“What would it look like if the best responses to peak oil and climate change came not from committees and Acts of Parliament, but from you and me, and the people around us?”
This is the question that Transition U.S. seeks to answer – an organization that serves as a central organizing point for communities who wish to be more sustainable, the Transition Movement wants to build community resilience in the face of economic and environmental challenges from the grassroots level.
The Community Resilience Challenge has four specific themes for communities; grow food, save water, conserve energy and build community, under which many local actions can be taken by groups.
Their website provides communities looking for assistance with guidebooks, tips, FAQs, and a recipe with the ’12 Ingredients of the Transition Model’ which includes things like re-skilling for practical skills like bike maintenance, building, recycling water, home energy conservation and gardening (or farming at a larger scale).
They also profile communities that are achieving their transition plans, like Charlotte, Vermont who recently installed a ‘Library Garden’, which is a community food garden next to the local library that turned some of their lawn into a food production space. Through community support the garden will be looked after with all surplus food going to the local food bank.
The Transition Movement is growing with over 16,000 actions of community resilience registered on the site and spread widely across the country.
