A Mendocino Coast Transition Towns Movement

Recently, there have been a number of important efforts to transition the Mendocino/Fort-Bragg coastal area to a more ecologically sustainable and a more economically localized area. Among these are the Alliance for Democracy (AFD), Mendo Futures (c/o Redwood Forest Foundation), Coast Economic Localization Links (CELL), and the Mendocino [County] Energy Working Group (EWG). These efforts have significantly raised the level of local awareness about the issues, and also suggested a number of prudent courses of action. Nonetheless, they have not yet produced a coherent and integrated plan for creating a localized sustainable economy for our area, nor have they resulted in major community-wide projects.

To develop such a coherent and integrated plan, and to manage the projects that result, we now have a widely acknowledged and successfully applied template. This process is called the Transition Towns Movement, and it is widely discussed on the web. If you wish to read the official material, a couple of starting points for your research are www.transitionus.org and www.transitionnetwork.org. If you prefer videos, you may wish to view www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGHrWPtCvg0.

American society faces many serious and pressing economic and ecological problems at this point in time -- but among the most pressingly and serious of these are climate change and peak oil. To address both of these, and a host of related problems like species extinction, toxics pollution, and unsustainable farming practices, a group of concerned local citizens could compile a vision document which describes what this area could look like 15-20 years from now. While our community's vision must be the result of our unique area's needs, the template provided by the Transition Towns Movement can help us to rapidly prepare such a plan. An effort to develop this vision can also bring together in a coordinated way the efforts of many interested individuals and groups. Once such a plan is prepared, and endorsed by the community, local people can get to work on those projects that have the make the biggest difference, and that are most needed.

The Transition Towns Movement is a small-scale, localized, collectivist, integrated, and inclusive approach to: (1) reduce a community's carbon footprint, to (2) increase its ability to withstand economic hardship (including the failures of government), and (3) expand its ability to successfully navigate the many shifts that peak oil will require. Without question, to redesign our local economy and the ways we work together, that is a complex endeavor that will require a great deal of effort. But limited scope efforts, for example those that only deal with placing solar panels on local house roofs, these are unlikely to achieve the three larger goals set forth at the beginning of this paragraph. We must instead work together as a cohesive community.

Corporations have shown they aren't interested in leading this transition. Governments have likewise demonstrated that they are unable to lead such an effort, and with the serious budget cutbacks they have recently suffered, they are having a hard time simply maintaining basic services like the schools. Such an effort is also difficult for governments, in many areas on the Mendocino Coast, because there is no local government aside from the County. The Transition Towns Movement thus fills an organizational gap between incorporated cities, such as Fort Bragg, and the County.

To make sure our limited local financial resources, limited local human resources, and limited time to complete such a transition, are all managed in a responsible and prudent manner, we must utilize the most expeditious and the most cost-effective approach to transition. This can only be achieved via a master plan for our region. Such a plan needs to come from local people, not from politicians in Ukiah, Sacramento, or Washington, DC. We are talking about a way for local people to take back control over their own destiny, their own lives, the lives of their children, the lives of their children's children, etc. This endeavor thus embraces the Native American concept of planning for the seventh generation (although the actionable time horizon we focus on is 15-20 years).

Several large cities and well over 290 communities around the world have already used the Transition Towns Movement material as a way to start their own re-localization, energy use reduction, and transition-to-sustainability efforts. For example, one of those communities, Portland Oregon has recently published its own peak oil regional report. The Transition Towns movement uses a loose set of real world principles and practices that have been shown to work in other communities. While there are many more principles, a few key examples are: (a) climate change and peak oil are serious problems which require urgent action, and the longer we wait, the fewer resources we will have to devote to conversion/transition efforts, (b) life with less energy is inevitable and it is far better to plan for it than be taken by surprise, (c) if we plan and act early enough, we can use our creativity, and our synergistic efforts, to unleash the genius in our local communities so that we can build a future which is far more fulfilling and enriching, more interpersonally connected, and more gentle on the earth, than the lifestyles that we have today.

Time is of the essence. We have a relatively small time window in which to accomplish the "transition" process. We must use the surpluses of our current economic and ecological systems (such as the availability of relatively inexpensive fossil fuels) to build new and sustainable infrastructure. We must not wait until things break down more than they have already. We must not wait until many serious crises demand our full and immediate attention. If we delay with this important work, then not only will these surpluses not be available to us, then we will be in panic mode and unable to rationally and diligently attend to building infrastructure. Building infrastructure takes years. Collapse is not the best way to achieve ecological and environmental change. It is far less painful, expensive, and difficult, if we instead plan for and manage these types of change. That is what we are proposing. We must proactively create the future we desire. And no, sorry, the free market will not solve these problems for us.

At this time, we are in the early stages with this Mendocino Coast Transition Towns effort, and we seek people who are willing help get this effort going. We have a Steering Committee whose goals are to raise the level of local awareness about peak oil, climate change, corporate control of our food supply, the fragility of our current financial system, and other reasons to get both local and sustainable. The Steering Committee also works towards creating, and then running, a large community event where we gather community input for the master plan. Further work will be done by other committees, subcommittees, project managers, etc.

People can only aspire to what they believe is possible. One of the important things that we can do with the Transition Towns movement is to create a new vision, a new possibility, our own vision, our shared possibility. In terms of what kind of a future that we create, where people aim is where they will end up. If we can only imagine more of the same, perhaps with a degraded lifestyle in the years ahead, that is what we will get. If we can instead imagine ways in which the Mendocino Coast can thrive, can become a model community, a place where we have become both ecologically sustainable as well as economically localized, then that is where we can end up.

To volunteer or to obtain further information, contact Charles Cresson Wood at info@TransitionMendocinoCoast.org or call 707-937-5572. Charles is the author of a book entitled Kicking The Gasoline & Petro-Diesel Habit: A Business Manager's Blueprint For Action www.kickingthegasoline.com.