TRANSITION: From Fossil Fuel
Dependence to Local Resilience,
One Community at a Time
by Michael Brownlee, Transition Colorado
Transition U.S. Webinar, March 23, 2010
PART ONE: THE CONTEXT FOR TRANSITION
[→] [GLOBE] Because of the process of economic globalization, our
communities—which have been ravaged by what we call “affluence”—are now at
the end of very long and very fragile supply chains on which we depend for even
our most essential needs. Our communities are vulnerable, exposed, at risk.
[→] [THE LONG EMERGENCY] Here’s why: Due to the consequences of economic
globalization, we are now facing three major converging global crises—Peak Oil,
global warming, and economic instability—which together represent a "perfect
global storm,” bringing with it massive waves of change, what James Howard
Kunstler has named “The Long Emergency.”
This is not just an event. We’re looking at global, long-term trends here. But they
will also give rise to short-term regional breakdowns, interruptions, and shortages
along the way. This is an important understanding for every community: we need
to prepare for both long-term crises and short-term emergencies.
This situation is unprecedented in human history. If we were facing only one of
these, it would be difficult enough. But the three together introduce dynamics
that have never been seen before on this planet. And like the citizens of New
Orleans in the face of Katrina, our communities are almost completely
unprepared.
How did we get here? And how can we prepare our communities?
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[→] [POPULATION CHART] In the last couple of hundred years, our human
population has exploded upon this planet. This has been made possible by
abundant and cheap fossil fuels. In this incredibly brief period in time, we've been
busily building an entire globalized economy based on the values of bigger, faster,
and more.
Economic globalization, powered by cheap and abundant oil, has chewed up our
farmlands, devastated our forests, made dead zones out of our oceans, dried up
our rivers and aquifers, and has spewed vast quantities of waste and toxins into
our atmosphere, into our precious water supplies, fouling our biosphere—not to
mention our own bodies.
[→] [GLOBE] In the process, we have lost our connections with the earth, with the
sky, with other living creatures on whom we depend. We have lost our
connections with each other, with the sacredness of life, with the natural
processes and cycles that are fundamental to all life. Some say we have even lost
our connection with Spirit, and with the larger Universe in which we live.
Without realizing it, our communities have given up the capacities for resilience
and self-reliance in providing the essentials of life. And in the process, almost
without our noticing it, we have been losing community itself—our most
precious and most endangered resource. This is all part of the cost of the
industrial growth economy (which is now beginning to unravel before our eyes).
And if this process were to continue for much longer, the devastation would be
complete—and the long list of species becoming extinct would quickly include our
own, and we would lose everything.
But the process of economic globalization will not continue for much longer. It has
just about run its course. We're now witnessing overwhelming feedback from all
over the planet that tells us that economic globalization is hitting a wall.
We are learning that we need to quickly reclaim our power locally, to rebuild
our capacity to meet our essential needs locally, and to learn to heal and
regenerate community locally—everywhere people live and work together. And
that’s really what Transition is all about.
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But there are some things that we need to know at this moment in human
history, things that will inform how we can prepare ourselves and prepare our
communities for a future that will be very much unlike the past.
[→] [OIL SILHOUETTE] First, we must know that the age of cheap fossil fuels is
rapidly coming to an end. Of the three main global crises of The Long Emergency,
the oil situation is probably the least understood, so I want to spend a little time
talking about this right up front. Understanding peak oil is critical to
understanding the path forward for our communities.
Because our entire global economy is based on an abundant supply of inexpensive
oil, and because we've abandoned the knowledge and capacities that we
possessed in the era before cheap oil, and because our governments are not yet
preparing for Peak Oil, we're in for some pretty dramatic and uncomfortable
surprises. What it means is that economic growth will cease and reverse course.
It means that we will all be forced into sweeping changes that we do not want,
and that we will have to quickly adapt to new realities. Because we’ve become so
dependent on oil, the future is going to be very different from what we have
expected.
[→] [U.S. Oil Production History] There is a lot of misunderstanding about all
this—especially in this country—because following our national oil production
peak in 1970, the U.S. was able to compensate and continue economic growth by
importing more oil from other nations. We have come to expect that we’ll always
be able to get more from somewhere else. But once we’ve reached global oil
production peak, the world will not be able to compensate by importing more oil
from other planets! This will come as a rude shock to many people’s
assumptions.
[→] [OIL PRODUCERS1] There are now 98 oil producing nations in the world.
[→] [OIL PRODUCERS2] And at least 64 of them have already reached their peak
in oil production and are in decline. And that is fundamentally why oil prices have
been rising so dramatically.
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[→] [DISCOVERY, PRODUCTION, DEMAND] The dynamics at work here are fairly
straightforward: Before oil can be produced—pumped out of the ground—it first
has to be discovered. World oil discovery peaked around 1960, so at some point
oil production must also peak and go into decline. Demand, on the other hand, is
projected to continue to increase. And this gap between supply and demand will
quickly widen over time.
[→] [THE END OF GROWTH—graph] Here is a broad picture of the future of oil,
which strongly suggests the end of the era of growth driven by cheap fossil fuels.
[→] [WORLD OIL PRODUCTION] And here is a more detailed graph from the
International Energy Agency that gives us a closer look at the cliff we’re going
over.
We can't say with certainty what the exact moment of Peak Oil is, or was. We
can’t say exactly how rapid the decline in supply will be. But we can say that the
balance between global supply and demand is extremely fragile, and that any
number of events could tip the balance to produce some very rough bumps in the
road. And we can say that the peaking of global oil supply is inevitable.
And we can say that until fall of 2008 the most dedicated researchers were
clustering their predictions of Peak around 2010. This was a bit alarming, because
the risk mitigation experts were telling us that we need a 20-year all out crash
program to prepare for Peak Oil if we are to avoid very serious economic
consequences.
And now, with the dramatic downturn in the economy and the reduction of
demand—they call it “demand destruction”—many of the top researchers and
analysts are saying that the world will never produce more oil per day than we
did on July 11, 2008! The Peaking of oil production, they say, is already upon us—
and things will never be the same.
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[→] [OIL REFINERY] Of course, we’re not in danger of running out of oil any time
soon, but from this point forward oil will be increasingly expensive and harder to
pump out of the ground. All the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. The
rest is of lower quality, requires more processing, and tends to be mostly
available in very harsh environments—like several miles under the bottom of the
ocean (off the coast of Brazil, for instance), or in countries whose governments or
population are not particularly friendly towards western-style development (think
the Middle East), or the so-called tar sands in the fragile Canadian tundra.
The impacts Peak Oil will hit us soon, and it will hit us hard in our local
communities. And there are very strong indications now that we simply do not
have sufficient time or capital resources to develop alternatives of sufficient
scale to avoid a prolonged period of intense suffering, even in this country.
Sadly, but predictably, our governments aren’t prepared for Peak Oil any more
than they were prepared for the recent economic recession. This is most
unfortunate, because arguably the world’s best risk mitigation experts are telling
us that we need an all out 20-year crash program to prepare for Peak Oil if we are
to avoid devastating economic consequences. And of course, such a crash
program isn’t even being considered yet. We’re very likely to get caught short on
this one, and it’s our local communities that will feel the pain.
[→] [HIRSCH QUOTE] The Hirsch Report (prepared for the U.S. Department of
Energy in 2005) says, "The world has never faced a problem like this. Without
massive mitigation… the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary.
Previous energy transitions were gradual and evolutionary. Oil peaking will be
abrupt and revolutionary." Unfortunately, the massive mitigation that the Hirsch
Report speaks of has not yet begun.
[→] [HEINBERG QUOTE] And so, as Richard Heinberg, the author of Peak
Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, has said (in his gentlemanly
way of delivering bad news), “It is quite likely that the time interval before the
global peak occurs will be briefer than the period required for societies to adapt
themselves painlessly to a different energy regime.”
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[→] [PREDICTION QUOTE] But, accurate predictions about all this are hard to
come by. As the great quantum physicist Neils Bohr observed, “Predictions are
always difficult, especially about the future.” However, there are very strong
indicators about peak oil.
[→] [OIL EXPORT CRISIS] Meanwhile, oil exporting nations are requiring more and
more oil for their own needs, thus exporting less and less to other countries.
As export supply falls, the price of exported oil goes up, which sends even more
money to the producers, who will use it to build their own economies and
consume even more energy, which will further cut into their exports. Meanwhile,
a growing desire among oil exporters to save some oil for future generations will
further limit their output.
This is particularly problematic for the U.S. With less than five percent of the
world’s population, we burn about 25% of the world’s oil. We now import about
two-thirds of our oil, so our most immediate problem isn't peak oil, but peak
exports. The gradual loss of imported oil will hit us first. According to Richard
Heinberg:
 [→] After peaking of global oil production, exports will cease in only nine
years, far faster than overall oil production.
 [→] Exports will decline at an accelerating rate, starting at about -13% and
ending at about -48%, averaging about -29% per year over the 8 years of
decline.
 [→] After the peak, only about 10% of all oil produced will ever be
exported!
“But what about alternatives?” you might ask. Certainly there will be many
alternatives to oil, and we will need them all. But they are not very likely to come
on stream quickly enough or at large enough scale to maintain our current way of
life.
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[→] [CUBIC MILE OF OIL] What would it take to replace oil? Scientists at Stanford
Research Institute recently noticed that the 84 million barrels of oil we’re burning
every day to run the world adds up to about one cubic mile of oil per year. That’s
a lot of energy. What would it take to replace all this energy?
[→] [CMO EQUIVALENT GRAPHIC]
 We’d need to build four Three Gorges Dam equivalents a year for 50 years
to finally produce that much energy in a single year
 Or 52 nuclear power plants a year for 50 years
 Or 104 coal-fired power plants a year for 50 years
 Or 91 million solar panels a year for 50 years
 However, in 50 years, with population growth, our energy needs would
have greatly increased
Yes, we’re certainly going to need all the alternative energy sources we can
develop. But we need to know that they’re simply not going to be available to us
quickly enough or at the scale necessary to maintain our current way of life. This
is a reality we’re going to have to come to terms with.
In any case, Peak Oil is but the first global crisis that we will experience in our
lifetimes.
[→] [KATRINA] The second global crisis is global warming and climate change,
which of course is directly caused by our burning fossil fuels.
Because of our profligate burning of fossil fuels, we have pumped such a huge
quantity of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that it has kicked in the
greenhouse effect. We’re now just beginning to understand that because of this
we’re pretty much unavoidably on track to experience at least a 6.3 degree
Fahrenheit increase in global temperature by the end of this century—even if all
governments meet their emission targets (which is extremely unlikely given what
happened in Copenhagen last December).
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[→] [TIME MAGAZINE COVER] Some writers have suggested that in view of global
warming, Peak Oil is happening just in time! Otherwise, continuing to burn oil
would overwhelm the atmosphere. However, as oil becomes more scarce and
more expensive, many nations—who now want the same kind of "standard of
living" that we have—will turn to coal. And because they're in such a hurry to
develop, like China and India are, they will be unlikely to be very careful about
their emissions or their waste streams.
China and India together represent a third of the world’s population, and the
problem is that they don’t want to ride bicycles any more. They want what we
have—and they're never going to be able to have it (but they'll try), and we'll
never be able to keep it (but we’ll try).
It's good that there is increased public awareness of climate change, but we must
realize that the media has not yet caught up to the science. The front-line
researchers are saying that the situation is far worse than we have been told by
the media or the government, and they're having a tough time getting the word
out. Some of them, by the way, are even wondering just how much of the truth
the public really needs to know.
[→] [HANSEN QUOTE] James Hansen, Director of the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies at NASA—who has had some trouble with the Bush administration—has
said, “We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten
years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Actually, he said this about four years ago. And we have not yet begun to
fundamentally alter the trajectory of global greenhouse gas emission. They have
only continued to increase.
If we have been paying attention to the mounting evidence—and to what our
hearts are telling us—it is by now clear enough that the impacts from global
warming are going to be far more severe and arrive far more quickly than
almost anyone has thought. So, not only must we cut our carbon emissions
drastically, immediately, but we must also prepare for potentially disastrous
impacts that are already underway and are projected to intensify in the future.
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[→] [AIR POLLUTION] Some things have become clear out of the muddle in
Copenhagen. First, the scientific consensus is that human-caused greenhouse gas
emissions are already having a devastating impact on the ecosphere that supports
all life, and this will get very much worse in the future. Secondly, we see now that
our governments are simply not going to be able to rise to the occasion in time to
mitigate the impacts. We’re going to have to learn how to adapt to the
consequences of global warming. Remember that the consequences lag some
thirty years behind the cause, so that we’re now experiencing the consequences
of what we were doing in 1980.
Part of the lesson of the failure of our governments to rise to the occasion and
meet the challenge of climate change is that we must address climate change
locally. And our communities are increasingly going to be looking to Transition
Initiatives for leadership on climate change. How will we respond?
[→] [STOCK EXCHANGE] The third great global crisis, inevitably, is economic—
and we’ve all been feeling it already. In international circles, for some time now
we've been hearing rumblings that the dollar is on the verge of collapse. Well, of
course it is, because the U.S. economy is based on cheap fossil fuel, and the dollar
is based on faith and trust (and backed by nothing else). And the entire global
economy is based on the U.S. dollar. The whole system is now tottering. Faith and
trust have been broken.
What we’re seeing in the multi-trillion-dollar bailout is just the beginning of a
great unraveling.
[→] [CAMPBELL QUOTE] We now stand on the brink of an unprecedented
economic discontinuity, and things will never be the same again. How can we
understand this?
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Colin Campbell said a few years ago, "The second half of the Age of Oil now
dawns and will be marked by the decline of oil and all that depends on it,
including financial capital. It heralds the collapse of the present financial system,
and the related political structures… I am speaking of a second Great
Depression." And this time it will be global. Campbell’s view can already be seen
as quite prophetic.
[→] [KUNSTLER QUOTE] Kunstler himself says, "The world oil production peak
represents an unprecedented economic crisis that will wreak havoc on national
economies, topple governments, alter national boundaries, provoke military
strife, and challenge the continuation of civilized life."
And of course, if it’s not stopped, global warming could have enormous
economic consequences as well.
In the fall of 2009, at the conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil in
Denver, Richard Heinberg summed it all up in a message that should be heard
around the world. He said,
[→] [HEINBERG QUOTE] “The apparent fact that the world has reached the end of
economic growth as we have known it is momentous information. It needs to get
to as many people as possible, and as soon as possible, if we collectively are going
to be able to plan for contraction and manage the transition away from fossil
fuels without succumbing to rapid, chaotic civilizational collapse… We have our
work cut out for us. We have very limited resources in terms of funding and
organizational capacity. And we haven’t much time. Now that the world economy
is in an unprecedented and probably terminal phase of contraction, future events
are more uncertain than ever.”
Part of what this means, of course, is that there will be no economic recovery. Or
if there is a partial recovery, it will be very brief. We are facing a long-term
economic decline, which will likely be punctuated by periods of turmoil. For an indepth understanding of the dynamics of economic decline, we highly recommend
Chris Martenson’s Crash Course.
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[→] [THE DEBT ECONOMY] Our economic growth (and this is as true in the third
world as it is here in the U.S.) is based on borrowing from the future—the future
of humanity, the future of life on this planet. As we’ve been learning from the
world of finance, this isn’t a very sound or sustainable policy. And now we’re
beginning to experience a profound rate adjustment on this debt to the future
that is basically going to put a lot of folks out of business, and a lot of countries
with them, permanently. A lot of notes are being called due, and we’re going to
have a hard time paying.
What we’re learning is that the entire global economic system, on which we have
come to depend over the last several decades, is profoundly unsustainable. And
by definition “unsustainable,” by the way, means it cannot and will not continue.
[→] [UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES CARTOON] You could say that with fossil fuel
depletion, climate change, and economic decline, we are facing a time of massive
unintended consequences—something like the figure in this cartoon.
[→] [THE LONG EMERGENCY] The point of all this is to say that we are facing a
very challenging transition ahead, and we must make sure that we do not
minimize or underestimate how challenging it's going to be. We must be
thorough in our preparation, and we must take great care to strengthen ourselves
and our communities—physically, economically, psychologically, spiritually—so
that we may actually be of service in the difficult times ahead and not casualties.
But this is not all bad news. This is not about doom and gloom, or bunkering
down and buying gold and guns.
What we're witnessing—and what we're engaged in here—is simply the moment
in the life of an intelligent species in which it has reached the end of species
adolescence and must make the transition to adulthood. This is very good news,
for it means that humanity is not doomed, or fatally flawed, or a failure. Far from
it. We must simply grow up—together. To do that, we've got to be very
realistic—not driven by either fatalistic fear or unrealistic hope.
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The bad news, of course, is that in our adolescence we've made some serious
mistakes, and part of our growing up together will be responding to the
consequences of our errors. We have messes to clean up, damage to repair, debts
to repay, relationships to rebuild, and wounds to heal. A profound coursecorrection is in order. The scale and apparent complexity of this endeavor is fairly
daunting, for sure. But once we fully realize the nature of our predicament, the
way forward will become clear enough and we will find the courage and
determination to rise to the occasion—no matter how difficult it is or how long it
will take.
Whether humanity passes through this threshold to adulthood will be determined
by us, and by others who are gathering all over the country and all over the planet
considering these questions.
[→] [HOLMGREN GRAPH] David Holmgren, one of the two co-founders of
Permaculture—who, by the way, is very busy these days—expressed much of this
in a very succinct conceptual diagram, charting the relationship between energy
consumption and human population growth. Energy consumption and human
population are peaking, partly because cheap fossil fuels are peaking.
He points out that on the other side of this peak is an inevitable decline.
Where we are at this moment is at the beginning of a transition from an industrial
growth culture to a culture of descent. This transition will be characterized by
much cultural chaos, and then we will be declining or descending to a far more
sustainable low-energy culture.
[→] [HOLMGREN QUOTE] Regarding this decline, Holmgren says, “We have
trouble visualizing decline as positive, but this simply reflects the dominance of
our prior culture of growth… The real issue of our age is how we make a graceful
and ethical descent.” It is no coincidence that Holmgren sees Permaculture
playing a crucial role in this descent.
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[→] [HOLMGREN ENERGY DESCENT QUOTE] Holmgren clarifies this further: “I use
the term ‘descent’ as the least loaded word that honestly conveys the inevitable,
radical reduction of material consumption and/or human numbers that will
characterize the declining decades and centuries of fossil fuel abundance and
availability.”
One of the most important implications of Energy Descent is that economic
growth—the primary culprit in climate change and environmental degradation—
will slow down (which is already happening) and eventually reverse course. This is
the economic equivalent of a pole-shift, and will shake the very foundations of
human civilization as we have come to know it.
[We should also note the implications here about population. There is a
growing consensus among key analysts that a sustainable human
population on this planet may be only one to two billion people. British
scientist James Lovelock says that because of global warming the human
population will be reduced by perhaps 90% by the end of this century, and
maybe even by mid-century.]
So, we can view The Long Emergency as a defining moment for our species, for
our communities, and for each of us individually. Our legacy—and the future of
life on this planet—will be determined by how we respond to the challenges and
opportunities of The Long Emergency.
Writers like John Michael Greer have helped us understand that The Long
Emergency is not a problem that can be solved, but a predicament of our own
creation to which we must now quickly adapt. In the face of such a predicament,
the desperate and futile search for “solutions” is both misleading and distracting,
and leaves us unprepared for the realities that are coming.
[→] [HEINBERG QUOTE] As Richard Heinberg once said, a predicament is a bit like
growing old. “You can’t solve that. However, you can choose to respond
respectfully, wisely and imaginatively to it.” Like ageing, he says, even a
fundamental predicament can become a source of unexpected riches.
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[→] [KUNSTLER CHILDHOOD’S END QUOTE] So it’s the end of childhood for us.
Kunstler provides a wonderful way of looking at this. He says, "Let us give thanks
for this extraordinary period of human history we have lived through. Let us
recognize that we are moving into a new phase of history. Let's be brave and wise
about it, and prepare to move on."
[→] [CARTOON] Our situation is not dissimilar from the characters in this cartoon.
So, The Long Emergency is the end of childhood for us. And whether humanity
passes through this threshold to adulthood will be determined by us, and by
others who are gathering in meetings like this all over the country and all over the
planet considering these questions. Energy Descent is our predicament, and our
opportunity.
[→] [ALBERT BATES QUOTE] Albert Bates, author of The Financial Collapse
Survival Guide and Cookbook, says, “The Long Emergency is an opportunity to
pause, to think through our present course, and to adjust to a saner path for the
future. We had best face facts: we really have no choice. The Long Emergency is a
horrible predicament. It is also a wonderful opportunity to do a lot better. Let’s
not squander this moment.”
[→] [HOPKINS QUOTE] As Rob Hopkins, the founder of the Transition movement,
says, “Inherent within the challenges of peak oil and climate change is an
extraordinary opportunity to reinvent, rethink and rebuild the world around us.”
This is a moment that is without precedent in human history. We're on the
precipice of global disasters of our own making that could forever undermine our
ability to survive and thrive on this planet.
But we're also on the threshold of awesome and entirely unexpected
possibilities that could unleash our largely hidden potential. The decisions and
commitments we make together in the coming weeks and months could
determine the outcome of the human experiment, and perhaps even the entire
experiment of a living planet.
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[→] [HAWKEN QUOTE] As Paul Hawken says, “If you look at the science about
what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data.
But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of
the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”
[→] [FUTURE ENERGY SCENARIOS] Energy use and population have been growing,
but are now peaking—along with waste and pollution. What’s on the other side
of this “peak in everything” depends on our response.
Some think we’re headed for an inevitable crash. Others believe that through
advanced technology we’ll be able to continue growth forever—but that’s really
a fantasy. Still others are hopeful that through green technology we’ll be able to
stabilize at about the level we’re at now and pretty much continue life as we’ve
known it—Al Gore is probably in this category.
The Transition approach is to actually design our descent down the energy
curve, dramatically reducing our consumption and carbon footprint on the way
down, arriving at a responsible, sustainable level of planetary stewardship.
[→] [THE NEED: ENERGY TRANSITION] Like it or not, we are facing a future with
less energy.
But what does that mean? Richard Heinberg estimates that (due to fossil fuel
depletion and decreasing exports) we could see a 25-40% decline in available
energy over the next two or three decades. He estimates that probably no more
than 25% of the quantity of energy currently being consumed can be replaced by
alternative/renewable sources in any but a very few nations by 2030. So for fuel
importing nations, like the U.S., it would be prudent to expect at least a 25%
decline in total energy by that time. A 25 percent decline by 2030? But that
would change everything, wouldn’t it? In brief, here’s the situation we face:
 [→] The challenge of global climate change makes a shift away from fossil
fuels necessary for planetary survival.
 [→] The impending peak in oil and gas production means that the
transition is inevitable.
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 [→] Our only choice is whether to proactively undertake the transition
now—or later.
 [→] Transition Initiatives make the transition feasible, viable and attractive.
[→] [HOPKINS QUOTE] But again, this is not bad news. Hopkins says,
“I believe that a lower-energy, more localized future—in which we move
from being consumers to being producer/consumers, where food, energy
and other essentials are locally produced, local economies are
strengthened and we have learned to live more within our means—is a
step towards something extraordinary, not a step away from something
inherently irreplaceable.”
And in this more localized future, we must make our communities more resilient,
less vulnerable to the profound changes that are coming.
[→] [RESILIENT COMMUNITIES] We’re learning that resilient communities, “selfreliant for the greatest possible number of their needs—will be infinitely better
prepared than those who are dependent on globalized systems for food, energy,
transportation, health, and housing.”
[→] [RELOCALIZATION: the pathway to Transition] The essence of resilience is
relocalization, which means moving steadily in the direction of:
 [→] Local production of food, energy and goods
 [→] Local development of currency, government and culture
 [→] Reducing consumption while improving environmental and social
conditions
 [→] Developing exemplary communities that can be working models for
other communities when the effects of energy decline become more
intense
[] [SNYDER QUOTE] Relocalization is actually a fairly radical strategy. And I was
reminded of this when I came across a line from the great American poet and
philosopher, Gary Snyder: “The most radical thing you can do is stay at home.”
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[→] [RESILIENCE INDICATORS] Relocalization is how community resilience and
self-reliance are developed. But beyond reducing energy consumption and our
carbon footprint, what are some of the other indicators of community resilience?
 Percentage of food consumed locally that was produced within a given
radius
 Ratio of car parking space to productive land use
 Degree of engagement in practical Transition/relocalization work by
local community
 Amount of traffic on local roads
 Number of businesses owned by local people
 Percentage of local trade carried out in local currency
 Proportion of the community employed locally
 Percentage of essential goods manufactured within a given radius
 Percentage of local building materials used in new housing
developments
 Number of 16-year-olds able to grow 10 different varieties of vegetables
to a given degree of basic competency
 Percentage of medicines prescribed locally that have been produced
within a given radius
But how does all this happen? How can communities actually make this
Transition?
I’d like to tell you the story of communities that are beginning to make the
Transition off fossil fuel dependence to local resilience and self-reliance, and the
birth of a movement that is quickly going viral…
(PART TWO: THE STORY OF THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT)
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