Will Fort Collins Transition? Find out tonight
Meeting at Bean Cycle Coffee Shop
The Center for Justice Peace and Environment an umbrella organization for non-violent social change, announces a meeting tonight, December 1, 2010.
From the press release:
There’s a new movement afoot to get Transition Fort Collins up and running. If you are interested please come to the Matter Bookstore on Wednesday, December 1st, 7pm. This meeting is the first of three meetings to start the process toward Transition Fort Collins.
What is Transition?
An outline of Transition Handbook is available here
Key ideas include a Post Carbon World , environment and sustainability and many others including Peak Oil. Transition Palo Alto, for example says
A network of individuals and groups in Palo Alto, California, committed to 1) building community 2) encouraging local resilience to cope with peak oil 3) reducing carbon emissions to cope with climate change
Political Opposition
Amazing stuff on the Internet now. Check out Ten Scariest Republicans Heading to Congress as listed on People For The American Way – Right Wing Watch. Note how many of them are climate-deniers. One congressman, who may head the House Energy and Commerce Committee, says he knows that climate change is a hoax because God promised not to destroy the Earth a second time. It says so in the Bible.
Next Steps
A second meeting to get Transition Fort Collins up and running will be held in early January. Meanwhile, I feel that I have not adequately addressed a key concept of transition – that of resilence.
Posted by Gypsy Chief
The Transition movement is a community-lead response to the twin problems of peak oil and climate change. Now that the meeting is over, we may say Fort Collins is taking first steps to join over 100 communities world-wide that are transitioning to a low-energy future, with vision, heart, creativity, and celebration! Thanks for blogging on this, Gypsy Chief! – - B Woodruff
This is an exciting time to be living in Fort Collins. In doing research on this I found that there are some small steps that can be taken. People speak of craft swaps, community gardens, growing food not lawns, different ways to save water. Fort Collins seems to me to offer a great environment to advance these ideas in addition to being a bicycle friendly community.
There are small steps, but Transition communities in other countries are taking big steps as well. For example, large protests organized by Transition communities have made it impossible to expand airports. Instead these communities are supporting the return of trains and buses.
A train line connecting Fort Collins to Denver is possible in the next few years. We need to be able to get around and to transport goods without oil and trains are an order of magnitude more efficient than cars.
I have been a long time fan of Amtrak bad as it is and a frequent rail passenger in the west. I agree that a hi-speed rail line between Fort Collins and Denver would reduce air pollution, save oil, reduce traffic conjestion, and increase economic opportunity.