The Festival of Transition is an invitation to think positively about how our lives could change as we adapt to the end of cheap fossil fuels, address the threat of runaway climate change and fix our broken financial system. 

Join in one of the Festival’s inspiring events or accept the invitation to conduct your own real life experiment in living differently on a nationwide day of re-imagining 20th-21st June 2012.

The city of Boulder, Colo., has won the right to take its power supply—and carbon emissions—away from corporate control. The change for Boulder came in November when voters passed two ballot measures that allow the city to begin the process of forming its own municipal power utility. The city’s current electricity supplier, Xcel Energy, is a large corporation that sources more than 60 percent of its power from coal. Colorado climate activists tried for years to persuade Xcel to transition from coal to renewables, arguing that the state’s plains, mountains, and 300 days of annual sunshine give it abundant potential for the development of wind and solar power. But they found Xcel’s take-up of renewables was frustratingly slow. Xcel is investing $400 million in its coal-powered plants, and its plans for renewables stops at just 30 percent in 2020, with no further increase until 2028.

Congratulations!

In a surprise move that could bankroll the Transition movement for many years to come, Transition Network can reveal that it is in the final stages of discussions with Danny Boyle, director of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, to buy the rights to remake <em>‘In Transition 2.0’</em>. Boyle, who saw the film at its preview in Tooting, London, stated “as soon as I saw it I recognised its potential for a remake. It would need recasting, but for me it’s the ultimate feelgood story”.<span></span></p> <p>“Negotiations have been kept under wraps until now”, said Transition Network’s Ben Brangwyn, “but we’re very excited. We’re really just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, and this seems like as good a day as any to break the news. Five years ago, when we started Transition, we could never have imagined anything like this”

Well there's a turn up for the books, so to speak.

ALBANY — The last time Richard Heinberg visited the Capital Region in the summer of 2006, oil cost about $70 a barrel and gasoline was $3 a gallon.

When he returned Tuesday to again talk about the gradual end of the golden age of cheap fossil fuel on which modern society floats, that barrel cost $105 and gas was tickling $4. Some experts are predicting prices could hit $5 by the summer.

Heinberg's message to a packed lecture hall at the downtown campus of the University at Albany: High oil prices are here to stay, global supply will continue its decades-long decline and a growing, energy-hungry global population led by China and India will bid up prices to compete for what is left.

A resident of northern California, Heinberg has been writing about the inevitable decline of fossil fuels, a situation also called Peak Oil, since his first book came out in 2003. His tenth book, "The End of Growth," was just released.

"We are going to have to get used to being more local," Heinberg said. "We will have to live in ways that some of our grandparents may have appreciated, and that we may have forgotten about."

Several hundred people at the University at Albany's Page Hall heard Heinberg talk about what might happen in the U.S. as a society built on a historically unique era of cheap fuel comes to grips with its gradual end.

He has set a specific day for what he calls "Peak Oil Day." On July 11, 2008, the price of a barrel of oil hit a record $147.27 in daily trading. That same month, world crude oil production achieved its all-time record of 74.8 million barrels per day.

Heinberg's visit was sponsored by the Capital Region Energy Forum, a seven-year-old, not-for-profit group that meets monthly at The College of Saint Rose.

Despite increasing efforts to drill oil in difficult to reach places, like the deep ocean, in underground shale formations and in remote tar sands, oil production has been essentially flat since 2005.

Drilling in such places, he said, is expensive and will continue to drive prices up. "The industry needs a price of $85 a barrel to justify the expenses, but anything over $100 risks triggering economic recessions, as we have seen," said Heinberg. In 2008, as the U.S. recession began, oil prices climbed to nearly $150 a barrel.

And with the planetary population at 7 billion people and climbing, demand for energy will continue to rise, also forcing up the price. In China, for example, the demand for energy is rising 8 percent a year.

He said that continuing unfettered use of fossil fuels also will drive man-made climate change. "We are negotiating with nature now, and nature can be a very tough negotiator," he said.

Heinberg's vision imagines a future in which people are less mobile (given that oil fuels 95 percent of global transportation), more self-sufficient and more plugged into local communities for food, services and manufactured goods. He said renewable fuels like wind and solar can make up for some of the absent fossil fuels, but those technologies are not currently able to replace a meaningful portion of that.

"This transition will be slow and costly ... Our lifestyle will be negotiated downward, and a lot of it will be kicking and screaming," he said.

In the short term, as fuel prices rise, people could adapt by using technology to make more efficient use of fuel.

For example, he said, smart phones and GPS systems could be used to coordinate shared use of motor vehicles in a kind of computer-assisted hitchhiking.

Areas could invest in small-scale industrial kitchens, so small producers of food could prepare and package their goods for the local markets. As a current example, he pointed to the Mission County Food Center in Montana, which prepares and packages speciality foods for a number of small suppliers.

But some discomfort will be inevitable, he said, pointing to what is happening in Japan, where the government has decided to ramp down nuclear energy production in the wake of last year's tsunami disaster that nearly caused a nuclear melt-down.

"They have decided that they are going to use less energy. You go into buildings in Japan, and the lights are on only in the room where people are working," said Heinberg. "And the buildings can be a little cold."

Mark this: Peak Oil Day - July 11th, 2008 - Oil production hit its peak of 74.8 million barrels a day.

What a fabulous idea! To celebrate the people who are doing some (significant) good, with our without wealth. And Rob Hopkins, founder of Transition Towns, is right up there, on the front page.

This movement, which you are either a part of, or curious about, is about going beyond dependence on oil, and actively building local resilience. What better focus of intention could there be in these fast changing times.

It's wonderful to see these heroes who are building a better world, be celebrated in this way, and what a delightful contrast to the Forbes Rich List, which has just been announced.

 

"According to Israel's NRG, in a just completed cabinet vote, for the first time Netanyahu has gotten a majority (8 over 6) supporting an Iran attack. NRG also notes that at this point Israel has decided to not wait until the US elections in November before proceeding with sending crude to the stratosphere. From NRG (google translated): "Israeli political sources believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a majority Cabinet support Israeli military action against Iran without American approval....He announced that he would not hesitate to perform the operation without the approval of President Obama..."

-- From other stories today we see that, of course, the U.S. is totally supporting Israel. There is no sanity or reason left in world leadership which -- from the perspective of infinite growth and an archaic consciousness -- sees no other option. Oil prices are already unbearable for economic activity all over the world. As soon as the strike is launched they will go to levels that will produce near-immediate and almost unfathomable dislocations.

And when the strike occurs, the only thing we need be watchful for are the reactions of Russia, China and Iran. Because on those rest the future of all life on Mother Earth. I see no "actors" on the world stage with the ability to prevent a global holocaust. -- MCR

What we are asking”, Rob Hopkins of TTT told us, “is that Dairy Crest stands by their corporate commitment of recognising ‘that the company has a valuable role to play in the life of the local community’.  We live in a time of localism, of communities now having a ‘right to buy’ and also a ‘right to try’.  We are exercising those rights.  Dairy Crest have tried and failed to sell this site to developers.  We are where the passion, the ideas and the vision for the site are, and we represent the best way for Dairy Crest to be able to unlock any value from the site.  It’s time to make this happen”.

See the website: http://atmostotnes.org/

Here's a great example of a local community working to take control of a valuable local resource, in this case a significant building. They're using a powerful and simple slogan and graphic: "The heart of a new economy".

When will we see some of this kind of action in New Zealand?

One of the most clear descriptions of the problem and how the solution could unfold.

A beautiful young voice, appealing for attention to the things we know need to change.