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Permaculture Course Maya Mountain Research Farm, Belize 2009 (video)

(28 January 2010)
Tightly edited documentary that gives a taste of a permaculture course. This one takes place in Belize. Recommended by EB contributors Albert Bates and Jan Lundberg. -BA

Local Food — By and For the People (video and audio)
Janaia Donaldson and Robyn Mallgren, Peak Momement TV
What if the food system benefited local producers, nourished nearby people, and built a stronger community? Krishna Singh Khalsa of Eugene, Oregon wants to turn the food system on its head. He wants it to be run by, and for the benefit of, ordinary people — not corporate profit. He's exploring models of local cooperative, entreprenuerial organizations where people provide the labor, share and hire resources, caretake the land, use all of nature's abundance, support farmers and food producers, distribute food so that no one goes hungry, and build strong social bonds. Empower people, not profits!
(31 January 2010)

Rob Hopkins on homepage of New Scientist
Jessica Griggs, New Scientist
Getting over oil, one town at a time
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The founder of the Transition Towns movement explains why he is optimistic that we can survive peak oil and minimise climate change.

Can you tell me more about the Transition Towns movement?

A Transition Town is formed when a group of individuals gets together to ask how their community can mitigate the effects of a potential reduction in oil and drastically reduce their carbon emissions to offset climate change. The scheme has become so successful we now have 250 official Transition Towns and Cities worldwide, with many more interested in becoming involved.

Transition Towns have set up bartering systems like local currencies and seed exchanges; what other initiatives are they taking?

In England, Totnes and Lewes are setting up the first energy companies owned and run by the community - Transition Stroud has written the local council's food strategy. One group in Scotland has managed to get access to land for new allotments in their area and the first university scheme has just been set up at the University of Edinburgh.
(7 February 2010)
Chapeau to contributor Jim Barton. -BA

Transition San Francisco Recognized as 55th Official US Transition Initiative
Transition San Francisco, Press release
Transition US and Transition San Francisco announced today that Transition San Francisco has received official recognition as a Transition Initiative.
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San Francisco, CA, February 07, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Transition US andTransition San Francisco announced today that Transition San Francisco has received official recognition as a Transition Initiative.

Transition Initiatives start when a small group of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: how can the community respond to the challenges and opportunities of peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis? This small team forms an initiating group and then adopts the Transition Model with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to significantly increase resilience and reduce carbon emissions.

Transition San Francisco’s initial contact person is Ania Moniuszko. Their Initiating Group is comprised of a diverse set of individuals, each with deep roots in the local community. Ania said: “I believe that San Francisco is a unique place for the Transition movement to develop, and we are already at work creating positive visioning projects for what San Francisco can be. We’re interviewing leaders of existing groups interested in climate change and sustainability issues for a video about how we all see San Francisco evolving in the next 20 years. We’re looking forward to collaborating with organizations already working on issues related to transition.”

Bay Area Localize, founded in 2006, recently published the Community Resilience Toolkit for the Bay Area. Bay Localize co-founder and Transition US board member Dave Room said: “The Bay Area is highly dependent on a globalized economy which is not only economically unsustainable, inequitable, and dangerously out of balance with nature, but also highly vulnerable to energy supply disruptions and shortfalls. Transition SF holds to the promise of awakening San Francisco to the reality of our predicament and activating us to make our communities more resilient and equitable.”

Ongoing work includes:
- The Visioning San Francisco Project, a video which will feature leaders of interested groups sharing their vision for San Francisco’s development over the next 20 years.
- Speakers’ Training, a series of seminars in which half a dozen area residents are learning about peak oil and climate change while developing a presentation and skills to facilitate community discussions on the subjects.
- Steering Committee meetings, which have produced a “mind map” of needed actions and will focus on bringing them to life as a range of projects.

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About Transition US
Transition US is a nonprofit organization that provides inspiration, encouragement, support, networking, and training for Transition Initiatives across the United States. They are working in close partnership with the Transition Network, a UK-based organization that supports the international Transition Movement as a whole. The Transition Movement is a vibrant, grassroots movement that seeks to build community resilience in the face of such challenges as peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis. It represents one of the most promising ways of engaging people in strengthening their communities against the effects of these challenges, resulting in a life that is more abundant, fulfilling, equitable and socially connected.

Web references
Transition US: http://transitionus.org
Transition SF: http://transitionsf.org
Bay Localize: http://www.baylocalize.org
Brief history of Transition: http://transitionus.org/about-us/history
(7 February 2010)
Media please note: you are free to republish this story. Contact information at original. -BA