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Transition stories: What is community?

By May 17, 2012
Eggleston

One of the things that brought my wife Hannah and I together as a couple is a shared vision of community and sustainable living, and a desire to work for social justice and community power. But, as Hannah's mother likes to ask, "what is community?" Good question! In 2010, we bought a home in the Egleston Square part of Boston after living in the area for about a year.  With so many of our friends so mobile and moving off to California every few years, with family spread out across the US … [Read more...]

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From Italy, with love

By May 16, 2012
Carrots

My wife and I have decided to chase a different carrot. We've left behind our teaching careers, pared down our belongings, strapped what's needed to our backs and are in search of new skills. We're passionate about learning to grow food, secure water, and build natural structures. If we're lucky we'll find a community interested in the same things Many people in our lives think we're being a bit extreme.They say things like, How will you live without insurance or an income? How long are … [Read more...]

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The conversation I would like to have

By May 8, 2012
Camp Fire

I first read the original Limits to Growth as a high school senior in 1974, and it changed my life. Or rather, it confirmed my youthful suspicions regarding the fundamental contradictions of industrial culture. That was back during the tail end of the Vietnam era; there was an active back to the land movement and articles on self-sufficient living and alternative energy were common place in the mainstream press. The first and second oil crisis of the 70s were a defining experience making for … [Read more...]

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The May 2012 Insurrection

By April 30, 2012
Unite, General Strike!

Hey you dreamers, strikers and new left redeemers out there! For thirty-one magical days beginning this Tuesday, May 1, we take the plunge and Strike! We block the Golden Gate Bridge; occupy a Manhattan-bound tunnel; seize the ports. In 115 cities, we march into banks, erect tents and refuse to leave. We disrupt financial institutions forcing thousands to preemptively close. Five thousand of us pray, dance, sleep on Wall Street and in front of the Fed and if the Bloombergs of the world … [Read more...]

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Why don’t farmers just do it?

By April 11, 2012
Cow Stream Postcard

Excluding livestock from streams is possibly the single most effective Best Management Practice in animal agriculture. But too many farmers hesitate to get on board with these practices, even when it's better for their own animals. Why don’t farmers just do it?  I mean fence their cattle out of the streams.  If farmers would do this one practice, they could help restore and preserve water in their area watersheds. And in the case of my home area in the Shenandoah River watershed, if … [Read more...]

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Ackerman and McPherson dialog: Practical paths to a post-carbon lifestyle

By March 26, 2012
Tea

The following dialog is a continuation of one started by Drs. Sherry Ackerman and Guy McPherson a few weeks ago on Transition Voice. In that discussion, Ackerman and McPherson laid out some philosophical considerations about the need for a transition to more locally-based economies of human scale along with a deeper reverence for and consideration of the natural world that we share with plants, animals and other natural forms. In the following discussion, they talk very practically — … [Read more...]

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What are you and your Transition group doing this May?

By March 23, 2012
Garden painting

From coast to coast, in urban and rural communities, abandoned lots are being converted into green oases and school children are pulling weeds and planting tomato starts. Whole communities are signing up to pick up shovels and tools to help install rainwater harvesting systems, improve insulation, install solar panels, and bring homegrown produce to their friends and neighbors. How it all began On May 14 & 15 last year, during the first Transition US Home & Garden Challenge, … [Read more...]

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Ackerman and McPherson: A dialogue on finding authenticity

By March 12, 2012
Veritas

Transition Voice writers Guy McPherson and Sherry Ackerman have some things in common. They both got PhDs, taught and did research at universities and then left the ivory tower, deciding, as Socrates did, to take their message to the streets. And their common concern is how to live in a way that's not a lie in our time of climate change, peak oil and economic and cultural crisis. McPherson’s background is in ecology and management of natural resources. Ackerman’s is in cultural … [Read more...]

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The state of the union

By February 3, 2012
Peace Flag

The state of the Union is on our minds. But, in all fairness, it has been for the past few years. It’s painfully too easy to wonder if we are turning into a hostile, bellicose society. The good old days of sitting on Grandpa’s porch and idly churning ice cream seem a long ways from schoolyard shootings, super-sized wars in the Middle East, teenage sex slavery and ponzi schemes of today. Not to mention that gun sales are at a record high. After a half-hour or so of reading the news, … [Read more...]

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Why this is an amazing time to be alive

By January 20, 2012
Family walking

This is an amazing time to be alive! “Yeah, right,” my inner cynic says, “crumbling economy, peak oil, peak everything, melting ice caps, mass extinctions…" The list goes on and on, all woven together, I remind my cynic within, by the fact that we're living in a time when the old is crumbling, which is when there's the greatest opportunity to create something new. And that is an amazing time to be alive! If you're alive today, you're part of this Great Unraveling/ Great … [Read more...]

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