[Peace] The Transition Movement and Transition Champaign County - Monday at 7:30

[Ricky Baldwin]

I wouldn't take it as gospel, but it looks to be an effort worth playing with awhile.  As far as I can tell, it's probably too structured as is to allow poor people to find a useful place in it, and too technology-dependent, but that could change.  Maybe it can develop into something better.

I think it's a good question to raise, Mort, about large urban areas, but I don't think it's a major shortcoming.  Maybe someone should raise it at this discussion tonight.  But it seems to me, and some of our Green friends or someone else more involved in this specific movement can perhaps answer better, that the model adapts fairly well to NYC or LA, etc.  I'm thinking of the New Urbanism-style of developing "nodes" that each function as a sort of semi-town center, each with its own residential-commercial microcosm.

Big industry is a bit of an issue - but it needs rethinking anyway - and transportation outside these mini-hubs could I think easily be organized better than it is now.  (It's pretty bad in NYC, LA, et al, as soon as you get away from the wealthier areas - public transportation thins to nothing, for example, etc.  Poor people have a helluva time getting to work or to the store in huge swaths of many big cities.)

...which leads me to my next thought, what the Transition movement needs, is a little cross-pollination from these folks: http://www.equityblog.org/.  

One of the things that hasn't changed much in the environmental movement in the last 20 years or so, as far as I can tell, is that - despite some excellent efforts - it's still pretty easy to get carried away with big ideas for planning and restructuring the economy, cities, etc., and forget the basic day-to-day needs of millions of poor people in our society, their perspective, their capacities (often severely limited by life under capitalism) to participate in some of these grand ideas.  It's not an insurmountable problem, to my mind, nor is it intentional, but it is persistent.  In fact, most of of the latest big environmental ideas seem to make a real *effort* to address social injustice and inequality, and therein lies my hope.
 
Can somebody announce the May 2 Central Illinois Social Forum at this event tonight?  Pretty please?
Ricky 


"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn 




________________________________
From: Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel at comcast.net>
To: Mark Mallon <mmallon2 at illinois.edu>
Cc: peace at lists.chambana.net; PG Announcement List <prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 9:13:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace] The Transition Movement and Transition Champaign County - Monday at 7:30


For more background on this movement, see

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magazine/19town-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

--mkb

Some have criticized it as an unrealistic pipe dream, since it leaves out the fact that modern society is now largely urban "fed largely by mechanized, energy-intensive, artificially fertilized agriculture." What do the people do in the megalopolises of New York, London, Rio, Tokyo, … which depend on concentrated sources of cheap energy?


On Apr 19, 2009, at 4:55 PM, Mark Mallon wrote:

*The Transition Movement and Transition Champaign County

Presentation and Discussion with Gary Cziko*
*
When: Monday, April 20th, 7:30pm
Where: Urbana Free Library Auditorium (in the basement)*

Sponsored by Prairie Greens

The Transition Movement began in Totnes, England in 2005 as a community response to the challenges and opportunities provided by Peak Oil and Climate Change. With the goal of reducing dependence on fossil fuels and enhacing local resilience, the movement has since spread worldwide with Transition efforts now in all 50 United States. TransitionChampaignCounty.org, a social network created to facilitate and coordinate community efforts in sustainability, was begun in December 2008 and now has over 160 members.

This informal presentation/discussion will consist of three parts. First a brief historical overview of the Transition Movement will be provided. Second, a tour of the TransitionChampaignCounty.org <http://TransitionChampaignCounty.org> website will be presented, including many of its resources and tools that can help coordinate sustainability efforts in the county. Finally, we will discuss ways in which we can better use and coordinate our considerable human, natural, and technological resources to meet the challenges and opportunities of Peak Oil and Climate Change and improve the sustainability, resilience and security of Champaign County for present and future generations.

Gary Cziko is Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology and is involved with several local sustainability efforts. He is a member of both Urbana's Sustainability Advisory Commission and Urbana's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, secretary of Champaign County Bikes, and creator and administration of TransitionChampaignCounty.org.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Green Tea Discussions
Sponsored by the Prairie Green Party

A different topic every third Monday of the month - same time and location.  Membership meetings
are on the first Monday of the month at 7:30pm in the Family Room of the Independent Media Center
at 202 S Broadway in Urbana.  Learn more and join the party and www.prairiegreens.org <http://www.prairiegreens.org> <http://www.prairiegreens.org>.
_______________________________________________
Peace mailing list
Peace at lists.chambana.net
http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace/attachments/20090420/349a4425/attachment.htm