Transition Towns: social causes of climate change and private lifestyle changes

Dr Uschi Bay Monash University, Caulfield Campus

Abstract Globally, there is very good evidence to indicate that the environment is severely strained by the pollution from modern industrial processes and the lifestyle of consumerism (Irwin, 2008, p. 3). Policy makers around the globe are interested in the way that peoples lifestyle choices and behaviour can be altered to reduce carbon emissions. There is a rapid growth of environmental movements in the civil sphere in Australia and other countries in response to climate change threats and Peak Oil. One such new movement is the Transition Towns movement, which has over forty groups officially registered and operating in Australia. In this paper I outline some of the research into the membership and activities of the movement in the United Kingdom from where it originated, to indicate the kinds of challenges confronted by the movement. I indicate that the Australian Transition Towns movements is a potential site for an analysis of current civic movements around sustainability that suggest an acceptance of human social causes of climate change and requirements for changes in peoples collective and private lives. The Transition Towns movement aims to progress towards a low carbon economy and in itself this offers an implicit critique of (and an alternative vision) of development (Watts and Peets, 2005, p. 17). I aim to relate the transition town movement to social movement theory and to indicate possible future research directions.

Introduction Transitions Towns started with Rob Hopkins, a permaculture teacher in Kinsale, Eire, in 2005. Rob Hopkins was concerned about Peak Oil and developed with his students an energy decent action plan for the local community to plan how to transition for life without oil. This
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plan to transition to a more sustainable and resilient future, not reliant on fossil fuel energy, gave the movement its name. The twin goals of this movement are to address climate change through reduced carbon emissions and Peak Oil. The first UK Transition Town was formed in Totnes in 2006. By 2009 there were 94 Transition towns in the UK (Seyfang 2009, p. 2). There are a four assumptions that underpin Transition initiatives; one- that we need to move to a low energy consumption livelihoods and lifestyles because a consumer-capitalist way of life is no longer (if it ever was) sustainable; two that at present our settlements and communities lack the resilience to enable them to weather the severe energy shocks that will accompany climate change/peak oil; three that people have to act collectively now; four that we need the collective genius of those around us to creatively and proactively design our energy descent, we can build ways of living that are more connected, more enriching and that recognise the biological limits of our planet (Trainer 2009). The rapid spread and evident enthusiasm for the transition movement worldwide appears to indicate that many ordinary citizens are aware that changes are inevitable and seek to plan to avert disaster by working towards low carbon economies. It is interesting to consider how social movement theory might focus and frame questions for understanding this rapidly developing grassroots and transnational community movement. A common approach to social movements from a resource mobilisation theory perspective is to ask about such new organisations strategies in successfully gaining changes in government policies or legislation. The focus of the resource mobilisation theory perspective has been predominantly on the processes internal to the social movement, its leadership and organisation or governance arrangements. The new transition movements interactions with the state and on how it organises itself and succeeds or fails in winning gains from governments and policy makers is the focus theorists using this kind of instrumentalist approach might apply to this new phenomenon (Rootes 1990). One of the challenges is to consider how best to theorise the new transition town movement as the success or failure of a movement may in large measure be attributed to the properties of the political theory it embraces (Rootes 1990, p. 8). Little is currently known about the transition town movements resource mobilisation and political theorising in Australia.

Theorists like Tourraine and Habermas were interested in why new social movements arose in Europe over the last thirty years that were not based on collective struggles around class privilege and capital. Their theorising opened the notion of collective action up to consider
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and theorise not only movements strategic, instrumental and calculated action to gain political change, influence and power, but also to struggles over social norms and identity in the civil realm. Habermas understood these new social movements to be a defensive reaction against the dominance of the state and market and posited freedom, equality and democracy as part of the process of new social movements that includes the increasing self-awareness of subjects as free and creative members of pluralistic society (Bate et al. 2005). The extent to which the new transition town movement understands itself and its goals in conflict with existing social norms and values requires further exploration and contextualisation. New social movement theory suggests that how people understand their own identities and the identity of the transition movement itself may be an element in what attracts people to participate in the Transition Movement in Australia.

The material presented in the Transition Movement handbook (Hopkins 2009) is dehistoricised and de-politicised as the context surrounding the development of this kind of grassroots community group process is solely presented as focused on bottom-up participation; on local action particularly practical actions that for instance address food security by promoting local food production and aim to reduce carbon emission through curtailing food miles and use of fertilisers. Seyfang et al. (2010) state that there is a determined a-political stance among the movement, which aims to penetrate under the radar of existing political conflicts (www.sussex.ac.uk/sussexenergygroup/documents/seyfang_et_al.doc). This clearly means that the movement appeals to the widest possible group of people, however, avoidance of political analysis might be a weakness for the movement, it leaves grassroots community groups open to cooption by the state (Trapese 2008).

The transition movement now has members from around the world, with at least 43 transition towns currently operating in Australia. The Transition Town movement is where local people get together to develop strategies for addressing climate change by seeking ways to reduce carbon emissions as well as making lifestyle changes around food production and nanna technologies (traditional ways of preserving, conserving, reusing materials and resources using various methods and techniques that previous generations used to minimise waste). The Transition Network in the United Kingdom supports grassroots community groups by providing training and support. Recently, Rob Hopkins visited Australia and there is now a Transition Town Handbook developed with Australians and New Zealanders as the primary
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audience. There are regular Transition Town movement conferences and training programs in various countries and an informative website (www.transitiontowns.org/). At this early point in the Transition Town movement in Australia there is little research into its origins, constituents, its strategies, governance and relations to the state or international bodies.

UK Transition Towns

One recent study in the UK by Seyfang (2009) is based on a survey of 74 of the 97 Transition Towns in the UK that provides some early material on the origins, membership, location, governance, strategies and achievements of these groups in their first few years. In the UK the Transition Town locations are predominantly located in rural areas and focused on a small town and its rural surrounds; other locations are larger towns, islands and cities, although the whole city areas are usually divided into smaller geographic areas (Seyfang 2009). A similar pattern is evident here in Australia where many Transition Towns are also located in small rural towns like Barwon Heads in Victoria or Bellingen in New South Wales or Maleny in Queensland. There are islands, like Magnetic Island; Bell Post Hill which is a suburb of Geelong, Darebin an area in Melbourne or Bondi in Sydney, which are all officially affiliated and recognised as Transition Towns. Official recognition requires applying for registration with the Transition Network and meeting twelve criteria which are assessed by the Network in the UK. In short, the key point is that the transition movement is place-based and aims to deal with the local practices and knowledge to work towards a low carbon economy, while also having transnational connections and access to resources from the Transition Network.

The Transition Town movement is already being accused of being apolitical, middle class and consisting of an older age group membership. No data is yet available on the age composition, gender, race, ethnicity, educational attainment, occupational categories or socioeconomic status of transition town members in the UK or Australia. This data is of interest to social theorists in relation to the movements reach and inclusiveness in relation to citizen participation. In Australia, with a high first or second generation migrant population and Aboriginal people with a long history of living on this continent, the question of inclusiveness is important and also relates to how the transition movement seeks to use local knowledge and traditional knowledges to re-skill people in sustainable crafts and practices. The data available from the UK indicates that the Transition Towns are started by individual citizens. Some 12.3% of transition town initiatives in the UK were started by a single
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individual citizen (Seyfang, 2009). A similar account about how these towns are being started is evident in Australia, for instance, Andrew Lucas is credited with being instrumental in starting up Transition Bell in Geelong, the third formal transition town in this country in 2008 (Hopkins 2008, p. 299). It appears that the transition movements origins indicate a citizens movement with a place-based focus in the UK and Australia.

An interesting finding from the survey of Transition Towns in the UK is that the priority activity most of these groups are focused on is building local self-reliance. In order of priority, (although some groups argued that some of these activities were equally important and prioritising them was not useful), the groups priority activities were: building local selfreliance, preparing for Peak Oil, community building, tackling climate change, strengthening local economy and improving health and well-being (Seyfang 2009, p. 5). The most common activity reported was awareness-raising (94.6% of groups in the UK reported they were doing this: Seyfang 2009, p. 6).

The twelve steps for starting a transition initiative are outlined in the Transition Handbook (Hopkins 2008) and Seyfang (2009) used these steps to ask transition group members in her survey about their processes. The Transition Town members seemed serious about their institutional arrangements and most had established a steering group and designed its demise from the outset (Hopkins 2008, p. 151). Most groups were aiming to develop a visible and practical manifestation of the project in their community (65.8% of groups), and over thirty percent of groups were engaging in facilitating re-skilling for powerdown or reducing reliance on oil. Each community group is encouraged to do research on its own community to find out what skills are wanted, required and can be offered. The kinds of skills listed in the Transition Handbook referring to the Kinsale initiative are: chisel sharpening, conflict resolution, preserving, jam-making, domestic energy efficiency, compost making, local currencies, listening skills, simple energy auditing, domestic retrofit, knitting, weaving, practical food gardening, stove-building, bicycle maintenance and so on (Hopkins 2008, p. 172). Most of the Transition Town groups were less than a year old and less than 20% had specifically started on an energy descent action plan (Seyfang 2009, p. 6).

Some groups commented that they needed to get practical as they started to view their awareness raising activities as a constant talk fest. One comment captures this notion: weve had to work at things from the other end, getting interest in gardening, cutting bills,
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saving money and having fun, then moving towards organics/climate change/peak oil awareness (Seyfang 2009, p. 12). Some Transition Town members stated that they had minor achievements in food and gardening activities, waste activities, energy activities, transport activities and business and economic activities (Seyfang 2009, p. 8). The food and gardening activities included farmers markets, food festivals, working to establish community gardens, setting up gardening sharing and support groups, skilling people up to grow their own vegetables through bringing experts and novices together (Seyfang 2009, p. 8). In short, practical projects were seen as potentially attracting people to the Transition Town movement.

One of the suggestions Seyfang makes in concluding her report of the UK Transition Town survey is that there is a role for local government. She states: Transition initiatives struggle to achieve a lot, with limited resources and would benefit from funding (financial or in kind) from other organisations to support their activities. Many have links with local government and there is clearly a role here for local councils to support (not direct or lead) Transition initiatives in their work (Seyfang 2009, p. 13).

This comment resonates with a resource mobilisation notion of social movements and transition towns are strong on human, moral organisational and cultural resources but not fiscal resources (Seyfang et al. 2010).

Australian Transition Towns

In Australia at present there are 43 official Transition Towns registered with the Transition Network in all kinds of geographical locations and in most of the states. At this stage there is no Northern Territory or Western Australian formally registered Transition Town initiative listed (July 2010). The first Transition Town, Transition Sunshine Coast, was set up in late 2006 by Sonya Wallace and Janet Millington and promoted the importance of an energy descent action plan as a dynamic bridge between communities and local government... a topdown, bottom-up approach to finding and actioning real solutions to a future climate and energy uncertainty (Hopkins 2008, p. 227).

In Victoria, the Municipal Association Victoria (MAV) is looking at the bottom-up process in response to Climate Change and Peak Oil and the possibility of linking community planning processes with Transition Initiatives. The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment is currently seeking to promote and support local actions to tackle climate change through climate community grants, where up to $50,000 are available for incorporated or auspiced community groups. Community climate groups like Transition Towns are encouraged if not already incorporated to be auspiced by another group or by their local council. This raises some interesting issues around grassroots community groups and their relations to the state and how local councils and the state wide representative bodies like Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) or the Local government Association (LGA) in New South Wales relate to these groups. Hennessy (2010) says the Transition Town movement is an inspiring vision and action plan for how a community can transition to an energy lean, carbon constrained, and re-localised future that is abundant, sustainable, pleasurable, and resilient in the MAV newsletter (http://www.pigswillfly.com.au/?p=4092). This interest by local governments and local government associations raises questions about how these relationships between government and grassroots community groups might be developing. Do Transition initiatives need or should they resist the predations of the state?

In early 2010, four of the leading environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, Beyond Zero Emissions, Climate Emergency Network and Sustainable living Foundation launched the Transition Decade at the Melbourne Town Hall (http://www.t10.net.au/). This meeting aimed to build the momentum required to achieve the structural changes to the economy and lifestyles that are needed to restore a safe climate according to Walker (National Liaison Officer for Friends of the Earth, Australia). The Transition Decade aims to build greater collaboration and effectiveness among climate change groups. This notion of building greater effectiveness raises questions about what political and social theories are informing these collaborations. Does collective action and collaboration require consensus about the issues, analysis and strategies for action? There is some agreement among some transnational environmental groups and deep greens that the key element in a sustainable and just world has to be small, highly self sufficient, localised economies under local cooperative control (see Ted Trainer, Abandon Affluence, published in 1985, and The Conserver Society, 1995.) For instance, Trainer states:
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Transition must therefore be a grass roots process whereby people slowly develop the consciousness, the skills, the local systems and infrastructures that will enable ordinary people to come together to run their own local communities. Much diminished state governments could have a valuable although secondary role, but we will have to do most of the thinking, work and learning ourselves in the towns and suburbs where we live. This is a basically Anarchist vision, and given the need for localism, frugality, participation, cooperation etc. set by the coming era of intense scarcity, we will have no choice about this (http://candobetter.org/node/1439).

This view locates the transition to a low carbon economy in and with civil society and in this encourages the development of a new kinds of politics that is not only associated with the state. How can new politics develop if local transition town initiatives seek to stay under the radar and not attempt to change current dominant political, social and economic power structures?

On that point Wapner argues that what makes transnational environmental groups political is not that they intersect with the state but rather because they aim to use the cultural, social and economic networks of the world to alter and shape widespread behaviour (1996, p. 7). Politics is not just about the relations to or with the state, or about who gets what, when and how, but politics has to do with the interface of power and ... the public thing or public domain (Wapner 1996, p. 7). The Transition Town movement may be about altering widespread behaviour in relation to high consumption lifestyles in order to promote a low carbon economy. Yet some theorists argue that it is not the level or misguided kind of consumption that is the problem but rather the market economy and capitalism itself that is the problem and how transition town initiatives position themselves in how they articulate and tackle the relation between capitalism and high consumption lifestyles is of interest here. Many people including environmentalists consider that national governments and international arrangements have the most influence and power in altering the arrangements that impact on carbon emissions, yet are unlikely to make this kind of change, hence the need for an alternative way to progress to an economy that meets needs rather than aims to maximise profits. In this sense transition town initiatives are located at this crucial juncture and are potentially influential in how ordinary people engage in social, political and economic changes.

Conclusion

The two main social movement theories outlined in this paper indicate some of the research agendas that may add to the understanding and development of transnational transition town initiatives. Resource mobilisation theory promotes a focus on membership composition, types and effectiveness of strategies and internal processes and governance arrangements of transition town initiatives. The new social movement theory focuses researchers attention on why the movement arose, the historical, scientific and political conditions that promote this kind of social movement now. The process of joining a transition town initiative and how this participation relates to peoples identity, meaning making, issues of social norms, practices of freedom, achievement of equality and inclusion, resistance to the dominance of the state and market, the development of new political strategies and social practices are other aspects to explore and theorise in relation to this newly growing civil movement (Bate et al. 2005).

References

Bate, P., Bevan, H., and Glenn, R. 2005 Towards a million change agents. A review of the social movements literature. Available at - http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/1133/1/million.pdf Irwin, R. 2008, Heidegger, Politics and Climate Change: Risking It All, Continuum, London. Hennessy, J., 2010 MAV newsletter available at: http://www.pigswillfly.com.au/?p=4092 accessed 30 July 2010. Hopkins, R. 2008 The Transition Handbook: Creating local sustainable communities beyond oil dependency, Finch Publishing, Sydney. Rootes, C. A. 1990 Theory of Social Movements: Theory for social Movements?, Philosophy and Social Action 16(4) pp. 5-17. University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. Available also at www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/rootes.htm, accessed 4 October 2010. Seyfang, G., Haxeltine, A., Hargreaves, T., Longhurst, N. & Baldwin, R. 2010 Understanding the politics and practice of civil society and citizenship in the UKs energy transition, available at: www.sussex.ac.uk/sussexenergygroup/documents/seyfang_et_al.doc, accessed 7 October 2010 Seyfang, G. 2009, Green shoots of sustainability: The 2009 UK Transition Movement Survey, University of East Anglia, England.
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Trainer, T. 2009, The transitions towns Movement: its huge significance and a friendly criticism, accessed on 29 July 2010 at http://candobetter.org/node/1439 Trapese, 2008 The Rocky Road To A Real Transition: The Transition Towns movement and what it means for social change (Trapese Popular Education Collective, www.trapese.org) Transition Network 2008 Introduction <http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionNetwork> accessed 23 Sept 2008 Transition Network 2009 The Transition Network Identity: Usage Manual (Transition Network, Totnes). Wapner, P. 1996, Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics, State University of New York Press, NY. Watts, M. & Peet R. 2004 Liberating political ecology in M, Watts & R Peet, Liberation Ecologies, Environment, development, social movements (2nd ed) Routledge, London.

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