Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
sustainable solutions, or by individual decisions. But in both cases, however, the
problems of creating maintaining change through grass-roots organizations are nev-
er really answered (Davies and Herbert Chap. 6). How many people in the towns are
involved in the process? How are the eternal problems of the burn-out of volunteers
being solved? Can effective leadership be found and be maintained—a leadership
based on commitment to the area and projects, and not to their potential use of the
post as a ladder for future political office? Can sufficient money be found to sus-
tain individual policies as well as finding long-term funding? Unlike governments,
these organizations do not have taxing powers to finance their goals. What powers
do the local organizations possess, or can they create, or do they mainly depend on
convincing elected officials and their staff of the utility of their desires? These and
other problems are always difficulties that impede the work and continuity of local
community organizations.
Despite the rapid growth of the Transition Town network some critics have ar-
gued that too many of the objectives of the movement are designed to provide some
sort of return to the past when there were more local linkages, supplies, employment
and decision-making, which many see as impossible in the contemporary intercon-
nected world; to do so will create higher prices and inefficiencies. However there
is no real evidence of some type of return-to-the past movement emerging. Instead
there are many signs that Transition Towns are managing to achieve some of their
goals of greater local resilience and an ability to mould more of their own futures,
rather than dependency on distant decision-making, by convincing other organiza-
tions and local governments of the need to change. Of course this is a matter of
degree; the long-distance linkages in food supply and many resources still exist
and are dominant, but more local connections seem to be emerging which may
create a more balanced future. Other critics will argue that the types of changes be-
ing pioneered in the small number of Transition Towns will have a minimal effect
on world climate change. Moreover the Peak Oil threat may be postponed for a
generation given the increasing supply of natural gas and oil from frontier devel-
opments and from the fracking of shale beds. However, unless enough renewable
energy sources and new technologies for energy generation and storage are found,
the problem of Peak Oil may re-emerge in the next generation and there is always
the threat to towns of a disruption of supplies from natural hazard disasters, whose
impacts are described in Chap. 8. So it does seem sensible to use the extra time that
we have available, given the temporary increase in oil and gas supplies and lower
costs, to create more sustainable towns that are more locally resilient through the
types of ideas being developed in the Transition Town and EcoDistrict movements.
Both have provided guides to show how change can be achieved. Transition Towns
in particular see themselves as producing a catalytic effect, leading many neigh-
bouring local areas to also implement the changes they have pioneered, which may
lead to a real cumulative effect that will be influential in increasing sustainability,
let alone their other useful social functions. They also see themselves as shaming
or convincing governments into more active policies. In addition, of course, any
reductions in local energy use will lead to a less polluted local environment and
therefore a healthier population in the adopting towns. Also the obvious commu-
nity re-energization of the population in many of these towns and districts within
