Transition Los Angeles

Transition Enterprise discussion - Aug 10

2011-08-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

What might a social enterprise founded on Transition principles be like?

In his July 18 conference call via Transition US, Rob Hopkins repeatedly mentioned relocalization as economic development. He hinted at the economic possibilities of new livelihoods, new training, new businesses, and how intentional relocalization could drive all this. And he referred to developing ideas within the Transition movement including social enterprise/Transition enterprise.

The concept of "social enterprise" has been gathering traction in the U.S. It's kind of like a hybrid of the business world and the nonprofit world. In its most basic form, there's the example of a gift store within a museum: the profits from the store fund the cause of the museum. In more complex forms, there are micro-loan businesses that fund third-world startups, bakeries that employ at-risk workers, and a myriad of creative examples.

The Transition folks in the UK have taken this idea several steps further to consider what the model might be like if it were founded around the types of business we need for a localized, post-petroleum, leaner economy world.

Would you like to join people who are discussing these ideas? Transition LA's Joanne Poyourow and John Tikotsky will be chatting about them and welcome you to join this informal circle on Aug 10.

prerequisite: read about Transition Enterprise here

Transition Enterprise informal discussion
Weds Aug 10, 7pm
Holy Nativity Church - possibly classroom 2 ??? (look for sign)
6700 W. 83rd, Westchester/LA 90045

Other potential resources

Mission, Inc.: The Practitioners Guide to Social Enterprise (Social Venture Network) by Kevin Lynch and Julius Walls
The Social Entrepreneur's Handbook: How to Start, Build, and Run a Business That Improves the World by Rupert Scofield
To Build The Life You Want - Create The Work You Love - The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring by Marsha Sinetar
REconomy
Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies by Mark Durieux and Robert Stebbins

Transition UK conference: Economics and business and social enterprise write up
Transition UK conference: Economy business and social enterprise theme session write up
Ingredients of Transition: Investing in Transition
Ingredients of Transition: Community Supported Farms, Bakeries and Breweries
Ingredients of Transition: Strategic Local Infrastructure

CicLAvia - Oct 10

2010-08-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

LA's first street closure for a non-competitive bike/ped/fun event is coming Oct. 10th. Ciclovia's are happening regularly in cities all over the world, demonstrating the important role that our roads can play in creating a vibrant, healthy city. Public streets are our biggest repository of public space and it's time we begin to use them as a resource for more than just moving cars. (Google ciclovia if the term is new to you).

You can see the 7 mile route it will take if you scroll to the bottom of the CicLAvia blog:

http://ciclavia.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/ciclavia-will-be-ten-ten-ten/

Plans are also being made for a Ciclovia in Santa Monica this fall, possibly on the same day.

Seed Library for Los Angeles

2010-08-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

"The Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA) has been brewing for some time – and it's not quite soup yet – there are hurdles still to cross. But it is closer to reality because The Learning Garden has taken on the challenge of making it happen.

"A seed library works very similar to a book library or a tool library. The main difference – and the real nut of the difficulty in making it viable – is that seeds are living entities having a life expiration that puts a whole new urgency into the program.

"Once you have joined a seed library – you check out seeds from them just like you would a book. You plant the seeds and grow out your crop, at the end of the season, you return fresh seeds, from your crop, to the library. The library benefits from being able to offer the next person fresh seed and you benefit from having free seeds. It's a win/win and it keeps Monsanto out of your garden and denies them profit from feeding your family.
(more)(contact SOLA)

Transition at Earth Day events

2010-04-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

The Transition movement will be well represented at Earth Day events in many locations around the greater LA area. Stop by our table and say "hi!"

Sat 4/17 - South LA Earth Day fair, tabling and mike (Joanne & Peter) 9:30am - 3pm
Sat 4/17 - Topanga Earth Day fair, tabling (Don) 10am arrival
Sat 4/17 Manhattan Beach Earth Day Fair at Pollywog Park 11am-4pm TSBLA (Dan and Janelle)
Sat 4/17 - Raw Milk Event, Mar Vista (Vidya & Agnes) 2-4pm
Sat 4/17 - Intro to Transition, Mar Vista (Vidya) 4-6pm Sat
4/17 - Ballona LETS kickoff at ECM (Joanne, Christine, Peter) - 5-7pm
Sun 4/18 - Topanga Earth Day fair, workshop (Joanne &
Bruce) 10am arrival, 12 noon workshop
Sun 4/18 - Local foods event in Culver City (Kay) 12:30-3
Thurs 4/22 - earth day events at The Learning Garden (Julie)
Thurs 4/22 - looks like TSFV is tabling at the Valley Water Fair? 6-9pm
Thurs 4/22 LA Green Drinks Earth Night Hollywood 7pm (Dan) contact TSBLA for details
Thurs 4/22 - Quest game at ECM, 7pm
Sat 4/24 - ??earth day events at The Learning Garden (Julie)
Sat 4/24 - Gardens of Gratitude events, all over W LA
Sun 4/25 - Gardens of Gratitude events, all over W LA
Sun 4/25 - Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase, Mar Vista at The Learning Garden & Vidya's personal garden (Vidya & Julie)
Sun 4/25 - Peter is stepping in as host for an interfaith event; afternoon, near USC

Presenters: if you need handouts or displays, contact the TLA core team.

Topanga Earth Day - April 18

2010-04-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

Core team members of Transition Los Angeles will be giving an "Introduction to Transition" session at the Topanga Earth Day festival.

The Festival takes place April 17-18. We are scheduled to present at noon on Sunday. If you or your friends are in the Topanga area, come see us!

The 11th annual Topanga Earth Day festival [is a] 90 percent waste-free non-profit event, [which] will unify people from around the world in celebration and promotion of ecological awareness, cultural respect and music on Saturday, April 17, from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., through Sunday, April 18, from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

The festival takes place at the Topanga Community House Fair Grounds, 1440 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd, Topanga, California, 90290

TLA on KCRW

2010-03-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

Listen to KCRW radio 89.9FM on Tuesday, March 30, 2:30 to 3pm for an interview with Transition Los Angeles' Joanne Poyourow.

more on Sustainable Health Care

2010-03-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

Transition Mar Vista held a sustainable health care event on Saturday the 20th of March.

After the TMV event, Anneke Campbell, one of the TMV event organizers, wrote:

We invited people involved in the health care field, practitioners of alternative healing modalities and health care advocates, among them acupuncturists, ayurvedic, yoga practitioners, and homeopaths.

We started with people presenting to each other the connection to health care of each person in the room and also what gave people joy in their lives. After introductions, we brainstormed, speaking out loud our burning questions, passionate issues, great ideas.

Looking at all of our input, we decided that there were three main areas to discuss:

The health care paradigm shift
Education
Direct care or treatment

These three breakout sessions met for an hour and 10 minutes and then presented their work to the group as a whole.

After this presentation, those people attending the last part of Saturday's program listed the following priorities:

A monthly educational/support program at the yoga center where people with health issues can come together to learn from each other and find support.
Monthly cultural health event - where we would invite diverse and indigenous folks to share their healing practices.
Mapping our community health resources - creating a directory of practitioners
Assessment of local needs and determining strategies to meet them.
Upscaling existing solutions - providing greater access to alternative healing modalities to more people locally.
Mobile health clinic
Creating healing circles
Story/telling: Recording healing stories and getting them out there - distribution
A program that would nominate neighbors with good gardens and restaurants serving local and healthy foods and reward them with a rating system.

These next steps were agreed upon:

1. Those participants who want to continue in the group will familiarize themselves with the Transition Town movement. This could mean checking out Rob Hopkins book, or or coming to our April 17th event at the Sivananda Yoga center, in which we will show the 50 minute documentary "The Power of Community" and explain the principles of the Transition Town movement and hold a discussion.

2. A followup health care meeting was scheduled for Sunday May 16th in the afternoon, to reassess our priorities, narrow and refine goals and begin to discuss strategies.

We also discussed making sure that our meetings have a healing energy in themselves, (in the nature of a healing circle) so that we are being the change we want to see.

You can connect with Transition Mar Vista and their Sustainable Health Care project here.
The Transition Los Angeles City Hub coordinates communication between the many budding Transition Initiatives and mullers throughout the greater Los Angeles area.
March issue of L.A. Yoga Magazine was about sustainable health care, and featured a front page, content-rich article with resources by Anneke Campbell

Sustainable Health Care

2010-03-08T10:16:00.001-08:00

A great article on Sustainable Health Care by Transition Los Angeles' Anneke Campbell grabbed the front page of LA Yoga Magazine's March 2010 issue.

"The conversation related to fixing the system rarely addresses the fact that many of its conventional elements – hospitals, drugs, treatments and so on – are unsustainable, and not just in terms of cost. They are unsustainable in terms of their toxicity and their use of resources. And however much we hear the word “prevention” bandied about; our healthcare system is solidly based on treating disease rather than promoting wellness." read more

The article considers which health care modalities might be sustainable into a resource-limited future. It also announces Transition Mar Vista's "Sustainable Health Care" event coming up on March 20.

Solidarity

2010-01-14T08:04:00.000-08:00

Solidarity
1. union or fellowship arising from common responsibilities and interests, as between members of a group or between classes, peoples, etc.: to promote solidarity among union members.
2. community of feelings, purposes, etc.

It's so foreign to our American experience that I had to look it up in the dictionary to get it right. In a session from Copenhagen's Klimaforum, May East (of Findhorn, Scotland and Sao Paulo, Brazil) asserts that lack of solidarity is precisely what is missing in our communities in the developed nations of the northern hemisphere.

We use the word "community" a lot, and we readilly agree that we don't have tight-knit "communities." But when we boil it down, what does lack of community mean? May East identifies it: lack of solidarity.

To explain this, she tells a story. (at approx 24:55 minute point in video) In journeying from the UK to Brazil, she brought her host a box of English biscuits (I think that means "cookies" in American). She tells how she had expected the man to take the precious box home to share with his wife and kids. Instead, an hour later she noticed the slum's children along the street: each one had a tiny fragment of cookie, and they were carefully breaking those tiny fragments into still smaller fragments to hand to their friends. They didn't have much, but what they had, they shared.

May East also notes how both the U.S. and South America were hit by major hurricanes, and in her observation South America was emerging from the crisis with far more resilience. Not just because of resilient "things" like we often talk about in Transition circles, but East asserts it was because of solidarity -- a common purpose, the same life outlook which had the street children sharing their cookie morsels. East calls solidarity "the fabric of your community."

Resilience and self-sufficiency

The Transition Network says that the goal of the movement is building "resilience." When Transition U.S. began its web presence (I see that this has since changed) it used to say something like "local self-sufficiency and resilience." This I can understand. In the elevator talk -- where you have 60 seconds to get your message across -- "resilience" doesn't sell; nobody knows what it means.

"Local self-sufficiency" rings a bell with people, because we Americans have cultural history there. The Pilgrims, Laura Ingalls Wilder, we have plenty of self-sufficiency stories, and the concept holds a certain glory. It appeals to the back-to-the-landers and to the peak oil survivalists and to the conservative individualists. It defines a clear position, and when used in conjunction with "resilience," self-sufficiency works because it helps to define the R-word. But in many cases, "resilience" remains about skills and things.

Perhaps the R-word itself needs to be modified. With "solidarity."

The missing ingredient of our communities

May East presented her biscuit story in remarks about what Transition in the developed North could learn from the global South. Within Transition we glibly say that we need to "build community," but solidarity identifies specifically that element which we are lacking.

In our current culture of peak-individualism, we have lost "common responsibilities." We outsource these to our government and nonprofits and expect them to handle it for us. Schooling our children, care of parklands, preservation of The Commons. It's not working too well.

In some ways we even outsourced our common responsibilities to corporations, and we are dismayed to discover that the corporate interests haven't upheld those commons. Hence the stumbling attempts to create corporate ethics.

In our culture of individualism and competition, we no longer understand community of purpose. In 4 years of activitsm in my SUV-intense neighborhood, I have so often heard the reaction "I'm glad somebody's doing this." They agree it's an important cause but they're happy to outsource it, and have someone else do the work. They don't have the time, which really translates into they're too busy competing in the workplace, competing for space on the freeway, competing that their children should have the best extracurricular activities and should get into the best colleges for the best future ...

May East's comments helped me to identify specifically what aspect is missing. We need to reawaken solidarity, that sense of common purpose.

Americans don't understand solidarity. We don't have a history in it. We don't have many cultural stories or models. Perhaps our closest example was the Revolutionary War, where colonists banned together -- but that same story is the source of our proud American independence.

And independence is perhaps solidarity's polar opposite.

How do we do it?

We need to become the kids sharing their cookie.

In reality, I don't know how to reawaken solidarity either. But I write this article so that you, as community leaders in this Transition time, might be alert to glimmers of it within your own community.

East says "we have been educated to compete." She says she doesn't know what it will take to get us to change course, change consciousness. I propose that we Transition leaders try the opposite: consciously educating people to be in solidarity.

At our initiating group in Los Angeles, we have seen glimmers of shared responsibility in our work days in the community garden. We see common purpose in urban harvest redistribution programs. The warmth of common interest bubbles forth in our community potlucks. I'm guessing that glimmers more will appear as we get going with noncompetitive means of exchange like time banks and LETS systems.

As we begin the New Year, I'm reviewing what has worked and what hasn't in the past year of Transition activities. Over and over my thoughts are returning to the simplest things. Our organic vegetable gardening class series has been a big success, not simply because it is growing garden knowledge (reskilling), or getting more people to try urban agriculture (physical projects), but because we now have a core group of regulars who know each other and recognize each other as fellows on the path. We are building relationships.

Our hands-on reskilling classes, whether those be pickling or breadbaking or building solar cookers, have drawn many of the same people. Guest speakers comment again and again how warm our circle is -- I'm in it every week, so it takes the comments of these outsiders to make me recognize it. This "warmth" is the caring and sense of sharing that people within our circle have begun to build.

As we go through the process of "year in review" and as we put together our calendar of Transition activities for 2010, we should be looking for those kind of activities which are most likely to build and further that warmth, that caring, those first glimmers of reawakened solidarity.

This article was reprinted from the blog at Transition United States.

If you would like to discuss the ideas of growing solidarity in Los Angeles neighborhoods, join our Transition Los Angeles discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TTLA/

Barking up the Wrong Tree: a brilliant piece about the economy

2010-01-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 11/19/09]

One of the most brilliant, well-written pieces I have read about the economy is "The Wrong Tree" (as in "Barking up the ..."). Written by Jerry Mander of the International Forum on Globalization, it is part of the introduction to the the latest publication of peak oil sage Richard Heinberg.

First, about Heinberg: Richard Heinberg 's Searching for a Miracle: 'Net Energy' Limits and the Fate of Industrialized Society is a serious analysis of just about every form of alternative energy and its potential (read: lack of potential) to fulfill our energy demands as we devour the declining second half of our planetary oil supply.

If you are a stranger to the weaknesses inherent in alternative energy, I highly recommend Heinberg's rather technical publication. I also recommend this short article. Heinberg's section "Transition Plans" (page 61 of the document, page 68 of the pdf) is good, albeit short. It does mention the Transition movement in a brief nod, which is notable given Heinberg's previously expressed opinions. But I do trust that Heinberg is coming around. You can download Heinberg's publication as a free pdf via the link at the base of the posting here (pdf 2.6MB).

But back to Jerry Mander: "The Wrong Tree" (page 2 of the Heinberg document, page 9 of the pdf) explains why the economy is not recovering, and why it won't recover. In the incredibly brief space of one page, Mander hits such issues as: operating on the wrong assumptions, resource limitations, the scale of denial, and the need for fundamental systemic change. It might leave you breathless.

Certainly there are full-length works on this topic, but I have not found such a well-worded, comprehensive, conclusive, irrefutable, brief explanation. In our Training for Transition we were introduced to the decline of the Industrial Growth Complex, but the explanation was leaden and at times vague. Mander is clear and searing.

If anyone questions you about the economy, point them to Mander's piece. And then be prepared to collect the reader's staggering form. Perhaps Rob Hopkins' "Coping with Your 'End of Suburbia Moment' " (page 83 of the Transition Handbook) should be included in fine print after Mander's piece.

Thanksgiving in Transition

2010-01-01T08:01:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 11/17/09]

Each year Americans set aside a date in November to “give thanks” for all that we have. Yet as we learn more about the reality our future, we realize that what we are living now is “peak moment.” It is likely humanity will never see such opulence and excess again.

As we plan our Thanksgiving holiday 2009, we can intentionally design our celebration as a time to raise awareness, to look forward, and to connect with the deeper meanings of life.

Give thanks for what we have had. What did you experience today that will become less possible as we experience energy descent? (hot shower, imported food, etc.)
What’s really important? Look deeply into the faces of family and friends around your table. Make this a special time to connect with people and with the life force of the world.
Look forward. Admittedly, life in 2009 is far from perfect. And the Transition movement posits that life after oil could possibly be even better than what we have now. What do you look forward to in the post-oil era? (slower life pace, etc.)
Transition to local. Take a real and concrete step into the future by adding delicious, fresh, local food to your holiday table. Shop farmers’ market for local produce. Check out garden-to-table recipe books at http://legacyla.net/edibleLandscape.htm#use Celebrate a taste of the future.
Give to the future. Donate some of your time, resources, or money to a resilience-building project or initiative in your local neighborhood. (one of our community gardens, a tree-planting project, Transition Los Angeles, etc.)

Head, Heart, and Hands

2010-01-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 11/3/09]

Anyone who wishes to understand Transition must also grasp its three essential pillars: Head, Heart, and Hands. Head refers to educating ourselves regarding the realities of Peak Oil, climate change, species extinction, and myriad other challenges of the twenty-first century. Heart refers to the “Heart and Soul” aspect of Transition which relates to finding meaning and purpose amid the swirl of emotions we are certain to experience as we deepen our understanding of the challenges and their implications. Last, for a very good reason, is the Hands pillar which refers to learning new skills that will be necessary in order to survive in a post-industrial world and taking action in our communities to implement the Transition model. Without the pillars of Head and Heart, action will not be sufficiently informed and may be ineffective.

Carolyn Baker has written the above, and a few other little gems about the Transition movement, in her article at the new "Transition Times, Colorado Edition."

Trading without Cash: a LETS system

2010-01-01T07:59:00.001-08:00

Goods and services can be exchanged without the need for cash!

Many Transition projects focus on "local currencies," possibly because the Totnes Pound has gained such attention. But many communities worldwide have been using another type of alternative finances: the LETS system.

A Local Economic Trading System (LETS) allows participants to get the things they need without cash. It's kind of like trading favors. Everyone has skills to offer. The idea is to figure out what you might be able to offer to the community, and gain what you need in exchange. It doesn't cost any cash to join.

Here's a great homemade video about how LETS works.

In the Westchester, del Rey, Inglewood, Culver City areas of Los Angeles, they're starting up a LETS system. They're collecting interest now, with a scheduled launch in spring 2010.

Resources
about LETS systems
about other ways local communities can share finances

Los Angeles area alternative finances:
Echo Park Time Bank
Arroyo Time Bank
Ballona LETS system

Sharing events with Transition LA

2010-01-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

Are you offering Transition-type events? Are you looking for help getting the word out?
We've had plenty of requests to publicize the events put on by other organizations, as well as requests to co-host events.

We'd be happy to co-host with you if ...

The event addresses peak oil, climate change, and biocapacity. Factors such as energy descent (aka powerdown), relocalization, The Great Turning, economic evolution, and social equity are necessary parts of the solution. While we understand that some events might emphasize one of these issues over another, the full combination of the above should be part of the underlying understanding or context of the event. (Example: Some events focused solely on global warming might endorse "green growth" or continuing consumption at current levels. However, Transition communities understand that powerdown and economic contraction are an inextricable portion of any viable solutions.)
The event raises public awareness, or retrains/reskills people, or is designed to get people to shift their paradigm, or guides people in envisioning a positive post-petroleum future, or in other way grows local resilience. (see the 12 steps) Along the way, we hope it can be full of spirit, connection, art, and fun!
The event is inclusive and free-or-low-cost. Rather than providing an advertising platform for commercial ventures, we are interested in disseminating educational material and building community connections. (see guiding principles)
We have an ongoing working relationship with you, the event facilitator. If you don't know us yet, come to a few of our events to get to know us and our approach to these issues.

When we co-host events, we include them in our publicity within our Transition networks (email lists, blogs, etc.), we share media resources and other resources, we help distribute fliers locally, and we help craft the context of the event.

"In Transition" -- bringing the film to your neighborhood

2010-01-01T07:57:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 9/10/09]

Last night's debut screening of "In Transition" was an exciting event. We had people from many areas of the greater LA basin and beyond.

The communities represented included: West LA, Venice, Culver City, Topanga, Santa Monica, Thousand Oaks, Calabasas, North Hollywood, West Hollywood, Santa Clarita, Valley Village, Sherman Oaks, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Rancho Palos Verdes, Long Beach, Irvine.

If your hometown appears on the list, realize that you are not alone in wanting Transition ideas to come alive in your neighborhood. If you weren't at last night's event, or if you didn't connect with local people, email us and we'll help link you in.

If you would like to show "In Transition" in your local community, here's how: Transition Los Angeles owns a copy (perhaps the only copy presently in the LA basin??) with public showing license. Select a date and place to show it, and let us know. You're in charge of A.V. equipment and publicity. We'll send the movie out to your site with a Transition Los Angeles core team member. After the movie, we'll help answer questions and facilitate discussion of the ideas in the film.

In the Transition process we don't show movies, then turn on the lights and send people home. The movie is the excuse to gather people, and provides a context -- a "gathering of the minds", getting people "all on the same page" -- for the real event of the evening: the community discussion. And, after all, that's what Transition is all about.

"In Transition" is a good, upbeat, introductory film. It starts out with an overview of the problems (peak oil, climate change, and the impacts that their simultaneous occurrence is bringing). It gives a brief sense of the history of the Transition movement. But the entire latter portion of the film is the good news: what Transition initiatives are actively doing to solve problems in their local neighborhoods. With film segments provided by Transition initiatives from around the world, it covers many sectors of society, including food, transportation, economics, and education. The film is good material for an awareness-raising event, as well as for invigorating and inspiring your local steering group.

Film hosting resources:

"Making the most of your public events," page 154 of The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins, for more ideas about how to show a Transition film.
We'll ask attendees for a suggested donation of $5 each (no one will be turned away for lack of funds). This helps defray the cost of our buying the film with public license, plus it helps support the ongoing outreach efforts of Transition Los Angeles.
You're in charge of audio-visual equipment. The movie is in DVD format which means it will play on a regular DVD player or on a laptop with Windows Media Player.
You're in charge of publicity. We suggest that you schedule your screening at least a month forward on the calendar so that you have time to get the word out to gather a good crowd.
Our narrative which we used in publicity about the film. This can be used for email publicity of the film, for website posting, as well as for drafting text for the newspapers (below).
Sample flier (coming soon) which you can adapt to your site and location. Put these out at local libraries, local coffee houses, any community bulletin boards, etc.
Local community newspapers Most have community calendars in which you can publicize a few lines about your event for free. Read their press guidelines, follow the format, and submit your info prior to press deadline dates. Many have online input forms or email submission procedures.
Remember that for all publicity efforts, only a portion of the project is getting people to show up at your event. Publicity reaps other benefits as well. It gains name recognition for your local group. It tells people that they're not alone in yearning for change. And it says, loudly and clearly, that good things are happening in your local neighborhood.

Movimiento de Transición (en español)

2010-01-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

El Modelo de Transición - ¿Qué es exactamente?

La Transición es la evolución de nuestra Sociedad desde un presente que depende de los combustibles fósiles, el consumo desaforado, la destrucción del Planeta y las desigualdades entre los pueblos, a otra realidad deseable basada en la localización de la producción, el uso de la energía y los bienes que se pueden obtener de manera sostenible de nuestro Planeta, la preeminencia de la colectividad, la recuperación de las habilidades para la vida y la armonía con el resto de la Naturaleza.

Lo que une el Movimiento de Transición (ahora ya operativo a nivel global) es un reconocimiento de lo siguiente:

El Cambio Climático y el Pico del Petróleo requieren acción urgente.

La vida con menos energía es inevitable y es mejor planificarnos para ello que ser tomados por sorpresa.

La sociedad industrial ha perdido su resistencia para ser capaz de hacer frente a los sobresaltos energéticos.

Tenemos que actuar juntos y tenemos que actuar ahora.

Con respecto a la economía mundial y los patrones de consumo dentro de ella, mientras se apliquen las leyes de la física, el crecimiento infinito en un sistema finito ( tal como el planeta tierra ) simplemente no es posible.

Nosotros demostramos niveles fenomenales de ingenio e inteligencia según corríamos sobre la curva de energía en los últimos 150 años, y no hay razón por la cual no podamos usar estas cualidades, y más, según tomamos nuestro camino hacia abajo desde el pico de la montaña energética.

Si planificamos y actuamos suficientemente pronto, y usamos nuestra creatividad y cooperación para desatar el genio dentro de nuestras comunidades locales, entonces podemos construir un futuro que puede ser mucho más satisfactorio y enriquecedor, más conectado y más amable con la tierra que el estilo de vida que tenemos hoy.

What is a "Transition Salon"?

2010-01-01T07:55:00.001-08:00

A "Transition Salon" is our name for an informal gathering about Transition ideas. Here you can meet like-minded individuals and explore these topics at a deeper level.

Topics we might focus on include:

issues of how to set up a local Transition group
issues of leading a local group (gaining attendance, publicity, web presence, creating events, etc.)
area-wide issues, such as area-wide political action
area-wide vision and direction
creating city hub level events

The actual topics covered at each Salon vary widely depending upon who attends and what topics they are yearning to discuss.

Discussion at Transition Salons is conducted at an intermediate-to-advanced level of understanding of Transition concepts. If you are new to Transition ideas, please attend one of our introductory events first.

What is "Open Agenda"?

2010-01-01T07:55:00.000-08:00

"Open Agenda" is a technique described on p. 164 of the Transition Handbook in the part about "Designing Productive meetings".

It's a way of assuring that the the meeting is about the things that are important to the people who showed up at the meeting. We've used the technique often at Transition Los Angeles and it works really well.

We brainstorm what people would like to be on the Agenda for the meeting.
We go through that list and prioritize items, dismiss those that can wait until the next meeting, deal with those that require simple answer or brief agreement, then allocate time to the discussion of each remaining subject.

Rob Hopkins on Open Agendas:
The danger in prepared agendas is that there is a sense that somewhere "they" have set the agenda for the meeting and have decided in advance what will be discussed and even what will be decided. It is centrally important that any sense of this kind of hijacking of the group's intentions is overcome. We start the meeting with a blank sheet of flip-chart paper, and as we do the introductory go-round, we write up the issues and questions that people want to see put on the agenda.

Alternative currencies

2010-01-01T07:54:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 6/19/09]

As TLA begins to study the realm of alternative currencies and alternative finance, there are existing resources in our area:

FreeCycle

Los Angeles (includes Mar Vista, Culver City)
Brentwood
Lawndale
Manhattan Beach
North Hollywood
Northridge
Redondo Beach
Santa Monica
Torrance

Time Banks

Echo Park Time Bank
Arroyo Time Bank (Pasadena, Northeast LA)

TLA Vision work

2010-01-01T07:53:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 6/18/09]

At our Transition Los Angeles core team meeting, we had fun with a visioning exercise.

We imagined being in June 2014, a mere 5 years from now. Perhaps it's a mention in the Los Angeles Times. Perhaps it's an article in a local paper like the Argonaut. Perhaps it's a man on the street or at farmer's market.

He says "Transition Los Angeles? Oh, they're the ones who ...

Helped start community gardens, garden guerilla movement
Had that great tshirt with the car logo
Held that great demonstration that closed the 405 freeway
Got rid of the lawns
Organized a great green film festival
Helped insulate LA from the recession/depression the rest of the country is experiencing
started our own currency
Took over buildings as reskilling centers for handcrafted goodies, jam, vegetarian meals
Woke up city hall
Got all the kids up on water issues (and more)
Inspired schools to have classes in this stuff, transformed education
Created alternative medicine clinics & academies at schools
Introduced car-free days
Got bikeshare pods going (carshare, zipcar)
Got rid of 25% of car parking spaces/car parks and turned them into green space or food gardens
Converted parking garages to root cellars and mushroom gardens
Got the busses to be free
Got a program going installing the really big cistern systems
made solar cookers/rocket stoves ordinary instead of people thinking they were weird
Opened a green store in Mar Vista where you could get toilets, etc
Helped make LA self-sufficient in water
Planted/harvested a million fruit trees
Created that great movie Legacy
Started the “Made in LA” label
Inspired a whole lot of gardeners
Trained all the Latino gardeners to turn LA into market gardens
Created small local-scale solar power centers
Got us to rethink our sense of consumerism, and change to locally crafted clothing and essential stuff that could be repaired
Turned LA back into lots of little villages

Climate Change forecasts for Los Angeles

2010-01-01T07:51:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 5/15/09]

See the great little animation of 350 on YouTube (:90)

Scientists now say that "the global sea level will ... rise about 10 feet (3 meters) if the West Antarctic ice sheet collapses. ... the maximum increase is expected along the East and West Coasts of the United States, where the water could rise as much as 25 percent more than in other regions."

What will that look like in Los Angeles? Take a look at this site and play with the variables from 3m to 6m. This map shows the high tide line (shaded). Keep in mind that storm tide lines would be well above that.

At 4m (3m forecast + 25% = 3.75, close to 4m) the map shows that we will lose much of the Santa Monica and Venice beaches, and much of the Venice and Playa Vista areas will be underwater regularly. Even some portions of LAX property show sea level threats.

This is important as we plan our Transition Initiatives and long term plans, and also as far as our awareness-raising efforts for the twin crises of climate change and peak oil.

Our TLA Political Action team is currently generating ideas to join the awareness-raising efforts of 350.org and participate in their Oct 24 Climate Awareness Day of Action.

Articles about Transition

2010-01-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

There have been many articles about the Transition movement in major media. The following give a good "taste" of what the Transition concept is about:

"The Transition Initiative"
Orion Magazine (national), June-July 2009
"Part of the genius of the movement rests in its acute and kind psychology. It acknowledges the emotional effect of these issues ..."

"Cheer Up, It's Going to Get Worse"
Bohemian (Sonoma/Marin), June 2009
"residents and neighbors are putting their heads together and collaborating on ways to relocalize themselves, bolster self-sufficiency and build the resilience that communities will need to absorb the shock of peak oil"

"Do Worry, Be Happy"
Elle (national), April 2009
"What attracted me to Transition, as the movement is called, was the word resilience, with its implications of being skilled, being ready, being confident, and therefore being optimistic"

"Life After Oil"
Whole Life Times (national), April 2009
"the phenomenon of Transition, ... starts with the idea that our triple-latte, two-hour commute, plugged-in and gassed-up way of life is on borrowed time."

"Communities Plan for a Low Energy Future"
Christian Science Monitor (national), Sept 2008
"The Transition movement is high-concept and hands-on, combining homespun common sense and camaraderie (bread-baking workshops, “seed-sharing Sundays”) and sophisticated 21st-century organizing (Skype audio conferencing, online wikis, open space technology)."

Snapshot as of late March 2009

2010-01-01T07:48:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 3/27/09]

Just a small part of all that Transition Los Angeles has been up to ...

Our Harvest Westchester got on the 6pm news in Los Angeles. http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Group_Shares_Unharvested_Fruit_Los_Angeles.html The Harvest Westchester idea is a "physical manifestation" of Transition that came about when some of our group members heard about Rob Hopkins' nut trees campaign. Nut trees don't grow well in Southern California (insufficient chill), but fruit trees surely do! Of course the news media edits heavily and only focuses on a small part of the big picture of what is going on -- they focused on the donation-to-charity concept, when it was originally conceived as a way to share local produce between community members with the excess going to the food bank. The Environmental Change-Makers group mentioned in the piece is the initiating group for Transition ideas for many areas of Los Angeles.

Transition Los Angeles city hub http://TransitionLA.blogspot.com
Environmental Change-Makers (initating group) www.EnviroChangeMakers.org
Harvest Westchester fruit harvest project www.HarvestWestchester.org

That evening, our Westchester pod held a Reskilling class - a breadbaking workshop. Over 60 people attended, plus many children. Everyone had a chance to knead bread and learn what it feels like. We made sure everyone got flour on their hands and their clothes! Then we had a community gathering/party during the dough's first rise.

photos available later today - they'll appear at http://www.flickr.com/photos/31378610%40N06/

Meanwhile, in addition to maintaining the 2 community gardens which were part of Transition initiating actions within the city hub, TLA group members are now helping 4 other community gardens break ground. One of our local pods is planning a massive Gardens of Gratitude unleashing project for May 16 & 17, as well as working on the idea of an urban CSA which raises food spaces which used to be front lawns.

The Learning Garden, Venice, CA http://www.thelearninggarden.org/
Community Garden at Holy Nativity, Westchester, CA http://holynativityparish.org/wordpress/
Urban CSA projects: Westside Permies, Santa Monica & West LA http://westsidepermies.ning.com
Gardens of Gratitude project (by Westside Permies, Santa Monica & West LA) http://www.gardensofgratitude.com/

Not to leave out our Heart & Soul committees, we have a full-day retreat/workshop in the style of Joanna Macy scheduled for tomorrow. It will be given by Marilyn Stoner, a student of Joanna Macy.

We have many Awareness Raising talks scheduled at venues around the greater Los Angeles area, so many that we had to establish a speaker's bureau to handle the demand. We're working with existing organizations within the area -- both environmental organizations and non-enviro ones. These Transition Talks often give rise to new "pods" (our Los Angeles term for local spots of Transition activity within the massive geography of the city).

Our "Transition Cities" page which tells about how we're organizing Transition in a city the scale of Los Angeles http://envirochangemakers.org/TLA/TransitionCities.htm

[as reported to Transition US]

Join the Transition Los Angeles announcements list at http://groups.google.com/group/transition-los-angeles

Join the Transition in Los Angeles discussion list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TTLA

We're official!

2010-01-01T07:47:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 3/1/09]

Transition Los Angeles is now an "official" Transition Initiative with the Transition Network.

Our wiki page is here .

Snapshot as of late February 2009

2010-01-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

[originally posted 2/27/09]

For last night's core team meeting, we created a snapshot of where Transition is at in Los Angeles. Wow, what a lot has happened in these two months!

Read about it here -- local pods, events, working groups, recent accomplishments, and more!

TLA Speaker's bureau

2010-01-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

Looking for speakers or presentations on the Transition movement? Need someone for a booth or table at your fair or event? You've come to the right place. TLA's Speakers Bureau was created to share the experiences of our Transition Los Angeles group with local communities.

Our Speakers

Our speakers are "grassroots veterans," active in implementing Transition Initiatives both in their local communities and in our TLA area-wide efforts. These individuals are well-versed not only in the problems (climate change, peak oil, and biocapacity), but also their potential solutions (relocalization, reduced consumerism, reskilling, and the 12 steps of Transition). Many of our speakers have attended a Training for Transition given by the international Transition Network.

Our Topics

When Transition Los Angeles speakers give a presentation -- whether it's 15 minutes or more than an hour -- we always try to cover the following:

Why peak oil and climate change must be considered simultaneously
Why rebuilding community resilience is as important as cutting carbon emissions
Another world is possible: the power of a positive vision, and the progress already underway

Transition Los Angeles speakers can talk about a number of environmental issues, depending on the level of knowledge of your group. No matter what the specific title of the talk is, we always try to work in the above points.

Further details are available here. (link coming)

Rob Hopkins' letter to L.A.

2010-01-01T07:44:00.001-08:00

As part of our September 2008 "Life After Oil" event, Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Towns movement, wrote the following letter to Los Angeles:

"A while ago here in Totnes in Devon, a group came to see me from Brazil. They asked if the Transition model would work in Brazil. I asked where in Brazil, and they said Sao Paolo. "You mean you're asking if a model that works in a town of 8,000 people will work in a city of 10 million people? I have no idea". And I don't. I have no way mentally of imagining anywhere that big. LA is even bigger, and so likewise, I cannot guarantee that what we have developed here will be successful.

I do know that here in the UK, the way urban Transition projects (and there are many of them now) are working is to break the city into neighbourhoods and then train, inspire and network them. Working at the neighbourhood scale means working at a scale people feel they can influence. They are developing many new tools and approaches, and this is what is exciting about Transition, we are all making this up as we go along.

I would suggest you don't call what you are doing Transition Town LA. You aren't a town, you are a city, and that is something to celebrate. Transition City LA. We need to find ways of reclaiming what it means to live in a sustainable city, not just wish it were a town. In doing this work you will develop your own tools, your own insights, your own vocabulary. The work you are starting to do is seminally important. You are pioneers, doing some of the most important work to be undertaken anywhere. I wish you well, and please keep the rest of the many hundreds of communities around the world also doing Transition work posted as to your successes, and perhaps most importantly your failures. We tend not to talk about those, but they are just as, if not more, rich with potential for learning.

The Transition of the next 10 years will be from a time when one's sense of wellbeing, prowess, economic status and social standing directly correlated to one's amount of oil consumption, to one where one's degree of oil dependency is also one's degree of vulnerability. This is an astonishing shift for somewhere like LA, but it CAN be done, and the more playful, historic and empowering we can make the shift, the more likely it will be to happen, and the more likely we are to make it. All power to your collective elbows. "

--Rob Hopkins, for the “Life After Oil” event,
Los Angeles, September 2008

What is a "pod"?

2010-01-01T07:44:00.000-08:00

A "pod" is our term for a local area within the Los Angeles area which is actively working to implement Transition ideas.

Due to the size of Los Angeles (approx. 10 million people in the county), "Transition Los Angeles" is instantly by definition a regional-level effort.

Within the area that comprises Los Angeles, we've organized our Transition efforts in "pods." These pods might be from any of the following:

pods based on existing FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATIONS like churches, schools, community groups, Rotary -- places where people already gather (even if they have to drive cars to get there);
pods based on LOCAL NEIGHBORHOODS defined by close physical proximity -- a more pure relocalization effort;
pods based on INTEREST TEAMS such as those used by Transition Town Totnes -- Heart & Soul groups, Local Food groups, Transport groups, etc.

Some of these pods might be a few individuals trying to raise citizen awareness. Other pods might become full-fledged Transition Intiatives under the criteria of the international Transition Network. We needed a term to describe all of these local centers of activity, at whatever level of development (and the word "hub" was already taken).

As our Transition efforts blossom in Los Angeles, we hope to grow, connect with, and support many, many more pods. If you or your local group are working with Transition ideas in the greater Los Angeles area, contact us, and let's get to know each other!

More on TLA structure

TLA Structure

2010-01-01T07:42:00.000-08:00

Coming out of the December 2008 Training for Transition (T4T), our organizational structure looked like this.

Yet Naresh and Sophy had taught us how Totnes' "open center" structure fostered autonomy, creativity, and passionate interest in projects.

Thus the model for our LA structure will be more like the umbellifer form of the familiar California fennel found in our local hills.

At first glance, what one notices is the vast array of flowers or seeds. These flowers -- equating to our local Transition "pods" -- are where the main activity and excitement takes place. These local "pods" run independent from and parallel to each other as they host awareness-raising events, create physical projects, offer reskilling classes, and build community. And, just as a bee travels across the face of the fennel umbel, we will experience cross-pollination between our Transition groups as some individuals participate in several pods. (What is a "pod"?)

In the background--clearly secondary to the exuberant plain of color--the fennel flowers are delicately supported by the stem. In our Transition organization, our local pods are similarly supported by the TLA regional organization. TLA offers advanced education, cultivates regional political relationships, and provides area-wide administrative support.

Comments about L.A. structure from the draft application for official TI status that we're preparing (January 2009):

We believe that Los Angeles is an “exceptional situation.” In Los Angeles, where one named neighborhood blends smoothly into another, distinguishable only by the change in the color of the street signs, defining Transition Initiatives purely by localized Town-sized geography won’t work. When people live in one part of our major metropolitan area, work in another, and drive all over to see friends and family, there isn’t (yet) a sense of Belonging to a particular geographical place.

In Open Space at our December 2008 T4T we held a discussion of scoping for LA and other major urban areas (part of several months ongoing of such LA scoping discussions).

The team concluded that the organization which brought us together for the T4T -- the Environmental Change-Makers, which has done so much pioneering awareness raising in L.A. and has attained name recognition in the mainstream community -- has really been serving as our “initiating group” for Los Angeles. We are now ready to create another organization, Transition Los Angeles, which would be (in your terminology) our "local area hub." With an “open center” organizational structure, we envision local “pods” which are supported by this area-wide hub.

Because of the unique situation here in Los Angeles, we’d encourage Transition pods to arise in any of the following ways:

pods based on existing organizations, places people already gather and feel a sense of belonging (a community garden, a church, etc) even though they likely drive cars to get there;
pods based on walkable or bike-able geographical neighborhoods, which would be true relocalization; and
pods based on specific topics like the Totnes model (Heart & Soul, etc).

We already have several formed pods, and more under formation, scattered between these 3 types of definitions.

In time, local pods would become full-fledged local Transition Intitiatves on their own (several are somewhat close, but are still working on essential elements of the criteria). Meanwhile, Transition Los Angeles would become a place to support and unify Los Angeles efforts.

Comments about the Umbelliferae family design....

"what I also like about it is that it has many of the elements of the TLA ideals within its family. I studied this family through homeopathy.... many of the members are food (carrot, parsnip, celery, fennel, lovage) and many are also important medicinals (angelica, hemlock conium), coriander, gota kola), and then spices that both energize our lives, protect us in the environment, and heal us emotionally (cilantro, dill, caraway, cumin, lovage, anise)

"I also like the idea of the hub being the stem (is there a better word for stem?).. it supplies support, nourishment, and rooting. The flowers of the umbelliferae family are very attractive to all kinds of insects (in homeopathy, we almost call it almost promiscuous)... but that means we, as TLA, will attract many kinds of people and many kinds of projects, and will cross pollinate naturally. And each of the pods... will have their own flower bunch." --JM

Also: "Any 'structure' that was based on the Fibonacci numbers would be resilient. Obviously we also need to allow for natural growth and change - the 'structure' needs to allow for the 'seasons' to express themselves as we grow. It is worth spending time on this - we don't need to be in a hurry for a final structure and it needs to be able to evolve as the Totnes model has, but I agree that we need to learn from their experience. A design that reflects nature is best." --VC

The History of TLA

2010-01-01T07:39:00.000-08:00

It all began with a story

In 2005, Joanne Poyourow wrote the novel Legacy: A Story of Hope for a Time of Environmental Crisis. Beginning in the year 2002 and rolling forward in fiction to 2040, Legacy illustrates how we might Transition our current energy-intense, consumption-intense society into a lower-carbon, "power down" future.

At the time Legacy was written (prior to the movie "An Inconvenient Truth") global warming was an edgy topic in Los Angeles. It would more likely raise a debate of whether global warming existed, than any productive discussion of what we were going to do about it. Peak oil was completely taboo, cast off as the ideas of a few "fringe quacks." Transition Towns did not yet exist -- Rob Hopkins was still working with Kinsale. Joanne read Rob's blog with some regularity, but Transition Town Totnes had not yet been put in place. Thus Legacy pioneered virgin territory. It is a saga of power down in Los Angeles that never quite mentions peak oil, yet is chock full of urban Permaculture and post-petroleum ideas.

In Legacy, the fictional characters gathered periodically in a support group that they came to call "Legacy LA." Melanie F, Joanne's neighbor and one of Legacy's early readers, declared "I want to belong to a group like that!" Melanie introduced Joanne and Peter, and Environmental Change-Makers was formed.

From its very origins, Environmental Change-Makers was a different sort of environmental group. It focused on What We Can Do about our environmental issues -- very specifically, global warming. Environmental Change-Makers braved the topic of Sustainability in very mainstream urban Southern California audiences. It introduced Permaculture ideas including David Holmgren's principles, and it created a circle where it was okay for mainstream Los Angelenos to learn about (and eventually compare experiences about) front yard vegetables, composting resources, city chickens and new paradigms. (Read about Environmental Change-Makers' accomplishments here.)

As Joanne publicized Legacy and interest rose about Environmental Change-Makers, audiences throughout the Southland requested talks about environmental solutions. Then "An Inconvenient Truth" was released, gaining widespread attention (One of the initial outdoor screenings drew nearly 5,000 people). But Los Angeles audiences quickly saw through the inadequate tips that scroll at the movie's end. The Environmental Change-Makers' "What We Can Do About Global Warming" talk -- which focused on power down ideas and paradigm shift -- was in high demand.

In late 2007, as oil prices began to escalate, the topic of peak oil -- in the form of "the end of cheap oil" -- lost its taboo status. Global warming was no longer alone on Environmental Change-Makers' What We Can Do narrative. It was replaced by the "triple header": global warming, peak oil, and biocapacity. Mainstream city dwellers received the cutting edge of Hopkins' developing ideas alongside those of Holmgren and other Permaculturists. They heard a healthy dose of Paul Hawkins' confident early vision of a multitude of environmental and social change organizations all working to effect a grand Transformation (later captured in Hawkins' Blessed Unrest).

With the banking crisis and stock market downturns of mid-2008, the "triple header" became the "triple header plus one" to include discussions of forecasted economic collapse (these forecasts were included in Legacy), and the solutions presented were distinctly Transition ideas. When Rob's Transition Handbook was published, early copies imported from the UK sold like hotcakes at Environmental Change-Makers talks.

September 2008

In September 2008, the Environmental Change-Makers held a "Life After Oil" series of events to try out Hopkins' exercises and explore post-petroleum ideas in Los Angeles. To their astonishment, the series' full-day session drew attendees from Paso Robles, Santa Barbara, Frasier Park, San Fernando Valley, and Laguna Beach, in addition to more local West LA faces. For many attendees, Transition ideas were a brilliant new discovery.

Resources from the "Life After Oil" series are here.

As the UK Transition Network came into being, Boulder Colorado hosted the United States' first official Transition Trainings. Environmental Change-Makers member Vidya C heard about the Training for Transition (T4T) in San Francisco, but San Francisco had yet to decide on a site. Joanne joked to Vidya that perhaps the site for the San Francisco training was on Beach Avenue in Marina del Rey (Vidya's Los Angeles facility). The next day, Vidya contacted the Transition Network and scheduled a Los Angeles stop on the training's World Tour.

December 2008

In December 2008, Environmental Change-Makers celebrated its third "birthday" of free public meetings and simultaneously released its new book, Environmental Change-Making: How to Cultivate Lasting Change in Your Local Community.

The book tells the story of the group's early years, tells of Change-Maker projects such as founding a community garden and hosting a site for the "Step It Up" national campaign for global warming action, and gives an integrated explanation of environmental concepts including the "triple header" (global warming, peak oil, and biocapacity).

Environmental Change-Making was created as a how-to book, telling how Joanne, Peter, Vidya, Melanie, and many others got a very mainstream area of Los Angeles ready and receptive to Transition ideas. It is perhaps a "prequel" to Hopkins' Transition Handbook.

T4T Los Angeles

A week after the book's release, mere days before Christmas, with only mid-week dates available in the calendar, the Environmental Change-Makers hosted Southern California's first-ever official Transition Training (T4T).

Sophy Banks and Naresh Giangrande were our trainers. We had 35 attendees, from such areas as Santa Barbara, San Fernando Valley, West LA, South Bay, Laguna Beach, Pasadena, and Palm Springs. We were joined by guests from Tucson, AZ and southeastern Ohio.

Resources from the T4T are here.

An area-wide Hub

In the Open Space portion of the December 2008 T4T, the circle discussing city/urban issues concluded that the Environmental Change-Makers group had served an awareness-raising role for many Southern California "pods" of Transition activity. While some activities of the Environmental Change-Makers had been focused toward our immediate local area (our community garden and reskilling classes), other efforts (our outreach and speaking engagements) had been more area-wide or regional in focus. Environmental Change-Makers had been serving--in the lingo of the Transition concept--as the "initiating group" for a wide area of Los Angeles.

The team concluded that, as Transition concepts take root in Los Angeles, our area would best be served by a series of local "pods" supported by a new area-wide organization: Transition Los Angeles. Early functional organization "pods" included The Learning Garden at Venice High School and Westchester's Holy Nativity parish with its Community Garden.

With its calendar of speaking engagements throughout the area, its globalized context, its broad vision for the LA area, and its existing name recognition, Environmental Change-Makers would continue its regional awareness-raising, introducing Transition concepts and paving the way as Transition Los Angeles emerges.

In the local "Going Forth" portion of the T4T, Los Angeles attendees truly gelled as a team. The idea of a speaker's group was proposed, together with a speaker training workshop, to continue Environmental Change-Makers/Transition Los Angeles outreach beyond the limits of the calendar of any one individual. Our Los Angeles area-wide core team was born.

Communications "working group"

2010-01-01T07:36:00.000-08:00

At the Transition Los Angeles city hub, our Communications "working group" is a bit different.

In most cases, a working group within a Transition Initiative is a circle of people who are working together on a single idea -- perhaps focusing on a sector of the community, like food, or water. They inventory what resilience-building organizations and resources are currently available in that sector. They visualize what that sector could possibly be like in a resilient, low carbon, resource aware future. And they do "backtracking" to chart a course of how we could get to that resilient future from the place we are now.

At Transition Los Angeles, our Communications group is focused on the now. We realize that in order to successfully Transition this massive metropolitan area, we need to grow resilience across the entirety of the L.A. basin (yes, no small task). Transition is by definition a locally-focused community-based approach, and in our geography we know that it will unfold neighborhood-by-neighborhood. Already, we have local pods of Transition activity emerging in several different neighborhoods. ("What is a pod?")

Communication between these pods is essential -- first, to share resources and "what works/doesn't work." But over time, we will need to evolve a unique means of connecting, of working together, to achieve that widespread local resilience.

Our Communications members currently serve in the role of "pollinators." Just like the noble honeybee and the workhorse hoverfly, our Communications members visit the meetings of several local pods -- not merely the one in their own geographic neighborhood -- and they carry messages, resources, successes, and stories back and forth, cross-pollinating all our various pods.