Transition Town Tooting

Author: Transition Town Tooting

  • Are we getting anywhere?

    What a week!  Susan Venner (Venner Lucas Architects) and I collecting our Awards at this week’s Wandsworth Green Champions Awards from the Mayor and Konstam’s cook Oliver! Thanks to those that nominated us and many a cheer for our Tooting work to get a Transition initiative off the ground. We always talk about acting as a catalyst for imagining how we’ll put our head, heart and hands to positive solutions to the challenges we face in building a low carbon society and holding these sparkly awards on Thursday night it felt as though it wasnt just talk: others also believe we are making a practical difference too. Hurrah!  Working hard day by day, week by week, you have to trust your instincts that you’re getting somewhere so it’s uplifting to be recognised – and that goes for the whole TTT team – in this way. No stopping us now.

    Many a week in transition world has a roller coaster feel.  The last has been no exception. Monday was spent preparing for a gi-normous ‘stake holder’ meeting with representatives of Emergency services, Fire, Ambulance, Police, Transport for London, London Traffic Control, London Buses, Tooting Town Centre Management, our Carnival artists Emergency Exit Arts and a number of Wandsworth Council employees to discuss closure of Upper Tooting Road on Sunday July 4th for the Trashcatchers’ Carnival.  Road  closure of any of London’s main roads is a very complex business and traffic management plans have to be worked out with incredible care and precision, to divert buses, fire engines and ambulances. The first meeting made progress – we are not there yet, but hopefully more work, more plans, more meetings and we can get there. In a nutshell we’re proposing that a community that has heavy traffic pass through it 24 hours a day for 365 days a year, is given the chance to celebrate itself, see itself, hear itself, know itself, renew and re-imagine itself for a few hours as a spectacular, inventive, creative, non polluting Carnival passes through.

    Today we spent some time visiting shops and businesses along the High Road letting them know about the Carnival and asking if they had any trash we could start collecting…We met with positive responses and many smiles. It seems the Carnival gives pleasure to people simply imagining it. Fingers crossed the real thing will prove memorable and magical for all. Email Transition Town Tooting if you’d like to know about the Feb Carnival workshops being held Feb 27th/28th to design and build the Carnival story.

    The Copenhagen Climate Change talks back in December were of course more than disappointing. But for me they made one thing crystal clear. It is on the ground, person by person, house by house, shop by shop, heart by heart where the real changes are made. It really really is down to us in local communities. As Gary Snyder the American poet says ‘Find your place on the planet. Dig in and take responsibility from there.’ How proud and glad I am that’s Tooting for me!
    LN

  • Easing The Transition

    Coverage in today’s Wandsworth Guardian of our recent Energy Talk with Jeremy Leggett & Rex Cassidy.  Good pic – we should sign that photographer up for the Carnival!

    Brief highlights are now on our video channel

  • Talking Energy & Recycled Oil

    TTT held a very interesting and well attended talk on Thursday with Solar Century’s Jeremy Leggett and Rex Cassidy the Facilities Director at Springfields Hospital responsible for all St Georges Trust buildings. Some video excerpts will follow on our youtube channel.  

    Jeremy reminded us that how human brains work is key and that we tend “to be blind to depletion of resources, expecting steady growth in supply to meet ever increasing demand.”  Scary, but we obviously derive some comfort from being in a state of denial!  Meanwhile the UK government apparently has an equally scary attitude to the coming oil crunch telling Jeremy that “it would be risky to do a risk assessment” of the situation!  And the government’s 2009 Wicks Report tells us “there’s no crisis”, assuming oil companies will just find more and more prehistoric fossilised algae and zoo plankton from 100s of millions of years ago (yes that’s what oil is according to wikipedia anyway).  Thankfully Jeremy said solutions abound in renewable energy, the clean tech revolution and localised resilience, mobilising just as people did in the straightened times of 1930s and 40s.  A very Transition response we think.  Loads more info on Jeremy’s site HERE.

    Rex meanwhile explained the energy challenges of looking after 90 buildings used by 3,000 staff in the Tooting area.  Indeed it was the hospital staff who provided key impetus behind drafting the Trust’s Carbon Management Plan, to which Rex introduced us.  There was time for questions and it was sobering to discover that the UK sits a paltry 25th out of the 27 EU countries in terms of renewable energy development with 1.3%.  The hospital redevelopment plans meanwhile do hope to include renewable energy generation.

    Also last week we made an inspiring and enlightening visit to Uptown Oil near Waterloo who produce 100% recycled biodiesel from used vegetable oil. Wouldn’t it be great if the Trashcatchers Carnival floats could be powered by used cooking oil from Tooting’s myriad restaurants? We are looking into the possibility.  Uptown Oil told us they are constantly looking for more good supplies of used oil.  A significant number of London’s taxis are already running on cleaner renewable biodiesel as was evidenced by the steady stream of them pulling up while we there.    DT

  • Volunteer Roles for Carnival

    TTT is looking for several different people to assist over the next few months in the build up to Tooting’s first ever Trashcatchers Carnival on July 4th. Could you help out with vital Fundraising or be the key Community Liaison person with all the local groups? Or perhaps you know all about Press & Publicity? Click on the respective links for more details of each role and how to apply.

  • Energy Specialist Jeremy Leggett in Tooting

    Further to the successful talk held in September with Prof Tim Lang and NEF’s Andrew Simms, we are holding a 2nd talk in association with the Wandsworth Environment Forum this week. What will Tooting look when cheap oil runs out? And how can we make the transition? Come and hear from Energy Specialist and Director of Solar Century Jeremy Leggett, a leader in raising awareness about Peak Oil and the coming energy crunch, and also for a local insight Rex Cassidy, Director of Facilities and Patient Environment at Springfield Hospital, will tell us about the energy challenges faced by the hospital.

    Thursday 28th January – 7.30 pm, Mushkil Aasaan, 220–222 Upper Tooting Road. PS: See Jeremy’s article in Saturday’s Guardian

  • Reflections on Involvement with TTT

    We asked Tooting Transitioners what they’d learnt from getting involved with our local collective response to global challenges. Here’s a random selection of what they said:

    Malsara:
    I am touched and amazed by the generosity and kindness of the people I have met through TTT. What a refreshing change from the profit driven madness of the recruitment world, thank goodness I have left that behind me! …Being a member of TTT has given me the opportunity to learn new skills and do things I would not have had the opportunity of doing, it’s been quite an experience.

    Ethel:
    Knowledge is power, and this is why I joined TTT and I have never looked back. The whole experience has made a difference in my daily life, I stopped driving to work at Chelsea and Kensington and travel by bus or train. I tell my friends and family to live gentle on the land God has given us to plant more trees and to use the produce at harvest time for our food. I have learnt a lot from the meetings, the conference at Battersea Arts Centre and also watching Age of Stupid, raised my awareness to some of the issues affecting poor countries in the world, and that we should try and live simply and allow others also to live. I think I can make a difference, as a midwife giving advice to pregnant women about health and wellbeing, I can look into health issues. I envisage the future for Tooting is to have trees on the pavements on the High Streets, and no cars to cut down on the carbon.

    Jo:
    To me being part of a transition group, even on an adhoc basis due to my travelling, helps me to give a moment, sometimes just a thought, to how I live my life and how that effects others near and far.

    David:
    I have been amazed at how a seemingly small insignificant thing can snowball into a much bigger more significant thing; for instance my photos and videos as picked up on and used by others. It makes me feel that small things can assist in facilitating real change towards a more sustainable and resilient society. An ocean comes from many raindrops.

    Lucy:
    I look at everything differently. I feel clearer about my role and I feel calmer that I have now taken into my own hands responsibility for acting on behalf of the planet and my community. I am hopeful and excited about some of the things I think we can achieve in Tooting. I have learnt that the earth needs our help and there is a lot we can do. TTT has helped wake me up to this and set me on a road that will be full of adventures. It has given me a framework in which i can lead my life which is coherent and committed.

    Hilary:
    I’ve learnt that I don’t need the ‘authority’ of a job or a job title to get out and make things happen. I’ve walked through doorways in Tooting that I passed by for years and behind them have found wonderful spaces, lovely people and caring and supportive communities. I’ve met many great people with whom I can share my fears for the future without fear of judgement but also make plans with a sense of imagination and creativity which feels like it might just make changes possible.

    Giulia:
    I really do believe now that together people can make a difference and that there is scope to reinvent our lives and the places we live in. It has been a very “dynamic” year, exchanging great ideas, developing our vision of a better future and mostly, making things come true!!

    We look forward to welcoming more of you in 2010

  • Sustainable Future?

    The government of The Maldives held a cabinet meeting under water last month to emphasise how their nation is threatened by rising sea levels and climate change.

    And an article in the Guardian today claims that the International Energy Agency has been deliberately underplaying the looming oil shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.  Hmmm …

    Meanwhile, closer to home, consultation is under way on Wandsworth Council’s environmental policy document entitled ‘Ambition for a sustainable future‘.  The Wandsworth Environment Forum is holding a workshop on Monday 16th Nov. to (a) find out more about what the council is proposing (b) contribute local people’s views about the proposals and (c) shape the Council’s environmental priorities over the coming years.  All are welcome and full details of how to attend are here

  • All About The Oil

    What is it about Peak Oil that helps to ‘get one’s head’ around the converging challenges of this time in planet history? I like to see it as the ‘first story’: all the others – climate change, economic ‘recession’, arctic ice melts, pollution, obesity, loss of bio-diversity, floods, famines, having to recycle our waste and think about using the car less are ‘second stories’. Peak Oil is certainly the thing that made me, a theatre producer, sit up and decide to act consciously for the earth. 

    This new report from Bristol City Partnership and Council. is an incredible resource for us to be able to learn from. At 104 pages it’s quite a read, (exec summary short) but it is mesmerising as it covers not only every aspect of the challenge of peak oil, but also the practical steps that can be taken in the face of it. For example, the NHS is heavily dependent on transport for patients and services travelling to and from hospitals. How will rising cost of fuels, have a knock on effect on the rest of health care budgets? Let alone in the longer term, the profiligate use of oil for transport needs when so many other precious things come from oil derivatives and ‘oil-embedded’ processes: medicines, drugs, hospital equipment, plastics, detergents. Oil is precious (took millions of years to form); has no equivalent as a resource and supply is declining at a time when the world’s demand for it is increasing. What does this mean for every aspect of our daily lives and how much oil would we like to be left for our children and their children and generations to come? It’s all a lot to imagine. What the Bristol Report does brilliantly is break this all down for us to see how it could work if we start NOW. The single most important suggestion they make for Councils is to ‘Publically acknowledge the threat of Peak Oil’. Transition Towns play a part here in creating the public space to hold these discussions for anyone and everyone who wants to get their heads around this amazing challenge. As our Trashcatching workshops showed, children and artists are beginning to do this. Let’s join them!

    LN

  • Trashcatching Workshops

    Well done to everyone who was involved in last week’s Trashcatching Workshops at Graveney School.  A short film of some of the action can be watched below! There will be more workshops over half term in February as we prepare for the big Trashcatchers’ Carnival in Tooting on July 4th 2010. Any children or adults wishing to get involved, you can, it’s free and we’d love to have you on board!

  • News both inspiring and concerning

    A few of us from Transition Tooting made it up to the New Economics Foundation’s Bigger Picture festival of interdependence on Saturday (although overwhelming numbers did leave others standing in a lengthy queue or giving up all together).  Highlights for me were: hearing Jeremey Leggett and Juliet Davenport giving both the harsh reality and the currently untapped potential for us to survive life after oil, visiting the Ministry of Trying to Do Something about it and receiving my carbon ration book, and of course hearing our own Lucy Neal on a panel investigation of whether Art can save the Earth.  In support of the key role art can play Lucy quoted Brian Eno … “Humans are capable of a unique trick, creating realities by first imagining them, by experiencing them in their minds. As soon as we sense the possibility of a more desirable world, we begin behaving differently, as though that world is starting to come into existence, as though, in our mind’s eye, we are already there. The dream becomes an invisible force which pulls us forward. By this process it begins to come true. The act of imagining somehow makes it real….And what is possible in art becomes thinkable in life.”
    Time to get imaginging some new realities..

    Talking of which – I’m already half way through NEF’s new publication, The Great Transition – Tales of How it Turned Out Right – described as the first comprehensive blueprint for an economy based on stability, prosperity, fairness, sustainability and well-being.  Some of the ideas – like valuing products on the basis of the environment are already being tackled in other countries such as Sweden.  Interesting how ‘Transition’ seems to be the go-to word these days to describe the changes we are going through.

    Meanwhile on the Peak Oil front a great (though depressing) summary of where we are by Ashley Seager here in the Guardian on Monday.