One response to the global crisis that is gaining enthusiastic momentum is the Transition Towns movement. Jennifer Gray, a pioneer in the Transition Initiative in the UK and cofounder of Transition US, describes it as “a community-led response to the twin crises of peak oil and climate change. It’s … positive, pro-active [and] engages the whole community in building resilience into their world.”

Sharing highlights from The Transition Handbook by founder Rob Hopkins, she elaborates on a flexible twelve-step process to empower community organizers in unleashing the creative genius of their community and building an Energy Descent Action Plan. One innovative aspect is backcasting: envisioning one’s community in 20 years, and then designing steps to get from here to there.  [www.transitionus.org]

For more about this website and what is all about take a look at the page Why Transition Culture?. This section is to tell you about who I am, and how I have ended up doing this website. My name is Rob Hopkins, and I just turned 38. I did my permaculture design course in 1992, and around the same time saw Bill Mollison lecture in Stroud, and both of these things dramatically changed my life. I became involved in the Bristol Permaculture Group, and at the same time did a degree in Environmental Quality and Resource Management at UWE Bristol. You can find my dissertation, ‘Permaculture - a new approach for rural planning’ on this website. I then moved with my family to Ireland, where I began teaching permaculture and laying the groundwork for the ecovillage development we wanted to undertake.