Transition to Permanent Culture

Permanent culture is taking route worldwide in Transition Towns. Communities are planning for the fossil fuel-less future through the Transition Initiative.  Founded by permacultureist Rob Hopkins in 2006 the movement aims to address climate change and peak oil on the community scale.  Each town or village group audits their needs and abilities in terms of food production, energy use, waste and transportation, then work to create systems that promote the community’s self-reliance.

“As permaculture works with, rather than against, nature, so the Transition Initiative works with, rather than against, human nature,” said Jay Griffiths in “The Transition Initiative” in the current issue of Orion Magazine. She sites communities working on local food systems and collectively owned renewable energy systems while planning for “life beyond the car.”  There are even “re-skilling” classes to teach community members forgotten trade skills like organic gardening, tree grafting and traditional building techniques.

Griffiths highlights the “scale of the community, where actions are significant, visible, and effective,” comparing it to the triviality of individual action and the ineffectiveness of influencing national politics. Through action like this you can pick fruit from trees planted in your town’s park and buy-in on the solar installation going on the library roof. You can live the changes.

A map at the US Transition Initiative site shows 33 participating towns throughout the US. These range from cities like Denver , the first official Transition Town in the US to small towns like Stelle, Il.

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Elizabeth Ulion is a graduate student at Northwestern University. She is a SocialYell summer intern and is currently waiting for the worms in her compost bin to move to the clean newspaper side so she can clean out the beautiful castings. Tips? Yell’em out!

Photo courtesy of greenbk/Flickr