TRANSITION IN ACTION SOCIAL NETWORK

What's cool in the GTIA Portfolio...

MIMIC THIS! When you get invited to events 3000 miles away (or 20 of them just across town), use COPY & PASTE with the really interesting events to seed your own community's plans for similar events. Why start from scratch.... Beg, borrow and mimic! More....
Welcome recently added members. Check periodically to see if friends you have invited have joined.
Find others members in your hometown, region, state, country. (E.g., Country=Austria or City, State = Vashon, WA)
Produce a list of members who use keywords similar to your inerests when describing theirs (E.g.,Permaculture, intentional community).
See LATEST ACTIVITY on GTIA for results of comprehensive scans of Transition activities around the globe.
New links to Twitter via GTIA -- Twitter via #TransitionTowns. Twitter now displayed on GTIA Latest Activity.
Experiment by clicking on TOP NEWS vs ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO SHARE in the center column -- two types of Latest Activity.

February 2009 Blog Posts (30)

Article from the future: A sustainable community center

In this edition the community builds a centre to house biochar, rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling, a living wall in a greenhouse and a kitchen and dining/meeting room. The centre displays all the elements of a transitioned building.

Download it… Continue

Added by Stephen Hinton on February 27, 2009 at 11:00am — 1 Comment

POWERSHIFT '09

POWERSHIFT!

Repowering, Reclaiming Our Future

February 27, 2009 at 6am to March 2, 2009 at 6pm

Washington D.C.

In the middle of our new administration's first 100 days, Power Shift 09 will bring 10,000 young people to Washington to hold our elected officials accountable for rebuilding our economy and reclaiming our future through bold climate and clean energy policy.

Also see blog article… Continue

Added by Kathy Jacobson on February 25, 2009 at 9:00am — 1 Comment

Michigan Food Film Series for 2009!

http://blog.mlive.com/great-tastes/2009/02/couple_organizes_film_series_t.html

Paul and Nancy Jones Keiser, environmental activists, have a story to tell. Perhaps they will inspire people to move into organic gardening, preserve more of their own food, to eat motivated by a dose of curiosity.

"On behalf of the earth, the wildlife, clean air, clean water, having wonderful, lovely green places to live, with happy people who are well-nourished by good food, we started to… Continue

Added by Mandy Creighton on February 24, 2009 at 10:36am — No Comments

Permaculture Papers..."Being positive about negative feedback" by Russ Grayson

Pacific Edge SPECIAL REPORT...The permaculture papers

THE PROBLEM OF FEEDBACK

by Russ Grayson (2003, up-dated 2007)

THE WAY THAT PERMACULTURE deals with comment has made it susceptible to positive feedback and allergic to negative feedback.

Positive feedback can be defined as the tendency to amplify… Continue

Added by Kathy Jacobson on February 22, 2009 at 1:23pm — No Comments

Transition Roots: Permaculture - history, Ethic 2: care of people; evolution, reconfiguration ?

The Transition Initiatives model is rooted in permaculture, and since I am a very curious person, I recently took a deeper dive into permaculture’s history and evolutionary processes, particularly looking for references to the social aspects of permaculture.

I have copy and pasted some excerpts below for any of you who are also interested in such things but please know that I also dove into other sites,… Continue

Added by Kathy Jacobson on February 22, 2009 at 12:58pm — No Comments

Living Requires Energy!

Everything requires energy. What humans did (post-IR), was to replace living energy with dead energy. Humans used to actually labor. We used animals for their strength; we got our horsepower from actual horses! And some of us still do! We are Amish; we are Old Order Mennonites; we are simple-living Anabaptist's. It will be difficult, but not impossible, to convert the elite; those conditioned by Victorianism; to make farmers and builders out of… Continue

Added by Paul Andrew Anderson on February 22, 2009 at 11:52am — No Comments

"Understanding Drought", COMET program

Most agree that the effects of climate change may trigger an increase in the frequency and severity of weather events, including drought.

Drought is an important topic to me as I utilize a system of rain water harvesting for my potable water supply and the pond for my garden irrigation system. It is therefore important for me to understand weather patterns as I adjust my preparedness and resource management practices, in this case it equates to stockpiling water and varying degrees… Continue

Added by Kathy Jacobson on February 20, 2009 at 8:38am — No Comments

Read March National Geo and Get Others to do the Same

If I were King I would certainly give Chris Johns Editor-in-Chief at National Geographic Magazine an award for bravery and vision. Over the past few years he and his staff have put together some of the most cutting edge and insightful articles on climate change, peak oil, and the energy crisis and now in the March 2009 issue they have hit the nail smack on the head again with the article Saving Energy: It Starts at Home. (The article on Canadian oil sands is not bad either.)

In my… Continue

Added by Bob Ferris on February 19, 2009 at 7:02am — 2 Comments

Group Think

Group Think

A member of another community email list asked for our group to move beyond dialogue to group think.

Here is my reply:

can we get this idea beyond dialog to a group think?

I caught myself making assumptions and jumping to conclusions with regards to this comment...I had to consciously stop the tape by pushing the pause button.

First, I prefer dialog over discussion/debate and see it as a way to pursue processes of… Continue

Added by Kathy Jacobson on February 16, 2009 at 8:00am — No Comments

Decentralization, Affinity Groups and Spokescouncil Approach

There has been an interesting dialogue unfolding on numerous sites regarding a spokesmodel approach.

I had assumed that I had googled for this concept before but thanks to Sandi's input I tried again. I searched for "spokesmodel", "Hub", "Spoke", "Model", "spokesperson", etc. I was absolutely amazed that I couldn't find anything that related to how I interpret the term: spokesmodel.

How could such a model be so real to me if it didn't actually exist? Were the lines between… Continue

Added by Kathy Jacobson on February 16, 2009 at 8:00am — 2 Comments

Great Article On Collaborative Leadership

By Andy Mannie at Sustainable Life Media

"We live in a world of increasing complexity, constant change, and unprecedented problems. It is clear that the old ways of doing virtually everything must be radically re-examined. And while the crises we face are many – economic, environmental, and social – they are all exacerbated by a deeper crisis. A crisis in… Continue

Added by Kathryn Blume on February 12, 2009 at 10:20am — No Comments

Newsletter from the future: Co-housing combi-farms set up around transition town

In our latest edition, a local council decides their contribution to resilience is to facilitate the fast set up of Ecounits, otherwise called co-housing combi farms. Normally communities take a long time to come together and form. Not so in Retford! Download the newsletter, and let us know if you find anything useful!…

Continue

Added by Stephen Hinton on February 12, 2009 at 3:00am — No Comments

Some notes on Urban Farming

Summary of National urban farming efforts: I'd thought I'd send along these little bits of info about urban farming goings on around the country that have apparently found support from their respective cities which seem to be excited about what they are doing:

See Time Magazine July 2008 article "inner city farms":

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1826271,00.html

which says in part: "With its estimated 600 small-scale farms (which… Continue

Added by Monica King on February 10, 2009 at 9:11pm — No Comments

Dancing around the hard facts

Last night's Presidential press conference was enlightening in that several very good questions sought to elicit some kind of response from Obama about consumption and growth. The question from NBC/MSNBC's Chuck Todd including the following: "...if your plan works the way you want it to work, it's going to increase consumer spending. But isn't consumer spending, or overspending, how we got into this mess?" I applaud Todd for asking a borderline taboo question about the consumer economy but it… Continue

Added by Christopher J. Ryan on February 10, 2009 at 5:48pm — 1 Comment

WHEN TECHNOLOGY FAILS: A Book Review By Carolyn Baker

Rarely in the specialized milieu of industrial civilization does one encounter a Renaissance man or woman—someone who is well-versed in a wide spectrum of disciplines and who can expound upon them in writing that is both articulate and engaging. So when I discovered Mat Stein’s phenomenal When Technology Fails: A Manual For Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving The Long Emergency, I immediately contacted the publisher, Vermont’s own Chelsea Green, for a review copy of this… Continue

Added by Carolyn Baker on February 10, 2009 at 1:29pm — No Comments

Dancing around the hard facts

Added by Christopher Ryan on February 10, 2009 at 8:00am — No Comments

Ask Obama to Plant a Vegetable Garden on the Whitehouse Lawn

Continue

Added by Sandi Brockway on February 9, 2009 at 11:28pm — No Comments

Transition Network’s ‘Who We Are and What We Do’ Document Available

From Rob Hopkins at Transition Culture

I am delighted to share, in pdf. format, Version 1.0 of the Transition Network’s ‘Who We Are and What We Do’ document, lovingly designed by the good folks at MooreBlackett. It was produced through several rounds of public meetings, the online forum, and with the input of many of you. We are rather pleased with it as a document that captures what Transition Network is all about. You can download a… Continue

Added by Patricia Britton on February 7, 2009 at 12:00pm — No Comments

HOT OFF THE PRESS: Transition Network "Who We Are and What We Do"

* HOT OFF The PRESS!
February 5, 2009 Transition Network’s Who We Are and What We Do

Added by Kathy Jacobson on February 6, 2009 at 2:11pm — No Comments

Going the extra green mile: No refrigerator

By Jordan Lite in 60-Second Science Blog

How green is your kitchen? If you’re part of what today’s New York Times describes as a “small segment” of the eco-conscious, you don’t have a fridge.

In New York, it’s not uncommon to help the environment by burning less natural gas; you eat out and use your oven as it was meant to be used in tiny apartments – to store sweaters. But some folks – apparently, ones who give up readily cold beer and live in chilly climes where they can… Continue

Added by Patricia Britton on February 6, 2009 at 8:19am — 1 Comment