A positive response to climate change and peak oil
TRANSITION TOWN LEWES
Transition Town Lewes is a response to climate change and peak oil. It’s a community-led process for planning our town’s managed pathway through a historical transition.
Many problems face Lewes residents and the world’s people: global warming, diminishing resources, loss of biodiversity, social inequalities and irresponsible leadership. And as the price of energy continues to rise steeply, reaching its production peak in the very near future, we are becoming aware of the kind of world we have created in the last 150 years using cheap oil – the kind of world which we will no longer be able to sustain.
Our own government has recently committed itself to a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 while independent think-tanks are now urging a 90% reduction. What would it really take to reduce carbon dioxide levels, avoid a tipping point(1) and co-create a habitable world for 9 billion people by 2050?
Transition Towns have been an incredible phenomenon in 2007, increasingly recognised internationally as an effective grassroots approach to solutions. There are now many Transition Communities, with many more ‘mulling’ (see here for up to date figures). Transition Town Lewes has been one of the towns at the forefront of this wave, with lots of enthusiasm and creativity coming from hundreds of people in Lewes. We are likely to amaze ourselves as to what we can do together in 2008. Some great projects are incubating, ready to come on stream, and this is the year that we will write the first draft of our Energy Descent Action Plan.
We offer no predetermined answers; instead we believe the solutions will arise from engaging and building on the ingenuity and knowledge for which Lewes is already well known. There are many individuals and groups in our town who have already created great seeds for the future.
Get involved: contact one of the Group contacts on the Groups page
