How will our town cope when the oil begins to run out?

THIS question is beginning to be faced by towns and villages all over the world, including now Thame.
Transitions Towns is an international movement gaining more and more support, as the realisation begins to dawn that the world has reached the top of what is called the ‘peak oil’ curve which will create the need for communities to become less reliant on oil and able to depend on its own resources to as great an extend as possible. For example, growing more food locally will lessen the reliance on imports. Other initiatives could include a garden share scheme, re-skilling courses e.g. painting, knitting, planting nut or fruit trees, how to repair things and herbal medicine.

Some of the buzz words for the movement are “Re-localisation,” “Earth stewardship,” “oil depreciation protocol,” “Local energy descent plans.”

Thame and District Transition held its first meeting on Saturday, January 10, at the Abingdon Arms in Thame. The meeting started with a presentation by David Lions of Haddenham, on the principle drivers of the transition movement (Peak Oil & Climate Change in combination mean we have to prepare now for a future with much less fossil fuel energy) and how to go about setting up a transition iniative.

The meeting was well attended by a variety of people, some of them environmental activists, others interested to find out more having seen the publicity. All agreed that we need to press ahead with setting up a transition group on the principles set out by the Transition Network. (http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionNetwork)
These include the ‘7 Buts’ (reasons people give for not taking action) and the 12 Steps (various stages, some of which are concurrent, in setting up a transition initiative).

It was agreed to form a steering group (some inititives call this a ‘Seed Group’) to raise awareness and engage with local organisations, aiming to set up sub-groups to deal with local resilience and sustainability topics. The chairs of these sub groups would then form the main committee.

Although at this first meeting there was insufficient time to discuss local issues in depth, clearly there was a lot of enthusiasm for promoting resilience and a strong sense of community.

The transition initiative will be centred on Thame but the aim is to move the meetings around the satellite communities such as Haddenham and Chinnor (and other villages when other supporters can be identified).

It is proposed to hold a steering group meeting at 7pm on Wednesday, January 21, in Thame and a public meeting, proposed to be in Haddenham in mid February. Details of the venues will be publicised separately, though the group would prefer to use suitable venues which support the local community (eg. pubs, village halls, school halls etc).

David Lions of Haddenham, who initiated the Thame meeting, said: “Thame and District Transisions aims to email a monthly newsletter giving an update on developments and activities of Transition Thame and District, though communications will probably be ad-hoc for the first month or two as we are just forming.
Anyone who would like to be added to the mailing list for the newsletter and information about events can contact me via email: dakeyd10@btinternet.com or telephone 01844 296174.”

In the current economic climate, coupled with ‘peak oil’ on the horizon and climate change, with its rallying cry of “Business as usual is not an option,” Transiitions Towns could just be an idea whose time has come.