- its heart and soul -- is indigenous culture."

-- Paul Hawken, "Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming"

Thirty-nine Native American tribes make their headquarters in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has the second largest Native American population of any state in the nation. Oklahoma's history, culture, its heart and soul, indeed it's very name is indigenous. As Paul Hawken notes, the quiet hub of this vast and vital movement growing throughout the world known by many names -- social justice, environmentalism, transition, regeneration, resilience, sustainability, localization -- it's heart and soul is indigenous culture.

On April 13, 2009, the first episode of a five-part PBS series, "We Shall Remain," premieres on OETA. The provocative multi-media project comprised of five 90-minute documentaries spanning 300 years, tells the story of pivotal moments in U.S. history from the Native American perspective. The series represents an unprecedented collaboration between Native and non-Native filmmakers that involves Native advisors and scholars at all levels, and illustrates how Native peoples valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture -- from the Wampanoags of New England in the 1600s who used their alliance with the English to weaken rival tribes, to the bold new leaders of the 1970s who harnessed the momentum of the civil rights movement to forge a pan-Indian identity.

Resources include an extensive Teacher's Guide for social studies educators. Air dates are shown below.

Spread the word, watch, listen, reflect.

We Shall Remain

• All times shown CST.
• Episode #1 -- The Mayflower, April 13, 8 p.m., encore 9:30 p.m.
• Episode #2 -- Tecumseh's Vision, April 20, 8 p.m., encore 9:30 p.m.
• Episode #3 -- Trail of Tears, April 27, 8 p.m., encore 9:30 p.m.
• Episode #4 -- Geronimo, May 4, 8 p.m., encore, 9:30 p.m.
• Episode #5 -- Wounded Knee, May 11, 8 p.m., encore, 9:30 p.m.

The coming ecological recession

A headline roared at me this morning. The article stated in a very succinct way where we are with regard to the earth's environment and resources, comparing our "reckless consumption of natural capital" to the current financial crisis caused by our over-consumption of living on credit. Highlights, uhh, low-lights from the article:

The planet is headed for an ecological "credit crunch," according to a report issued by conservation groups.The document contends that our demands on natural resources overreach what the Earth can sustain by almost a third.

... more than three quarters of the world's population lives in countries where consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal. This makes them "ecological debtors," meaning that they are drawing - and often overdrawing - on the agricultural land, forests, seas and resources of other countries to sustain them.

Devastating though the financial credit crunch has been, it's nothing as compared to the ecological recession that we are facing.

This chart in the article shows us which countries are overusing resources at the fastest rate, darker colored countries being the worst offenders.  

More here ::: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Earth on course for eco 'crunch'

What can we do about it? Obviously complex and comprehensive systemic change is needed, and leaders at every level of government, business, non-profit, and community that will make the concepts of sustainability and regeneration the bedrock of their core values, but we can start by simply using less stuff in our own lives. We can also work with and encourage government, businesses, manufacturers and producers to incorporate these principles into their processes at every level, pointing to examples like Ray Anderson, founder and chairman of Interface, Inc. After reading The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, he set this as his company's mission:

Mission Zero is the company's promise to eliminate any negative impact it may have on the environment, by the year 2020, through the redesign of processes and products, the pioneering of new technologies, and efforts to reduce or eliminate waste and harmful emissions while increasing the use of renewable materials and sources of energy.

Interface, Inc. is nearly 50 percent of the way toward its goal.

The rest of us can do this too!