Here is some information quoted from respectable websites on Transition Towns. They are the best explanation available, so why re-create the wheel… If you would like to read more follow the links provided, but remember ot come back to read about all we are working towards in Australia.
What is a Transition Town (or village / city / forest / island)?
Here’s how it all appears to be evolving…
It all starts off when a small collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: how can our community respond to the challenges and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change?
They begin by forming an initiating group and then adopt the Transition Model with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative.
A Transition Initiative is a community working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question:
“for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”
Read more on the Transition Town Wiki – http://www.transitiontowns.org/
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The Big Issues
What is peak oil?
Peak oil is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, or more specifically, the peak in global oil production. Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, one that has powered phenomenal economic and population growth over the last century and a half.
The rate of oil ‘production’, meaning extraction and refining (currently about 84 million barrels/day), has grown almost every year of the last century. Once we have used up about half of the original reserves, oil production becomes ever more likely stop growing and begin a terminal decline, hence ‘peak’.
The peak in oil production does not signify ‘running out of oil’, but it does mean the end of cheap oil, as we switch from a buyers’ to a sellers’ market. For economies leveraged on ever increasing quantities of cheap oil, the consequences may be dire. Without significant successful cultural reform, severe economic and social consequences seem inevitable.
Read more from Energy Bulletin website – http://www.energybulletin.net/primer