Transition South Liverpool has been meeting since November 2007. We have had several successful meetings and have watched some inspirational films.
The Story So Far
Wed 8 Oct - How will climate change affect Merseyside?
Talk by Andy Plater, University of Liverpool
Andy discussed the potential impacts of climate change on Liverpool and Merseyside in terms of challenges and opportunities for the region over the next 30-50 years. In particular, Andy covered the impact of sea-level rise for low-lying areas, storms, rising groundwater, and how climate change will generally affect different sectors of business and the community. While the legacy of the docks protects central Liverpool, areas of the Wirral, the South Lancshire plane, and the Mersey estury are currenctly bulnerable to storm surges. And a warmer world means that we are likely to experience more extreme storms - so a barrage across the Mersey to protect the city, generate power, with a cycle path along the top might make sense. But what would that mean for Liverpool's identity as a port?
We then held our first AGM: we adopted our constitution and elected core group officers.
Transition Towns or direct action against climate change?
Thurs 25 September at the Social Centre, Bold Street (next to News from Nowhere)
We had an enjoyable and at times spirited conversation with members of Liverpool Social Forum. After watching films of the climate camp at Kingsnorth, including footage of the obviously highly oppressive police over reaction, we discussed the pros and cons of the more gentle, perhaps less overtly political and confrontational transitioning approach to climate change and peak oil, with the critique (recently in a booklet by Trapese) that transitioning was naive and unable to deal with the realities of power and domination. There were reasons why climate change was happening - some people and institutions profited from it, and would react strongly to anything that threatened it like a successful transitioning movement. As one person said the state will come for your turnips!
On the other hand, we discussed, was the climate camp needlessly confrontational, even a little macho (an accusation that upset some people)? If you claim that you are going to close down a power station, is it not likely that the state will stop you, and the reaction might be heavy? Is everyone able and willing to engage in direct action? By the end of the discussion, we all agreed that direct action will not be for everyone, but neither is the transitioning approach.
Those who wanted a more overtly radical response decided to set up a Liverpool Climate Action Group. Contact tina_miller1986@hotmail.com for more on this.
For the trapese booklet, go to: http://trapese.clearerchannel.org/
Well it looks like Mr Al Gore himself seems to not only agree with Direct action/civil disobedience in the struggle against Climate chaos, but also wants to encourage it: He said, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.
hurrah!
"New Hope for Changing World" 3rd September
Transition South Liverpool held an evening with one of Britain's foremost localisers: John Papworth. Years before anyone woke up to the double whammy of climate change and peak oil, John was arguing for small scale solutions to our problems
Founder and original editor of Resurgence, currently editor of Fourth World Review, author of 6 books, star of the film No Man is an Island, and subject of the film Turbulent Priest, John is an ecologist, futurist and Anglican priest.
Things are falling apart, he told us. War clouds gather, human numbers outstrip resources, oil is drying up, banks are in turmoil, the natural world is vandalised by industry, our local community structures are destroyed by big government, and our young people are living with no hope of any decent future.
Is there any answer anywhere?
Of course there is, said John!
A new world is breaking through, The Fourth World, a world of small nations, small communities, small industries, farms and shops; a world where people matter and are in control of their own affairs. And transition towns aree part of this alternative.
Wednesday 27 August
To shop or not to shop at supermarkets?
Clare G and Karen introduced the topic of supermarkets in an entertaining role play between a supermarket-addict and an ethical consumer, before we were all invited to share our views on the pros and cons and the environmental aspects of supermarkets, consider the point of view of suppliers, as well as give our suggestions for alternatives, in the world cafe, complete with cookies and flowers! Click here for feedback from the various discussions.
Wednesday 13 August at FACT
The End of My World
Webcast featuring economists and environmental activists discussing raising oil prices and consumption. Mark Shooter spoke on behalf of Transition Liverpool
Childwall Allotment Open Day and Organic Walk with Ruth at Ruth's garden
Sunday 10 August
Backyard and community composting: How? Why? Where?' 15th July
Ruth Jacobs and Don Headey from Liverpool Organic Gardeners gave an introduction to composting and wormeries, complete with slides, compost samples and worms!
Tom and Roisin introduced their plans to set up a charity that will collect household food waste in the Aigburth area, and compost it off-ste. Their plans are still in the early stages and they would really love to hear from you if you'd like to help them get it going!
The event was attended by all kinds of people ranging from the well-experienced composters to the complete beginners, which meant everyone was able to learn something new or share their knowledge with others. The event demonstrated just how much people in the group already know and are doing everyday that is so important in reducing both our impact on the environment and our energy dependence.
For anyone interested in starting their own wormery - or for those who want to make theirs work better, Ruth brought along a highly recommended book, 'Composting with Worms: Why waste your waste' by George Pilkington, which is now on sale in the Windmill for £7.95
Transition Training. 5th and 6th July
22 transitioners from all over the north of England spent two days at the SMLLCA on Lark Lane being led through transition training by Naresh and Sophie from Totnes. Jo, Pete, Mark, Michael, Karen and Clare attended from Liverpool. We discussed how to present climate change and peak oil issues to a wide range of people, how to set up and run an effective transitioning process, how social change happens, and how people start their individual journeys to a low carbon world. The event was enjoyable, stimulating, (at times) uncomfortably challenging, and helped us to set up a much more robust transitioning process in Liverpool.
Thanks to Jo for organising it - she rocks!
Adjusting to Climate Change and Peak Oil - What can we learn from the Totnes experience? Where do we go from here?
Noel Longhurst's talk in liverpool, St. Michaels' cricket club on June 10th 2008. Report by Tracey Dunn
Noel has been involved with Transition Towns since the beginning. He says "Don't measure ourselves against what's going on in Totnes as it's a market town of 8,000 people in south Devon compared to Liverpool,a post industrial city."
Totnes is idyllic, utopian and rural like Glastonbury,Lewes and Stroud. It has a bohemian,new age reputation and a readymade receptive audience. Nonetheless, not everything has worked perfectly.
What has gone well is nut tree planting of which 12 groups have been formed and planted over 100 nut trees in public spaces.
Transitioning is a social process and brings the community together. It is low cost. For example, nut trees have been donated sometimes and local people look after them. It is a good grassroots project.
Food projects have been good. A garden share project has worked well where people let others grow food in their garden. There is an allotment campaign and 20 more have been provided by the Council. Totnes would like another 100.
A planning process has been set up to influence local policies.It brings Transitioning into the mainstream. There is a download available relating to this on main T.T. website.
Schools and children are seeing how climate change affects young people. It is about positivity,to reimagine a positive future for the school agenda.
There has been success in engaging with businesse the oil vulnerability analysis. People are giving out low energy lightbulbs and swapping waste. This gives good credibility to the movement. Businesses are also giving donations to build a library within the local one for books on green issues.
The Totnes pound has made people aware of adaptation. It's a local currency scheme flagship project,a novelty which has grabbed people's attention.700 businesses take them and there are 2,000 in circulation. It is not a perfect project because it is under resourced and needs a solid volunteer base. They need electronic as well as paper money. Lewes and Lampeter are looking into the currency.
It is good to keep money in the local area. It develops local loyalty to spend with small local businesses.
Other projects arew a local sourcing of food directory (now in it's 2nd edition) and complimentary health directories.
Things that T.T.'s could do better are engaging with local government in Totnes although Stroud and Forest of Dean have engaged more effectively with local government. It is quite central to keep engaging new people, not to have it too closed off or internal. Connect with chamber of commerce and have stalls at events. Provide oppurtunities to engage in.Have to provide the space to keep it an open process. Also let it come at it's own pace.
In Totnes they are unique because things seem to stay with the main core who take all the decisions and are accountable for everything. They would like to see more schemes like giving out long life lightbulbs.
People should engage with similar groups,creating ' synergies' is very useful.Cities like Liverpool,Brighton,Bristol,London (Brixton) and Nottingham need to talk amongst themselves.Cities are a completely different process. They already have mass transit in place.
People could grow food more in cities i.e. guerilla gardening In Havana,Cuba lots of food is grown on road verges.
There must be fresh energy.It is so important to engage schools and mainstream groups.
Some ideas for future meetings include:
Food in the city
Power in the city
composting in the city.
Rob Hopkins, the founder of Transition Towns spoke in Liverpool on the 6th June.
Report by Tracey Dunn.
Rob, who has a background in permaculture, talked to us about the organization he founded in early 2006 to start dealing with our transition from peak oil to sustainable ways of living.
He started the group in Totnes, Devon. Rob felt we couldn't continue as we have been as a species and there was a need to build something positive.
The last 150 years has been a 'petroleum interval' for medicines, fuel, plastics, dvds, cds etc. The oil price trend is upwards.The north sea has been rapidly depleted. Out of 94 oil producing nations in the world,64 are past their peak.
With climate change speeding up rapidly there is a great need to adapt.'Burnout' is coming. We need great imagination and creativity if we are to survive as a species.
A short Q+A session brought up issues of funding. Rob Hopkins said that enthusiasm takes things a long way but some admin funds had been given by the Esme Fairbairn organization and London's Tudor Trust. One issue is to get working groups up and running and then build partnerships with other green and local groups, who might well provide funding and other forms of support. But Rob was keen to say that they do not have all the answers for places like Liverpool in Totnes, and they look to learn from us.
Public health professionals are looking at transition hospitals. In the future Transition Towns' hope to be more sustainable by generating their own funding through things like workshops.
Project Day: How can Liverpool rise to the challenges of climate change and the end of cheap oil?
18 May 2008
A number of us met at the beautiful 'arts and crafts' Unitarian Church where Liverpool anti-slavery campaigner William Roscoe once worshiped. We discussed practical projects and discussion groups, and set up our first working groups. An exciting day that built on the discussions we had had to date - we felt like Transition Liverpool was here to stay.
'Growing Food in the City' 29 April with Liverpool Organic Gardeners Ruth Jacobs and Don Headey.
This involved some excellent advice on growing, tips on cost-effective (and organic) ways to eliminate pests, and Don and Ruth came prepared with slides and freebies! A great informative meeting, which showed the depth of knowledge available to us on how best to grow food in the city.
Ruth's book 'Organic Gardening: A Guide for Beginners' is available for £3.95 from Windmill
On Thursday 27th March, we had a meeting on the theme of Contraction & Convergence.
Our speaker Tom Barker, an ecologist from the University of Liverpool, gave an introduction to this approach to lowering carbon emissions on a global scale. We watched a short film on the topic before an energetic discussion in which the issue was explored from various angles.
Some people were concerned about the possibility of corruption undermining the process. Another person speculated that it may push countries to raise their populations, as higher populations would result in higher emissions allowances. Some expressed the view that C&C encourages "development" that may have the result of increasing emissions levels. However, there was also a feeling that the C&C framework would give hope for the future. One especially liked feature was the possibility it holds for achieving greater equality between nations than is evident at present.
If you missed this event but you'd like to watch the film, click here
Claire and Alan attended the Transition Network conference from April 11-13. We met lots of other cities in Transition and have arranged to meet in Nottingham in the summer to exchange ideas. More info when we know dates etc.
10 April 2008 - We've become an OFFICIAL TT!!
FILMS
The Power of Community: see http://www.powerofcommunity.org/
20th February
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half and food by 80 percent people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period." The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis the massive reduction of fossil fuels is an example of options and hope.
An Inconvenient Truth: see: http://www.climatecrisis.net/
17th January
Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.
If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "travelling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.
The End Of Suburbia: see: http://www.endofsuburbia.com/
13th December
Since World War II we have invested much of our newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the high mass consumption Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now. Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia? Transition Liverpool hosts a screening and discussion on how we can move Liverpool to a more sustainable future.
Launch meeting, 22nd November.
About 50 of us met to discuss a sustainable Liverpool, living within its means, without emitting unsustainable levels of CO2 or relying on cheap oil. We realised we had a big job on our hands, but decided to start out, hopefully.
