A Grand Experiment: Transition Initiative

by Faith Van De Putte

"Imagine a community, imagine a world . . . where how we live nourishes the earth, helps people realize their potential, and creates joy in community."

This is the audacious premise and enticing invitation of the Transition Fidalgo.

This publication is distributed for free at Transition Fidalgo & Friends events. Click here to download  (4.5 MB).

Transition Fidalgo & Friends is a non-profit, all-volunteer organization focusing on strengthening Fidalgo community’s resilience by developing positive, everyday solutions to the challenges of climate change, energy uncertainty, and economic instability. It is part of the international Transition Movement that believes a post carbon, low impact future could be a positive change for humanity. Anacortes is currently taking up this challenge and speakers from Transition Fidalgo will be at Lopez Library, Oct 28, 6.30pm.

“By supporting renewable energy, rebuilding skills, strengthening community, and fostering the local production of food, energy, and goods, we look forward to a way of life more fulfilling, more connected, and more caring of each other and the earth.” states the website of Transition Fidalgo, transitionfidalgo.org.

The thriving Transition Movement is a social experiment. It began when a student group led by Permaculture teacher Rob Hopkins created an “energy descent action plan” in Kinsdale, Ireland. It went beyond the issues of energy supply, to look at across-the-board creative adaptations in the realms of food, farming, education, economy and health and was adopted by their town council. After this experience Mr. Hopkins moved to Totnes, England to work on his doctorate and started Transition Town Totnes. The process has since been

replicated in 397 communities in 34 countries, including Whatcom, Whidbey, and Anacortes.

The Transition movement has been called “engaged optimism” since at its heart is the belief that local organizing can create resilient communities more able to withstand the shocks of our changing resource base and climate. As it says on the Transition USA website “if we wait for the governments it will be too late and too little, if we act as individuals it’ll be too little too late but if we act as communities, it might just be enough just in time.”

What is happening in the 397 communities who are using and adapting the Transition model? They are assessing their current energy dependence, visioning what their community would look like less dependent on fossil fuels and once the vision is in place they "backcast" - that is, work backwards from that time to figure out what must be in place to make the vision real. For example, if the community wants to source 50% of its home heating from managed woodlands in 2030, then it'll need to have planted up all the necessary areas by 2020.

Many of the first steps are modest and based around “relocalization” such as community gardens, seed swaps, sharing of knowledge and skills. Other towns are trying solutions such as creating their own currencies in order to support their local economies. Tackling the issue of building community resilience demands hard innovative work in many sectors and the Transition movement strives to be a platform for a unified community vision. 

Our neighbors at Transition Fidalgo have been busy with hosting informational local dinners, establishing a community garden, publishing a highly successful community cookbook, Serving the Skagit Harvest, as well as a sustainable living guide and working with Skagit County to pass a climate resolution and establish a climate task force.

Come join the discussion. Evelyn Adams and friends of Transition Fidalgo will be at the next Climate

Change lecture series to share their experiences with us. See you at the Lopez Library, Friday Oct 28!

The Island That Could

Could San Juan county cut energy usage by 50%, produce 50% of its own energy, and grow 50% of its own food within 15 years? This challenge concluded former Silicon Valley executive and newly elected OPALCO board member Vince Dauciunas’ July 8^th lecture at the Lopez Library on the regional effects of climate change. It turns out that there is an island akin to ours, which rose to a similar challenge over 10 years ago.

In 1997 the Danish government announced a competition to see which local area could present the most realistic and realizable plan for 100% transition to self-sufficiency with renewable energy. The island of Samsø (population 4,300) won the competition. Even though there were no monies, tax breaks or technical assistance tied to the prize, the island forged ahead with its plan and to the surprise of many, reached its goal.

How did Samsø go from being 100% dependent on oil and coal to being a model of sustainability? After winning the competition a single staff position was created. Soren Hermansen, born and raised on the island, believed in the project as few others did and took the job. Slowly, the skeptical islanders began to participate in the project as educational campaigns, community meetings (which often included free beer) and hard work paid off. The community came to not only believe in the project but to invest in it.

Samsø’s carbon negative status was achieved by a three-pronged approach: centralized biomass burning heat plants, wind turbines and conservation.

Centralized heat plants are common in the Nordic countries. People voluntarily traded in their oil stoves as local straw fueled the boilers of centralized heat plants. This created additional income for farmers as well as cozy winters.

The winds of the Baltic Sea were an untapped resource. The islanders bought shares, which generated capital to build 11 land-based wind turbines. These produced 11 megawatts of power and met the entire island’s electricity needs. Later the community invested in 10 large, water based turbines able to produce 24 megawatts of electricity in order to offset their dependence on cars and ferries.

Samsø’s conservation program was very similar to the program OPALCO has created locally. Energy audits were conducted voluntarily on homes and people made the changes they could. Insulation improvements, heat pumps, and changing light bulbs helped incrementally.

Samsø built on its success and created the Energy Academy, a research center for clean power, which draws tourist, academics and government officials who want learn about environmental change coming from the ground up. Hermansen was a 2008 Time Hero of the Environment but always credits the community’s involvement for Samsø’s success. “People say: ‘Think globally and act locally,’” Hermansen remarks. “But I say you have to think locally and act locally, and the rest will take care of itself.”

After hearing Samsø’s story Dauciunas’ challenge seems doable and maybe, not challenge enough. We too are a tight knit community, with our own skeptical side. We can all change our own light bulbs but what would happen if we invested together in community self-sufficiency with conservation and renewable energy? We might even surprise ourselves!