Some of the most interesting, vital and ambitious public conversations about sustainability and local self-reliance are happening under the auspices of the local Transition initiative. The trend continued Friday evening as roughly twenty-five individuals, small business-owners and representatives of local non-profit organizations met to introduce themselves and talk about mechanisms for making Salida, and the Arkansas Valley, a better place.
Envisioning 2030
Salida Transition co-founders Denise Ackert and Merry Cox framed the discussion with the question: “Where do we want to be in 2030 and how will we get there?” The answer is complex, but at its core involves a sustainability plan with some measure of consensus within the community, according to Cox.
Citizen-created sustainability plans in other communities have been adopted by governing bodies and incorporated in comprehensive plans, those key planning tools for municipalities.
Ackert quoted from one such initiative, the Community Sustainability Action Plan created by the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition.
We live at a pivotal moment in the story of humankind. For thousands of years, we have utilized the earth’s abundant resources to meet our needs. But now, nearly 300 years into the Industrial Revolution, we are starting to see the limits of what the earth can provide. The signs are all around us. We can choose to ignore these signs and wait until we are forced to react. Or we can seize this opportunity to work together to create a sustainable world.
This action plan represents the decision on the part of hundreds of residents and dozens of organizations in Corvallis, Oregon to choose the path toward a sustainable future. No one knows for sure what a sustainable world will look like. But the promise of low-impact, high-quality lives for our children and grandchildren is too important an opportunity to ignore.
“If you don’t have plan for getting there, you don’t get there,” said Cox.
Energy descent
An Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) is a kind of sustainability plan designed specifically to wean a community off of petroleum dependence in the face of peak oil and climate change. It is the outcome of a process developed by the founder of the Transition movement, Rob Hopkins.
Because energy implicates every other system, such a plan is a complex effort. According to Eat the Suburbs:
It goes well beyond issues of energy supply, to look at across-the-board creative adaptations in the realms of health, education, economy and much more. An EDAP is a way to think ahead, to plan in an integrated, multidisciplinary way, to provide direction to local government, decision makers, groups and individuals with an interest in making the place they live into a vibrant and viable community in a post-carbon era.
“Energy descent” describes the trajectory of communities after peak oil. Australian permaculture pioneer David Holmgren sees ‘descent’ as “the least-loaded word that honestly conveys the inevitable, radical reduction of material consumption and/or human numbers that will characterize the declining decades and centuries of fossil fuel abundance and availability.”
Increased communication and collaboration
When asked what assets are lacking for those working on issues related to sustainability, many attendees cited “money.” At the same time, many grant applications remain unsubmitted for myriad reasons: people may not know about them, cannot find matching funds or do not have time to write the grant.
In part to address this condition, Ackert floated the idea of a sustainability coalition. The coalition would facilitate communication between organizations, especially about funding opportunities, assess demand for resources like grant writers and where possible, help coordinate grant requests. The coalition would be well-positioned to identify those “matching funds” so critical to successful grant applications.
Coalition responsibilities might be assumed by an existing organization, or a new one. Individual committees, or “working groups”, would encourage regular communication between entities working on an issue while assuring funders that grant money supports agenda items which fit into a larger framework.
Significantly, the coalition could also take the lead on creating a community sustainability plan.
In a conversation after the meeting, Michelle Riggio said that Chaffee Citizens for Sustainability would be supportive of such a coalition, and a sustainability plan. Concrete action is urgently needed, according to Riggio. “Time is running out… orchards don’t grow overnight.”
Ackert sees cooperation between the many local efforts as an important first step.
“I keep thinking about bees,” she says. “Bees work in a coordinated manner to create their home. If the left hand knows what the right hand is doing in our community, we have a chance to move ahead effectively to create and implement a plan for a sustainable future.”
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