Welcome everyone to the Transition Town Port Alberni Web Log (blog)!

There is an effort afoot to the start up a Transition Town movement in Port Alberni.

We’ve had 2 meetings so far.  Our next meeting is May 27th.  We’re looking for more people to help get this thing off the ground!

The basic premise is this:  Climate Change and Peak Oil are big, ugly, doomerish topics.  Not fun to deal with, but deal with them we must.  And how best to deal with them!?

With a positive vision.

Just imagine for a minute the best possible future that you can imagine that does not include fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal, natural gas).  OK, it might have a little of each, but only exactly what we need, without being totally dependent like we are now. It’s  not really too hard to imagine, is it? In fact it can look pretty appealing no?  That’s what we’re trying for.

So that’s it, that’s Transition Towns… it’s a positive vision in the face of daunting challenges.   And rather than duplicating, or challenging, the environmental, social and economic groups we have now, TT tries to include those groups, because there are solutions to both issues that will naturally come from everyone, and we need everyone working together to have the best outcome possible.

Here are the basic principles. (taken from this big TT primer 🙂 ).  (I’ve added bold for emphasis)

1. Climate Change and Peak Oil require urgent action
2. Life with less energy is inevitable and it is better to plan for it than be taken by surprise
3. Industrial society has lost the resilience to be able to cope with energy shocks.
4. We have to act together and we have to act now.
5. Regarding the world economy and the consumptive patterns within it, as long as the laws of physics apply, infinite growth within a finite system (such as planet earth) simply isn’t possible.
6. We demonstrated phenomenal levels of ingenuity and intelligence as we raced up the energy curve over the last 150 years, and there’s no reason why we can’t use those qualities, and more, as we negotiate our way down from the peak of the energy mountain
7. If we plan and act early enough, and use our creativity and cooperation to unleash the genius within our local communities, then we can build a future that could be far more fulfilling and enriching, more connected and more gentle on the earth than the lifestyles we have today.

That’s it!  If you would like to know more, come to one of our meetings!  The next one will be May 27th, 7:30PM at someones house, email patransitions@gmail.com for more information.