January 28, 2010: Global
The Promise of Transition
It’s now undeniable that we must learn to reweave the fabric of fundamental connections and relationships that have been at the heart of human society from the beginning. We must learn to reconnect with the earth, with the seasons, with our biosphere, with each other. We must rebuild our relationships with those who live in our neighborhoods, with those who grow our food, with those who produce and sell the goods we need, with those who supply the services we require. And we must do it all locally as much as possible, rebuilding local living economies. Only through profoundly local living can we curtail our out-of-control consumption, end our contribution to global warming, and restore balance and sanity to our planet.
Our communities are being called to quickly become largely self-sufficient, to develop the capacity to produce locally our most essential needs. This is the heart of the Transition/Relocalization movement, and the impetus behind what we’re doing here in Boulder County.
Our vision is a future where life is more socially connected, more meaningful and satisfying, more sustainable, and more equitable in a greater community of relocalized communities; where production and consumption occur closer to home; where long and fragile supply chains—now vulnerable to surges in oil prices and economic volatility—have been replaced by interconnected local networks; where the total amount of energy consumed by businesses and citizens is dramatically less than current unsustainable levels.
The longer-term vision is that such relocalized communities will naturally trade their surpluses interdependently with surrounding relocalized communities, forming self-sufficient bioregions that trade surpluses with each other. This will be a radical and welcome shift from the tangled web of codependent relationships that we call a globalized economy.
This transition to a local living economy will take some time, even though we don’t have much time. This Transition is our man-on-the-moon project here in Boulder County, and we anticipate a ten-year transition to a stronger, more localized economy in a carbon-constrained future.
Our message is simple, expressed in a series of themes or memes: Buy local first. Eat local. Grow local. Produce energy locally. Develop local currencies. And in the process, rebuild community. It’s all part of a great renaissance of local that is rising from the bottom up among people everywhere. People respond intuitively to these memes, and they are gladly and rapidly joining us.
What is far more difficult to communicate is just how urgent it is that we do this, and how vital it is that we join in this effort together as a community of communities. Human unity, collaboration, cooperation, partnership—these are our most important and most urgently needed technologies now. We must learn to unite our efforts together, or we will fail.
