“Transition is about the intentional act of shifting from high resource use, high carbon dioxide emissions, extractive business practice and fragmented communities to communities with a healthier culture, more resilient and diverse local economies, more connection and less loneliness, more biodiversity and more time, democracy and beauty.”  – Rob Hopkins, ‘From What Is To What If’

A warm hello to all our members and we hope you are keeping safe and well. We’d just like to let you know about the changes to our local organisation as a consequence of the Covid pandemic.

Transition Cafe

We have cancelled our planned Cafe meetings and realise that public meetings are unlikely to take place until summer and may be a problem for many people thereafter. So we have decided to change the way Transition Liverpool operates. We will end Transition Cafe, (the Transition Education sub group) in its present form and location. The issues around Climate Breakdown are now well known and near the top of most people’s concerns.

The types of workshops on sustainable living which we have successfully offered in the past can be accessed online where there is now a wealth of splendid worldwide information and demonstrations. Through our social media we can share with each other the best sites we have found for self sufficient, sustainable and resilient life skills.

“If we wait for governments, it will be too late. If we act as individuals it will be too little. But if we act as communities, it might just be enough, and it might just be in time” – Rob Hopkins, ‘From What Is to What If’

The Covid Lockdown has moved many people’s sphere of activity to their immediate neighbourhood and this presents some very interesting opportunities for a more diverse way of getting our message across to friends and neighbours.  Local level action is likely to increase our presence.

This might include the development of Transition Streets, further online training in talking effectively about Climate issues via Carbon Conversations, and investment in small local enterprises notably in the food production and distribution (our Mapping Project is currently working on this aspect of local resilience).

Transitioners are sharing with neighbours – things like vegetable seedlings to grow on in a yard or garden, sourdough starters and bread making recipes, kombucha starter cultures, shared domestic and gardening equipment, street level lending libraries and more. We will be publishing stories about these kinds of neighbourhood sharing, so please get in touch if you have anything to tell us about!

Staying In Touch

Email us through our Transition Gmail account transitionliverpool@gmail.com

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

See the newsletter for April

The Transition Liverpool Core Group, our planning and organising group of volunteers, will continue to meet digitally and we warmly welcome new members.

We will miss the conviviality and buzz of Transition Cafe and recognise the good work which was showcased there, much of which can be seen in back copies of the newsletter.

Our collective passion, energy and activity will spread into different locations, communities, different demographics. While Margaret and Dinah are stepping back from the monthly Cafe meetings, after organising these for over a decade, others may start up face-to-face meetings, public events and initiatives in different locations and join with Core Group to make this happen.

Do let us know and we can feature your activities on the website and other social media.

Cooperating

Transition as an entity will continue to cooperate with other organisations such as the Residents Association TANN, Friends of the Earth, Liverpool City Region Climate Action Group, XR Liverpool and others and will offer representation at events, and regional and national meetings.

The Silver Lining?

There are obvious gains from Lockdown: air quality is up, traffic pollution and noise is down, digital meetings have shown that the travel and time costs of face to face meetings are unnecessary, and neighbourhoods are discovering a new sense of community and awareness of our interdependence. People are home cooking more and wasting less, walking and cycling more and driving less, hearing more birdsong and seeing the small encroachments of wildlife into our own built up habitat. Noticing the vibrant natural world in mid Spring and gaining peace and well-being from being in nature at whatever level is possible.

After Lockdown 

We cannot afford to revert to ‘business as usual’ and ‘life as normal’. The normal we knew is destroying the planet and that threat, while not immediate like Covid, is rapidly becoming an irreversible reality.

“This crisis, (the Covid pandemic) like the climate and biodiversity crises, is an expression of humanity’s inability to accept our species’ position as interconnected, interdependent, with all other life on planet earth and live accordingly.” Climate Psychology Alliance Newsletter April 2020.

Transitioners are well placed to help get this message across through our own activities and our alliance with the many organisations, petition sites and social and political movements which are working for fundamental social and economic change.

 

Margaret, Bryan, Paul and Dinah

Members, Core Group