Here’s an introduction borrowed from the UK Transition Towns website:
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)?”
In December 2007, the transition movement in Portobello arranged a public meeting to bring the idea to people across Edinburgh. Shortly afterwards, volunteers formed a Steering Group and working groups considered city-wide themes related to Transition (e.g. energy, food).
The UK Transition Towns movement is continuously improving the transition model, including ways to make it more effective in a community as large as a city.
Cities already involved, including Edinburgh, generally have a city-wide identity (our steering group and open ’steering’ meetings) as well as multiple local geographical groups.
As of early 2009, Edinburgh has the following local groups:
- PEDAL – the original Portobello group (info [at] pedal-porty [dot] org [dot] uk)
http://pedal-porty.org.uk/ - Transition Edinburgh South – Michelle Hipwell (m.hipwell [at] which [dot] net)
http://www.transitionedinburghsouth.org.uk - Transition Edinburgh Pentlands – Johanna Carrie (johanna.carrie [at] btinternet [dot] com)
- Transition Edinburgh University – David Somervell (david.somervell [at] ed [dot] ac [dot] uk)
http://www.transitionedinburghuni.org.uk - Edinburgh North – Helen Hanlon (helen.hanlon [at] btinternet [dot] com)
- Transition Edinburgh North Central – Brian O’Hare (bjohare [at] gmail [dot] com)
Communities who use the transition model work through the Transition Initiatives Primer to meet the Criteria required to become an official Transition Initiative (see links below).
If you’re still reading, get involved.
The Primer – http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionPrimer
The Criteria – http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/Criteria
Transition in a city? – http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/CitiesConference-UK-2008-WriteUp
6 responses so far ↓
Paull Taylor // August 30, 2008 at 8:51 am
Great initiative! Please sign me up to any newsletters that are published.
Karo // October 7, 2008 at 11:22 am
What an amazing idea, I’ve been thinking that Edinburgh should become a transition town. This is super exciting! A pity I’m away at the moment, but when I’m back, I definitely want to be involved!!! Please sign me up to the newsletter as well. Good luck and hopefully see you sooon!
Lee // February 8, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I wrote to my local councillors and Edinburgh central MSP highlighting the Transition initiative among other things.
Co-ordinated action from the 6 groups listed above will surely get the right people listening.
Greener Leith // February 9, 2009 at 11:41 am
It’s great to see city-wide projects taking off. At Greener Leith we’d be happy to hear from volunteers who’d like to get transition type projects off the ground in our neighbourhood. We’re going to be especially busy with food and transport type projects. You can get in touch via http://www.greenerleith.org
Cat // March 1, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Where does Central Edinburgh transistion towns meet?
illicfleems // May 20, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Great information:D hope to definitely come back again soon!!