Guiding our communities from oil dependency to local resilience
 
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RESOURCES

The Transition movement takes a look at the sweeping problems we face, and then consciously designs a plan to grow local resilience -- our ability to flex and adapt.  

The following resources will assist you in understanding the problems, as well as taking positive action which prepares your family, friends, and community.

peak oil ... climate change

biocapacity/"peak everything"  ... economic contraction

the Transition concept ... What We Can Do ... español

 
An overview of Transition -- in less than 3 minutes (VIDEO, English)
 
Peak Oil
  • Peak Oil Visually Explained (VIDEO 3 minute, English)
  • Peak Oil Primer, Energy Bulletin
  • Peak Oil for Dummies, Lionel Badal (ASPO peer reviewed)
  • Future Scenarios, by David Holmgren (shorter online version) or Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change, by David Holmgren (expanded book version) (TLA)
  • PowerDown, by Richard Heinberg
  • "Can renewable energy make a dent in fossil fuels?" CNET review of book by Ripudaman Malhotra about the Cubic Mile of Oil
  • U.S. Department of Energy's 2009 diagram of World Liquid Fuels Supply (jpg) and original source on EIA.gov website (slide #8)
  • U.S. Department of Energy's 2006 poster "Peak Oil: The Tipping Point" (pdf)
  • The Peak Oil poster we use at Transition Los Angeles events
  • Quotes:
    • "One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over" -- David J. O'Reilly, Chairman & CEO, Chevron Oil, July 2005 (source, additional source)
    • "Shell estimates that after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand." -- Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell (source)
    • “One day we will run out of oil. We have to leave oil before oil leaves us, we have to prepare ourselves for that day. The earlier we start, the better, because all of our economic and social system is based on oil, so to change from that will take a lot of time and a lot of money and we should take this issue very seriously.”  -- Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries. (source)
    • "The end of cheap oil and natural gas is coming and coming fast. My hope is that more attention is going to be focused not only on the problem of global “Peak Oil”, but possible solutions to meet this challenge with the same drive and ingenuity our leaders and great minds put into getting a man to the moon." -- U.S. Congressman R. Bartlett (R-Maryland), co-founder of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus (source)
 
Climate Change
 
Biocapacity (a.k.a. Global Footprint)
 
Economic Contraction
  • "Economic Resilience," a working paper by TLA's Joanne Poyourow.  Online portions are indexed here, and a pdf download of the entirety is available.
  • "Making Sense of the Financial Crisis in the Era of Peak Oil"  Nicole Foss (aka Stoneleigh) gave a talk at the 2010 Transition Conference in the UK.  The audio and many similar slides are linked from this blog entry. Stoneleigh's full presentation can be purchased on DVD from her website.  The handout that TLA distributed when Stoneleigh came to town is available here.
    • "Those 'green shoots of recovery'?  Those would be gangrene!" -- Stoneleigh
  • "Barking Up the Wrong Tree" by Jerry Mander found on page 9 of this pdf
    • "The scale of denial is breathtaking." --Jerry Mander
  • "What if the Economy Doesn't Recover?" by Richard Heinberg.  An excellent article explaining why we are looking at Life Beyond Growth
    • "Understandably, everyone wants it to get “back to normal.” But here’s a disturbing thought: What if that is not possible? What if the goalposts have been moved, the rules rewritten, the game changed?"
  • "Economic Growth," Tim Jackson's 2010 TED Talk
    • "This is a strange, rather perverse story ... about us ... being persuaded to spend money we don't have on things we don't need to create impressions that don't last on people we don't care about"
  • "Depression 2.0" term used by the World Economic Forum at Davos, Jan 2009

ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS:

 
The Transition Movement

The Transition movement is founded on Permaculture principles.

Transition in Los Angeles:

 

Energy Descent Action Plans : 
The Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) is what uniquely distinguishes the Transition process from all other "greening" efforts.  Early efforts of Transition initatives (awareness-raising, reskilling events, networking) are designed to get a community ready to envision a powered-down, lower carbon future.  Next, the Transition initiative forms the working groups which will create the EDAP.  These teams analyse what resources we currently have to work with, create a vision of where we want to be and use backcasting techniques to determine the pathway toward that brilliant future.  After the EDAP is published, efforts are directed toward getting the EDAP ideas incorporated into other area planning tools (city planning, etc.).  Eventually, the Transition initative will focus on implementation of the EDAP:  gearing up skills, installing physical projects, building relationships, and accumulating the tools necessary to make the EDAP vision come alive.

 
What We Can Do

many articles and local resources are accessible via these webpages:

 
 
 
Español
 

 

 

THE TRANSITION LOS ANGELES LIBRARY
Books, movies, and other materials marked (TLA) are avaliable for borrowing from the Transition Los Angeles library.  It is located at the TLA office, 6700 W. 83rd, Westchester (Los Angeles 90045).  The office is open most Thursday afternoons (phone first: 310 670 4777).  Movies are public showing license and are available to TLA pods free of charge. 

Sorry, we can not ship.

Resources marked (LAPL) are available through the Los Angeles Public Library system.  Online you can place holds and request that materials be transferred to your local branch (a free service).

 
     
 

DIAGRAMS

These diagrams are referred to frequently in our Transition talks and courses.

 
 

explanation:  Future Scenarios, by David Holmgren

 
     
   
  explanation: An animated journey through the Earth's climate history (BBC)  
     
   
  Peak oil, "The Big Picture"  (ASPO 2005)  
     
   
  Peak oil, "Detail" (Department of Energy's EIA 2009)