I’ve mentioned the Transition movement in a couple of posts and I thought I’d pass on what I’ve been involved with in the local group. A while ago the New Forest Transition Hub was created and, in a somewhat foolhardy move they made me Chair….

The basic notion behind Transition is that we desperately need to start taking action now to begin preparing ourselves for a low energy future. If you care to look there’s increasing evidence that the (oil dependent) party we’ve all been enjoying over the last thirty years is about to come to an end. The oil companies know it. You’ve only got to read the adverts from Shell and BP recently to see that they believe in the urgent need to diversify energy sources. And there was a very sobering report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) the other day. The IEA was set up during the 1970’s oil crisis as a policy advisor to some 28 countries, including the UK. Their reports have always been very conservative and have shunned the idea that we might run out cheap oil. But the 2008 World Energy Outlook is very different. One fact alone stands out. If you take the output from the world’s 400 ‘best’ oil fields, their production is set to decline by over 9% next year and continue to decline by at least that year on year. At that rate, by 2030 the world will have to find and bring on stream another six Saudi Arabias just to keep pace with demand. I leave you to decide if that’s very likely!

So what can we do? Well, plenty! We’ve got used to having all the energy we need whenever we want it and there’s no denying that it’s been great. But like anyone who sees a change up ahead we should start thinking about how to adapt our lifestyles. And that’s what we started to do at an event we called The Heat Exchange. It took place in Brockenhurst on 15 November. We called it that because we wanted to transfer the existing energy in people to each other and radiate the effects around.

We were all rather pessimistic about how many people would show up. We sent invitations to over 120 people who were already involved in activities related to sustainability and thought maybe 20-30 might come along. In the end we had over 100 people there ranging in age from 2 months to over 80. The atmosphere was fantastically positive and the overwhelming sentiment was ‘thank goodness someone has started to do something!’ From the event we now have small groups all over the New Forest starting to get to work on both themes (like food, energy and education) and in localities (based round villages and communities). In themselves they are small actions but they add up to a lot of positive momentum.

I’ll keep you posted with what we are up to but you can get a flavour by visiting the New Forest Transition web site. And if you are interested in joining the 100,000 other people actively working on Transition ideas in the UK go to the Transition Network site to find out what’s happening in your town or community.