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  • From: lbsaltzman@aol.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Transition Town Initiative US
  • Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:31:23 -0500

I think to some extent Post Carbon Institute is intentionally merging their
efforts into Transition Towns, based on reading te-mails I get from them.? I
am involved in a?Transition?effort in Santa Barbara. I think that working
with existing resources in the form of individual?activists and organizations
is critical to the Transition Town effort.? TT does its' own training now and
that training is a starting point, but really this is just an implimentation
of Permaculture design principles for invisible systems, and will have to be
adapted to the needs of each community that attempts a TT effort.?

I am also a little concerned that Rob Hopkins concept will be followed a
little too literally.? Rob Hopkins himself is insisting that everyone come up
with solutions based on their own own local conditions.? He came up with a
template that has worked in small English and Irish villages.? The
Permaculture principle of deep observation still applies.? Understanding the
local community energies, ecology, culture, and available resources?will be
critical to success. Some of what worked in the U.K. and Ireland may need
modification in other parts of the world.

If you haven't read Hopkins manual do so. There is nothing in it that says
you compete with existing groups.? Transition Town is a plan for setting up
the community structures for creating greater resilience as communities move
towards sustainability.?
Some communities may already have moved in that direction farther than
others. that fact alone may dictate modifications to the basic protocol.

Like Post Carbon, TT really uses peak oil and global warming to make the
sales pitch for why we have to change. We are thinking of adding the economy
into that mix as well.? But we are also are going to put more emphasis on the
positive as well as the negative.? We want people to understand that we are
talking about changes that will lead to a more fulfilling lifestyle and are
worth doing even if we didn't face peak oil and global warming. I had some
discussion of this point with Larry Santoyo and perhaps he will jump in, if
he has time, and share his views? on this.

Larry Saltzman


-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Allen <thallen@nwlink.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:20 am
Subject: [permaculture] Transition Town Initiative US



Transition Town Initiative US is apparently growing quickly in the
US. No news there. My newly-formed neighborhood group in Seattle has
made application to join with them as an official site. This action
is complicated by the issue of non-profit status as we are also a
part of the Puget Sound region umbrella group, SCALLOPS. They and TI
US are, or soon will be, US tax exempt organizations. So it seems we
must be either fish or fowl.

This issue is of interest to several groups in the area. As I have
researched the TI US group and its adoption by Post Carbon Institute
I have created more questions than I have had answered. In
particular, the sudden demise of PCI's Relocalization outposts has
raised more than one eyebrow. So far, no one I have talked to in the
region's existing sustainability groups has any idea of what the
relationship between PCI and TI US means for their group, if
anything. But there is a consensus that there's no time to reinvent
the wheel nor form competing camps. There are groups in our area that
have been active for nearly forty years and would like to amplify
their efforts but not at the expense of entanglements they don't
understand.

Post Carbon Institute is rather new on the scene and we really don't
know much about it or Julian Darley, its founder. Any comments that
could enlighten us are appreciated.

--Tom Allen
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