Making the transition to local, sustainable living

The Transition Movement is a worldwide network of people working locally to move away from fossil fuel-base infrastructure toward locally-based systems. Projects include community-owned renewable energy utilities, local food security projects and farmers markets, local currencies, conversions of lawns into edible landscapes, waste reduction, ecosystem restoration, social entrepreneurship—all things that cultivate resilient and healthy communities.
Don Hall, long-time leader in the Transition Towns movement, with a background in permaculture and organic farming, is author of the new book, The Regeneration Handbook: Transform Yourself to Transform the World. In the podcast he talks about some of the many successful projects of the movement, as well as the stages of development inherent in movement-building and social change.

Monarch photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash

TIMELINE
2’13 defining the Transition Movement
2’51 the permaculture principles at the root of the Transition Movement
4’32 1000 communities in 50 countries are using the Transition approach
4’46 community-owned renewable energy products financed by small local investors
5’59 using local currencies
7’08 Berkshares — local currency in western Massachusetts
8’54 local food projects in the Transition movement — community gardens, farmers markets
9’59 gleaning program in Sarasota, FL, got hundreds of tons of local organic produce to food banks and is still going
11’38 “Permablitz” program in Milwaukee, WI, converts lawns into food gardens
14’03 the structure of transition: innovators—> early adopters—> early majority (tipping point)—> late majority/laggards
18’28 the stages of growing a local Transition movement
24’31 how they worked with the local food movement in Sarasota and got it interconnected and visible
27’46 the economic/organizational model for the Transition groups locally
30’16 social enterprises that support Transition projects
32’04 many different approaches to resisting “business as usual”
35’32 showing that there really is a viable alternative to our unsustainable society
37’06 it’s not about going back to the past
38’16 rethinking what we do locally and what we import
40’19 what locally-focused living can look like
43’23 the role of Transition in a post-collapse society
45’34 transitionnetwork.org, evolutionarychange.org