Transition;a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another.
Every day we are told that if humans don't radiically change the way they use fossil fuels, water and many other resources the global temperature could rise by 4 degrees. That doesn't sound too bad until you read on to find that a rise of 2 degrees is classed as dangerous for our climate and 4 is catastrophic. So we each need to change how we live, with a speed that many either feel they can't afford or that is on such a massive scale that it defeats us before we begin.
What makes us choose to change? Is it as simple as realising when change is necessary and getting on with it? Is it when the devil you know is taking you to hell in a handcart, so time to swap it for a better Beelzebub? Is it nagging? Is it for something we really want, in this case a better future? For me it’s all of the above. I am very comfortable in my small world. I could be so easily seduced by promises that all will remain the same, were it not for that nagging feeling that this time I live in is just the smallest tick of a geological clock, where we are all carbon fuelled supermen, doing 72 times the work of our ancestors. I have some dark fears, I worry for my children’s future, but I can’t live every moment like that. And then the more I learn about how and where the things I use are produced, the easier it gets to make choices based on their deeper value. It’s not just it’s price, it’s the hours it took to make it, it’s the materials used. It’s knowing that when you really value resources you don’t want to squander them, you want to eek them out, make them last.
We get the life we choose. We chose to drive more thriftily in the first three months of this year and denied the government £650 million pounds in revenue as a result. We can make a big difference with the small things we do. Transition will never be the one answer to everything, but it is the process, the place in between, the journey from how we were to how we will be.
Churchstanton Transition House:
My solar panels are up. Anyone who wants to have a look at the sys020864.tem and the costings contact me through the website blackdownhillstransition.org or phone 07779 020864
