Transition Brighton and Hove is a group of volunteers aiming to start a city-wide community response to the challenges of climate change and peak oil. We want to bring together the collective skills and creativity in Brighton & Hove to evolve a sustainable low energy future reflected in an Energy Descent Action Plan. We are part of an international network of towns and cities with the same aims, the Transition Network.
For a brief summary of the transition process, see the YouTube video (Part 1 | Part 2) of Rob Hopkins, who started the Transition Network. For a more detailed outline of the Transition process, see the Transition Primer.Why are we doing this?
Two main reasons: climate change and peak oil.
Climate change due to increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 is now generally accepted as a result of human activity and is affecting us right now: with permafrost melting and collapsing ice sheets in Alaska, and altered growing seasons, changes in animal migration patterns, heatwaves, droughts, famines and floods becoming more frequent and extreme both abroad and here in the UK. The scientific consensus identifies high levels of greenhouse gases due to human activity (mainly carbon dioxide and methane) as the main influence. For more information, see the article on Wikipedia.
Peak oil is the point at which the point of maximum global oil production is reached. After this point, the rate of production enters terminal decline. Because of the high dependence of almost all modern transport and many industrial systems on cheap oil, the post-peak production decline is expected to lead to severe increases in the price of oil, with negative implications for the global economy. For more information, see the article on Wikipedia.
Both issues have the same cause: our excessive consumption of fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels is the main source of greenhouse gases, and there is only a limited amount of them on the Earth, which means that depletion will have severe implications for our energy usage if they continue to be our main source of energy.
In view of this, it is essential that we reduce significantly the amount of fossil fuels we use, starting at the local level.What have we done so far?
The first public meeting of TBH was held on 25 July 2007, which about 150 people attended. After that first meeting we formed a hub group who were to be responsible for starting up activities. For the first part of the transition process this has meant raising awareness, both of the problems of climate change and peak oil, and of how the transition to a reduced-energy future would hope to alleviate these problems. This website was launched, and a number of project groups for raising awareness have started up, with goals such as designing information flyers and a logo, holding film screenings of relevant films, and making a TBH trailer (see a current list here).
At the same time smaller Transition Interest Groups formed around particular subjects (Food, Transport, Waste & Recycling, etc), and started to hold meetings of their own. The purpose of these groups is: to make links with existing Brighton & Hove groups already involved in their area of interest; to raise awareness of their particular issues; to assist with and start their own projects for reducing energy use; and to help write our Energy Descent Action Plan for how we will reduce energy use in the city over the coming years and decades.
As we are a Transition City rather than a Town, we are also forming Neighborhood groups, in order that every area of the city is represented in the process. These groups aim to encourage people to meet with and educate others in their area of the city, and to join with existing neighborhood organisations and tackle their local problems of energy usage.What are our future plans?
In the short term we plan to continue our education and awareness program, holding more talks and film screenings, and making organizations such as schools and businesses aware of the issues and the ways to tackle them – and to learn more about all these issues ourselves and pass the knowledge on. We don't know exactly what form this will all take, but we're relying on you all to keep coming up with more imaginative ideas!
Also, we will be writing an Energy Descent Action Plan. We will start by describing our ideal sustainable Brighton and Hove by 2027, describe the steps needed to get there, and try our best to make our city follow those steps. We have already some preliminary research in this area, the Brighton Peak Oil Report. As soon as the first steps of the Plan become clear - we won't wait until the Plan is perfect - we will be implementing them.Who are we?
We are all volunteers, some of us involved in other environmental groups, some not. The organization is divided in several overlapping sub-groups:
• Transition Interest Groups: they work on specific aspects of the transition (see the current list). See a graphic of the groups and their aims.
• Neighbourhood groups: they work on specific Brighton and Hove neighbourhoods (see the current list). See a graphic of how they link to other groups.
• Coordinating Hub: they track what the other groups are doing, do basic administrative tasks (webmaster, treasurer, etc.), facilitate information exchange between the groups and gather the input from everybody to design and co-ordinate our strategy. See a graphic here.
The organization is founded around a number of evolving principes, detailed here.
If you live in Brighton and Hove, we probably need you and you probably need us. Why not come to our next meeting and find out if you'd like to be part of Transition Brighton and Hove?
