“With your help, 10/10/10 is going to be the biggest day of practical action to cut carbon that the world has ever seen.

We’re calling it “A Day to Celebrate Climate Solutions”–together we’ll get to work in our communities on projects that can cut carbon and build the clean energy future.

But we won’t stop there–we’ll be using the day to pressure our leaders to Get To Work themselves by  passing strong climate policies promoting clean energy and reducing emissions.

Thousands of people around the world have already registered their plans, including bike repair workshoppers in San Francisco, school insulating teams in London, waste-land-to-veggies-gardeners in  New Zealand, and solar panel installers in Kenya.”

This weekend marks the global day of action for 350.org, a worldwide grass roots network working towards getting carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere back to 350 part per million, considered to be a safe amount for maintaining a climate similar to the one we have now.

The emphasis of the Global Work Party is to get to work in your community doing something that reduces carbon emissions and by doing so show our leaders that we’re taking action and you should be too. Currently there are an incredible 6174 events planned in 184 countries, including a number in Brisbane (click the link for information about all the listed events and how you can get involved/ RSVP).

Popular events for Brisbane include, setting up community gardens and permablitzing gardens, planting trees, picking up rubbish and cleaning up creeks and making energy efficiency improvements.

Here are some of the event being run by Brisbane Transition Towns and friends

• Creek clean up and tree planting work party! – St Johns Wood Sustainability will be working to regenerate local bushland.
• Launching the Inspiration Community Garden – Transition East are creating a new community garden follow  by a worm farm and composting demonstration and more…….
• Help start a Community Garden – Transition Annerley will also be working on a community garden in Fairfield
• Permablitz – Transition Kuripla will be transforming a backyard into a productive fruit and vege garden
• UQ Gets to Work! – UQ Climate for Change will be having (environmentally friendly) bbq on campus and helping people to create plans to cut their carbon footprint by 10%.
• Electric Bicycle buying group – Sustainable Jamboree will be promoting their electric bicycle bulk buy

Hopefully you can make it to one of these events, if you can’t consider doing something around your house, plant a tree, sign up for green power, look into getting solar hot water etc and “get to work”.

Louise Orr in her vegetable garden created by the Transition Kenmore permablitz (Photo: Westside News)

Transition Town Kenmore’s permablitz initiative has been profiled in the Westside news.

The concept of Permablitzs originated in Melbourne and involves transforming lawns and backyards into productive fruit and vegetable gardens built using the principles of permaculture.

The recipient of our first permablitz, TTKD member Louise Orr told Anna Hilton from the Westside News how it took a “team of 16 people just two hours to make-over my entire garden and we’ve been eating from it all summer”

Transition Kenmore operates not just in Kenmore but over the whole of the Pullenvale ward and has more permablitzs planned in the near future. Even if you are not a Transition Kenmore member you are welcome to get involved in this imitative and have your own place blitzed. For more information on our blitzes see our blog or email us at transitionkenmore ‘at’ gmail.com. More information about the blitz of Louise’s garden can be seen in these before, during and after posts.

Please come and join the Transition crowd for some informal drinks at Brisbane’s best organic florist/coffee shop.

If you have a passion about sustainability, come along and network with like-minded people in a social environment. Please invite all of your friends.

It is a cash bar. All beers, wines and other beverages are organic.

Transition Town Kurilpa aims to make our little peninsula and its community more resilient. The word sustainable has so many co-opted meanings, we are using the word resilient in the ecological sense – in this case resilient to the twin concerns of climate change and peak oil.

We intend to raise awareness of these issues and to develop an Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) covering the areas of food, transport, energy , community, health, recreation, waste, built environment and housing, infrastructure and tourism.

We (and other Transition Initiatives in the Brisbane area) will be showing films, having discussions and facilitating trainings (see events) to members of our community to maintain or improve our quality of life, increase social cohesion and prepare for the inevitable changes that are occurring through climate change and peak oil. We see planning for these changes as a positive thing if we do it as a community. Our trainings will show members of the community how to reskilling themselves in gardening, building, carpentry, jam making, wall building, using tools, bike maintenance, composting – the sky is the limit.

Gathered in the beautiful mud brick home of John & Sharron Champagne, Robert speaks to the TT group about food security

After a request to take the Food Connect roadshow south of the border, we spent two weeks travelling NSW to see what was happening in local transition initiatives down there.  Our first stop was Sydney and after a couple of nights speaking at Permaculture North Sydney and Chippendale Sustainability group, we met with Russ Grayson and a bunch of Sydney-siders at the Fair Trade Cafe to talk about Transition Sydney.  They’ve only just begun, and we had a wonderful conversation with the group about the important aspects of forming a core group and supporting each other along the way.

We also travelled south to the spectacular Sapphire Coast – the Bega valley and its surrounds. While there, we stayed with John & Sharron Champagne, two key leaders in the Transition Town movement.  These guys really walk the talk – living sustainably on a plot of land north of Bega. John built the mud brick home, the very productive permaculture garden and the fantastic cob oven.  He invited around thirty locals to share cob oven pizza and hear what we were up to in Brisbane and we learned heaps from them too.

The Sapphire Coast is already well known for its fantastic initiatives in local energy and food producer groups. Some of the more recent initiatives of TT South East NSW include:

• the first Friday every month, a 100 km dinner is hosted at a local cafe in Bega;
• Launch of the Heart & Soul group last Friday;
• members hosting a TT workshop at a local festival in Braidwood, which initiated a TT Braidwood at the end of the day;
• Permablitz working bees for residents;
• production of the Sustain magazine; and
• the very exciting release of Transition TV which is found on their website. This is a great way for locals to keep up to date and become celebrities in their own right!

It was a great and inspiring visit to Bega and we want to thank John, Sharron and the rest of the TT mob for hosting a great night for us.  See you all soon at the next Hub meeting!

If you want to reserve a copy please email rolfkuelsen@gmail.com.

Good afternoon,

On behalf of Finch Publishing, I am excited to announce the
Australian release of Rob Hopkin’s The Transition
Handbook. It’s up on our website today and available for
purchasing there or at bookshops across the country.

http://www.finch.com.au/html/s02_article/article_view.asp?art_id=277&nav_cat_id=220&nav_top_id=70

(For bulk orders, see details below.)

Around the world, societies are facing the prospect of a future
with dwindling oil reserves, an unstable climate and
unpredictable food production. The Transition movement, already
well established in the UK, is now in initial but rapid
development here. It provides an effective model for ways we
might engage our local communities to create a more sustainable
future and move away from dependency on oil.

Our edition of The Transition Handbook includes profiles of
Australian and New Zealand initiatives currently underway and
shows the necessary steps to establishing a transition town in a
local area, providing an achievable model for people who would
like to transform the life of their community. These local
accounts (together with inspiring reports from the UK) show how
individuals have responded with their local communities to the
twin threats of Peak Oil and Climate Change.

This practical book explains how we can ‘transition’
from fossil-fuel based communities to ones that are more
self-reliant and generate less carbon emissions. It shows how
such changes will result in a greater development of local food,
local economies, local water harvesting and energy generation
– and so create more sustainable communities in the longer
term.

What others are saying about The Transition Handbook:

This is a rare book. Not only does it educate and inspire you on
the path to sustainability, it also shows you how to get their
by being a great “how to do it” manual. It has
already had an impact even before it’s release here. Towns
from Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of Australia to Nelson on
the coast of New Zealand are amongst the many communities
already influenced by Rob Hopkins’s work. This local
release is sure to inspire many more.’ PAUL KLYMENKO,
Planet Ark

‘The Transition Handbook clearly sets out the
unprecedented and looming challenges climate change and peak oil
pose for our civilization, and makes it clear that a concerted
community response is our only option. And yet, the book is a
profoundly positive – even joyous – read because
it tells us how working together as communities and facing these
challenges head-on will give us the capacity not just to survive
but to actively build a future that is better than our alienated
and oil-fuelled present. … [It] is your invitation to join a
clear-eyed, community-based, worldwide movement of grounded
visionaries who choose hope and action over denial and
apathy.’ NICK HEAP and DAVID SUZUKI, The David Suzuki
Foundation

Bulk copies: If you would like to purchase bulk copies at a
discount, please contact our distributors direct:
Amanda.Hogan@simonandschuster.com.au/. These orders are freight
free but require payment with order.

Publicity for local Transition initiatives: If you are running a
Transition initiative in Australia we would be pleased to
publicise it when we undertake our media campaign for the book
(in the week beginning 23 March). Please send me a couple of
sentences describing your initiative, and the name, email
address and phone number of someone in your group who would be
happy to be interviewed. We’ll get in touch with them and
then encourage media in your region to cover this local story.

We would be most pleased if you decided to spread the word about
The Transition Handbook to your professional networks and
friends.

Yours Sincerely,

Emmeline Goodchild | Marketing & Publicity Manager

Finch Publishing – Publishers of books on family, health, social
ecology, relationships & society

PO Box 120 | Lane Cove NSW | 1595 | Australia | Tel 61 2 9418
6247 | Fax 61 2 9418 8878
emmeline@finch.com.au | www.finch.com.au