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In Transition 2 (trailer of new Transition film)
Transition Network

'In Transition 2.0' is nearly ready to be unveiled to the world! We are very excited about this inspiring new telling of the Transition story, and want to tell you more about it here, and about how it will be rolled out over the coming months. To get us started, because we are so excited about sharing this with you, here is the film's trailer, directed by Caspar Walsh.

Hopefully that has sufficiently whet your appetite for what is a remarkable film. We describe it thus:

"In Transition 2.0 is an inspirational immersion in the Transition movement, gathering stories from around the world of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. You'll hear about communities printing their own money, growing food everywhere, localising their economies and setting up community power stations. It's an idea that has gone viral, a social experiment that is about responding to uncertain times with solutions and optimism. In a world that is awash with gloom, here is a story of hope, ingenuity and the power of growing vegetables in unexpected places".

It has been produced by Emma Goude, with animation by Emilio Mula, photography by Beccy Strong and with stunning original music by Rebecca Mayes. They have drawn together stories from around the world showing Transition initiatives at the various stages of transitioning their communities. In order to be able to feature some of the stories from overseas, they ran a crowd-funding process which raised the money required. An international team of volunteers have translated the film in 18 languages. Also, in spite of telling stories from around the world, no-one set foot on an aeroplane in order to make this film, local camera-people being enlisted to film each sequence, making this one of the lowest-carbon international films ever produced.

... The premiere of 'In Transition 2.0' will be at a high profile event in late March which is still under wraps but which will announced as soon as we can.

Unlike 'In Transition 1.0', the DVD of the film will be released around the time of the premiere. This time it will be a single disc DVD, beautifully packaged, and Transition initiatives will be able to buy discounted copies in bulk to sell at their screenings and other events. The DVD will also be available to buy singly on the film's website.
(January 2012)
Recent posts on the film at Transition Culture:
‘In Transition 2.0’ emerges blinking into the light
Five questions for Emilio Mula, ‘In Transition 2.0′s animator
Five questions for Emma Goude, producer of ‘In Transition 2.0′

The New Hippies
Barbara Dunn, Wild Tomato (New Zealand)
Down at Atamai Village in the Motueka Valley a group of like-minded modern hippies are searching for a communal way into future
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... From a distance, you could be forgiven for thinking that these people are a new wave of idealistic hippies. But if they are, the word “hippy” needs to be redefined. For a start, they say they aren’t being idealistic at all – just practical.

Rather than a bunch of long-haired, free-loving rebels wanting to make love not war, the people behind Atamai Village are astute businesspeople and academics who want to show the world that there is a sustainable way to live. And it seems, in the face of peak oil prices and economic collapses, their time has come.

While not philanthropists, neither are the developers in it to “make a killing”. All profits from the sale of land will go to the trust, which will then develop common facilities for the village. All property owners in the village will be members and beneficiaries of the trust.

The idea was first dreamed up by businessman and entrepreneur Jurgen Heissner, a German by birth who has been in New Zealand for more than 25 years. Jurgen established the Bio Paints company in Nelson in 1990 and, after selling that, went on to establish two computer companies.

Jurgen first became aware of the need for a quantum change to the way we live our lives after seeing the effects of rising oil prices on the freight prices his paint company paid, which doubled then tripled. In his view, the combination of economic collapse and climate change means a dramatic social redirection is required… one which is already underway.
(January 2012)
Recommended by Michael L. who writes: "an interesting article on a "commercial" response to peak
oil."



Time for Transition in Falls Church
Matt Abel, Falls Church News-Press
There is no doubt that we face difficult times. The rising cost of fuel is driving up the price of living and the our enormously interconnected economy has been sending shock-waves around the world. However, we often feel powerless against the forces driving peak oil, economic interdependence, and climate change. We fear that government is unresponsive and that individual action is not enough. Instead of facing these issues as individuals we can work together on a community level to improve the way we live.

The future without oil can be better than the present with oil. We can build genuine relationships with our neighbors instead of the people on reality TV. We can transition Falls Church to a self-reliant, sustainable, and resilient future powered by local food, economy, energy, and ingenuity. Instead of waiting around for government to act, we can act as a community of individuals.

This is the hope of Transition Falls Church. Transition is a student-initiated project that emphasizes a grass roots response to the greatest challenges of our time. By unleashing the collective genius of the Falls Church people, we can respond to the issues posed by climate change and peak-oil while simultaneously building a closer, tight-knit community.
(30 January 2012)
One of many Transition start-ups. This one caught my eye because the Falls Church News-Press is where peak oil journalist Tom Whipple first publishes his weekly commentaries. And it is close to Washington DC. -BA



Simplicidad para tiempos difíciles
Carlos Fresneda, El Mundo
"Irónicamente, la crisis económica está obligando a mucha gente a cambiar". Lo atestigua desde la lejana Seattle Cecile Andrews, mientras apura un té en The Green Bean, la cafetería local que ocupó el espacio dejado por un McDonald's. "Conforme la economía hace aguas, la gente se ve obligada a salir de la rueda de consumismo y a conectar con otra gente. Sólo así, creando comunidades conectadas, es como podemos aspirar a eso que llamamos felicidad".

La primera vez que quedamos con Cecile Andrews fue hace quince años, en otro cálido y agradecido café local (The Honey Bear) y en una atmósfera bien distinta. Eran los años "prósperos" de la década Clinton, cuando un nutrido grupo de norteamericanos decidió plantarle cara a la cultura dominante y poner en marcha el movimiento de la "simplicidad voluntaria".

El autor de 'Walden', Henry David Thoreau, era entonces la guía filosófica y vital: "Me siento agradecido por lo que soy y tengo. Es sorprendente cómo uno puede darse por contento con nada en concreto, sólo con un sentido de la existencia. Me río cuando pienso en mis vagas e indefinidas riquezas. Mi 'banco' nunca podrá agotarlas, porque mi riqueza no está basada en las posesiones sino en el disfrute de la vida".

Andrews nos vuelve a recordar las palabras siempre proféticas de Thoreau, que parecen escritas expresamente para estos tiempos difíciles: "La mayoría de los americanos están muy confundidos sobre la felicidad y han propagado esa falsa idea por el planeta. Creen firmemente en que si eres rico, eres feliz. La gente cae en la trampa de la competición y la independencia, hasta acabar terriblemente solos y endeudados".
(29 January 2012)
Cecile Andrews is a long-time contributor to Energy Bulletin.

"El Mundo (Spanish for "The World" ... is the second largest printed and the largest digital (elmundo.es) daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 200,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the digital one in 2009." (Wikipedia)

Cómo consumir sin 'consumirnos' en el intento
Carlos Fresneda, El Mundo
... Hablamos con Roo Rogers, coautor junto a Rachel Botsman de 'What's mine is yours' ('Lo que es mío es tuyo'), el libro-bandera de una tendencia conocida ya como 'consumo colaborativo', inspirada en un principio así de elemental: "Los individuos cooperarán para actuar en aras del bien común".

Se remonta Rogers a los estudios del psicólogo Michael Tomasello, autor de 'Por qué cooperamos', que ha sido capaz de encontrar "respuestas de empatía y colaboración" en los niños a partir de los dos años. Contra la creencia acendrada del instinto posesivo ("¡mííííío!"), Tomasello asegura que los niños son "sociables y cooperativos por naturaleza" y que son las "normas culturales" que aprenden a partir de los tres años las que les acaba volviendo egoístas.

Sostiene pues Roo Rogers que las sociedades occidentales, por mera evolución, han entrado en una fase de transición de la cultura del 'me' ('yo') a la cultura del 'we' ('nosotros'). Y vaticina que el estilo de vida 'colaborativo', hasta ahora asociado con lo 'alternativo', será cada vez más visible y más común.
(22 January 2012)
"El Mundo (Spanish for "The World" ... is the second largest printed and the largest digital (elmundo.es) daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 200,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the digital one in 2009." (Wikipedia)

Backyard chooks cracking the egg market
Sarah Elks, The Australian
THE humble backyard chook is giving commercial egg producers a run for their money, with the nation's growing backyard flock taking a chunk out of egg sales at the supermarket.

As the home-grown trend gathers pace, eggs laid in backyards are now estimated by the Australian Egg Corporation to make up nearly 12 per cent of the country's total annual production.

The surge in popularity of poultry as pets is felt particularly keenly during what's known as the spring flush - from the end of July until the end of September - when the weather's right and chooks pecking around the Hills hoist begin laying like mad.

And although Australians are buying and devouring more eggs than ever, John O'Hara, the boss of one of Australia's biggest commercial egg marketers, Sunny Queen Farms, says the spring flush results in his company's egg sales falling by 6 per cent in that period.
(January 30, 2012)
Suggested by EB contributor Michael Lardelli who writes, "Here is a positive story (if from the mainstream media in Australia)."