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Transitioners build local, sustainable communities

May 24, 2012 By

In Transition 2.0 visits local, sustainable communities where everyone has a value, a place and a purpose. Emma Goude edits and directs.

Healthy communities

If you’ve ever wanted to start a sustainable community, or are interested in a community lifestyle, this documentary offers insights and heartfelt strategies.

The Transition Network boasts over 900 registered initiatives and over 1800 communities around the world. The film surveys communities in seven countries, including one group that fails (and resurrects itself); a group in Japan helping with Fukushima disaster recovery, and an urban farm near Pittsburgh.

The DVD is available at their website.  The organization’s first film, In Transition 1.0, is streaming on Vimeo.

“Boom” and “bust” economics

Imagine a healthy, sustainable economy without extreme booms and busts. Peak oil economies are linked to “climate chaos” and “economic crisis,” a child named Samadi explains.

As oil supplies dwindle, world economies stall as the cost of goods skyrockets. In sustainable economies, renewables, enterprises and “local stuff” create jobs and prosperity for all.

This “alternative to consumerist behavior” not only creates engagement and social cohesion, Transitioners say. It’s lots of fun.

Stage 1: Dream

Initial meetings provide a space to create and play with ideas. Sophy Banks of Transition Network likes to imagine an inclusive, sustainable, thriving, happy community 20 to 50 years from now. She then asks her group to brainstorm on how to arrive at that place.

This shared vision draws communities towards fulfilling their dream, Hopkins says.

Stage 2: Deepen

Groups become a bit more structured and formal in Stage 2. At the Sustainable Village of Amoreiras in Portugal, volunteers clean and paint the entire village. A local market is created. They are planning local facilities for children and healthcare.

Chris Condello co-founded Whitney Avenue Urban Farm near Pittsburgh. The group has planted a number of gardens near boarded up homes. Food is given away to local food banks and neighbors, or sold locally.

Resident Lorna Taylor cries when she recalls how poverty-stricken Whitney Street has been beautified. One young volunteer says working on the farm keeps him out of trouble.

Infighting forced Transition Lancaster in the UK to fold within a year, says Chris Hart, initiator of the group. Failures like this become learning opportunities, says Banks. The new Transition City Lancaster has over 450 members.

Stage 3:  Connect

Transition Town Monteveglio in Bologna, Italy works with the town council, says initiator Christiano Bottone. The process was energized when Transition enthusiast Daniele Ruscigno was elected mayor.

A resolution to reduce fossil fuel use and create an “energy descent” plan was enacted. Six villages in the valley are participating in an Enescom project to develop and use alternative energy. Change has been accelerated by working with local government, says Bottone.

Stage 4:  Build

Strategic action comes next. Transition groups have set up energy companies, local currencies and social enterprises. The Marsden and Slaithwaite Transition Towns in West Yorkshire, UK have a community grocery store and bakery to encourage local shopping. This economic activity benefits other local shops.

The Handmade Bakery provides bread to 60 families who pay for bread in advance. Customer loans to the bakery helped it expand. The loans are repaid with bread.

Transition Town Lewes established the first community-owned solar power station in Britain, says Dirk Campbell, OVESCo Director. Leasing the rooftop of a brewery, the station generates power for 40 homes.

E-currency: pay by cell phone

Transition Brixton launched its own e-currency, the Brixton Pound, in 2009. Over 200 businesses accept the currency. Customers pay by text from their cell phones. This avoids having to use the expensive card-swipe method.

India’s first transition community, Heal the Soil, began in March 2011. Snehal Trivedi, co-founder of the group, says it has introduced kitchen gardens to over 100 households in four Tamil Nadu villages.

Transition Fujino in Kanto, Japan is sharing renewable, bio-diesel and even bike-generated energy in its area and beyond to create a green energy future for Japan, says Hiroshi Okawa.

Celebrating Change

Celebrations foster enjoyment, build trust and recognize achievements, Banks says. A Trash Catcher’s Carnival held a town parade to celebrate the recycling of millions of plastic bottles, shopping bags and crisp packets.

Small, local efforts add up for significant change, says Hopkins. He believes that sustainable communities can be effective where government and individual efforts fall short.

If you like In Transition 2.0, you might enjoy:  The Economics of Happiness; GrowthBusters.

 

In Transition 2.0     2011  /  NR /  1 hour, 6 min

Cast Overview: Rob Hopkins, Sophy Banks, Samadi van Coten, Chris Hart, Christiano Bottone, Daniele Ruscigno, Susan Steed, Chuka Umunna, Snehal Trivedi, Hiroshi Okawa, Julie Lee

Director:  Emma Goude

Genre:  Documentary, Sustainable Communities, New Thought

Filed Under: Awaken, Community, Current Affairs, Documentary, Ecoactivism, Heal, Youth Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ingredients: farmers, chefs create farm to table flavors

April 24, 2012 By

In Ingredients, farmers and chefs unite to bring more flavorful, nutritious foods to restaurants and consumers. Local, sustainable farming is the key in this documentary written and directed by Robert Bates.

Ingredients is now available from Netflix, and at the film’s website.

Seasonal eating pleasures

Living in France at age 19 inspired chef Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse. People shopped at open air food markets. They stood in line at the bakery for fresh-baked bread. Mussels were eaten “right out of the water.”

“I had this whole sense of aliveness around eating,” she says. “It was a way I wanted to live.” Back in America, Waters sent food buyers to visit farms and develop relationships with farmers. She began ordering directly from farms that agreed to practice sustainable farming.

“As chefs we’re the catalyst,” says chef Greg Higgins of Portland’s Higgins. “We find the good ingredients, we showcase them to people, and hopefully get them excited and searching those ingredients out at the market.”

Growing good food

There’s a big difference between growing food and growing a commodity, says Bob Jones Jr. of The Chef’s Garden. “We farm the soil, not the plant,” he explains. Healthy soil ecosystems yield better color, flavor, shelf life and nutritional values, he says.

John Neumeister of Cattail Creek Lamb, who supplies Chez Panisse, uses low density ranching and a diversity of livestock to ward off disease.

Farm to table flavors

Sheldon Marcuvitz of Your Kitchen Garden supplies Nostrana in Portland, Oregon. “The restaurants that we work with best either write their menu every day or have a lot of specials,” Marcuvitz says.

“We only want to pick what’s perfect that week” to keep customers happy, he adds. He introduces new vegetables to restaurants, including the Mediterranean succulent agretti.

Cathy Whims, Nostrana’s chef and owner, believes that “if our farmers and ranchers are making a good living they’re going to stay here.” With oil shortages, “why do we need something that’s coming across country?”

Strengthening local economies

Food imports have increased four-fold in the past decade, with the FDA unable to inspect most of these, the film argues.

“Globalization has been sold to us as a given,” says Carol Boutard of Ayer’s Creek Farm. “You need to control what you eat. You need to demand and reassert that control and be part of the process of what you eat,” she urges.

When farms supply restaurants and farmers’ markets directly, they need not use food brokers or sell to international commodity markets. Local people profit.

A new generation of farmers is attracted to local farming. Government policy could support local farmers, many of whom cannot afford health insurance, college tuitions or retirement.

Hidden costs of cheap food

The demand for cheap food drives farmers and ranchers to reduce costs. They mass produce food and use cheap labor. Even major organic farmers grow monocrops and use organic pesticides, says Marcuvitz.

Organic food shipped from thousands of miles away is a week or more old, he adds.

Local farming pioneer

“People didn’t know what their demands were doing to the world, and they still don’t,” says Joan Dye Gussow, professor emeritus at Columbia University.

Gussow learned that Haiti was exporting hogs to the U.S. 20 years ago. “The poorest country in the hemisphere has no business raising hogs for the United States,” she said.

“We were just pulling food from all over heedless of the conditions of how it was grown and who grew it and what their situation was,” she continues. “So I had this idea that we really had to relocalize the food supply.”

Gussow began to grow her own food. “I haven’t bought a vegetable probably in 10 years,” he boasts.

Pay the doctor or pay the farmer

“You can pay the doctor or pay the farmer,” says Higgins. “There’s no culture in the world that spends less on food per capita or more on medicine than the United States. To me it’s a painfully obvious truth.”

A lack of fresh food and overabundance of processed foods puts kids’ health at risk, says chef Cory Schreiber, program manager for Oregon’s Farm to School program. Each year 17,000 new processed foods are manufactured. Processed foods contribute to childhood diabetes, studies have found.

Farmland decreasing

Beginning in 2000, the world experienced a net loss in farm land, according to Will Newman of the Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust. Farm acreage has dropped every year since as world population grows.

Local farming can’t feed the masses yet, says the film. To achieve that, farms must be located near cities. Oregon’s Urban Growth Boundary law is considered one of the nation’s most progressive land use laws. Local farms supply the Portland metropolitan area as cities grow up rather than out.

Too many ingredients?

Ingredients raises many issues which it cannot fully explore in one hour. Mentioned are petrochemical use in food production and packaging; sustainably produced wine in Oregon; seed production; biodynamic farming methods; and getting kids to eat more vegetables through farm to school initiatives. (2.5 out of 5 stars)

If you like Ingredients, you might enjoy:  Food Matters; Hungry for Change.

 

Ingredients  /   2009  /  NR  /  1 hour, 7 min

Cast Overview:  Bebe Neuwirth (narrator), Alice Waters, Greg Higgins, Carol and Anthony Boutard, Lee Jones, Bob Jones Sr., Bob Jones Jr., John Neumeister, Sheldon Marcuvitz, Cathy Whims, Peter Hoffman, Will Newman, Laura Masterson, Pascal Sauton

Director: Robert Bates

Genres:  Documentary, Local Farming, Sustainability

 

Filed Under: Awaken, Community, Current Affairs, Documentary, Heal Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Anima Mundi: a call to live in harmony with Gaia

February 27, 2012 By

 

People and planet are one, says Anima Mundi: Permaculture, Peak Oil, Climate Change and the Soul of the World. Australian director Peter Charles Downey’s film advocates permaculture, a “science of resilience” for mindful and sustainable living.

Anima Mundi is now streaming on YouTube’s syndicadoFilms channel, or you can buy the DVD.

Old paradigm blues

With thoughtful discussion, exciting music, montages and archival footage, Anima Mundi shakes loose old beliefs. When you hear a 1950’s announcer call pollution “necessary” so we can enjoy “a chicken in every pot,” you’ll cringe at our outdated world view.

Overconsumption and reliance on dwindling oil supplies threaten our survival, leaders and scholars say. Downey interviews them to explore solutions.

What is permaculture?

Permaculture is a practice of cultivating land sustainably, relying on renewable resources and self-sustaining ecosystems. It treads gently on the Earth.

David Holmgren, who co-founded permaculture, summarizes the philosophy and design principles behind it. Examples from Holmgren’s book Permaculture Principles and Pathways include:

the built environment (passive solar); tools and technology (reuse and recycle); culture and education (participatory arts and music); health and spiritual wellbeing (yoga and other body/mind/spirit disciplines); finance and economics (ethical investment); land tenure and community governance (eco-villages and co-housing); and land and nature stewardship (seed saving and forest gardening).

Soul of the world

Anima mundi, meaning “soul of the world,” challenges the mechanistic world view. Treating the Earth like a dead machine has been a terrible mistake, Holmgren warns. “We need to re-ensoul the world” by applying “the same design principles that sustainable societies did before using fossil fuels.”

Holmgren believes we must redesign “our centralized, highly efficient industrialized machine” as abrupt climate changes begin. Nature teaches us how to survive with diversity and flexibility, he says.

Evolve or perish

“The choice being presented to mankind now is either evolve or perish,” says author Michael C. Ruppert. “Grow up or die. Change the way you view the world and your relationship to it.”

“It’s as if we in science have just discovered a sixth kind of life, which is life at the level of our planet,” says Dr. Stephan Harding, ecologist and professor. “We have to act now. Immediately.”

We need to bond with Gaia as our mother, says Dr. Christine James, psychologist. Dr. Mark O’Meadhra, integrative medicine specialist, believes exploiting the earth is “a public health problem.”

Protecting food and seed

“If we don’t relocalize our food system over the next decade, you or your children will be lining up with your ration ticket,” says Holmgren. Centralized food production and transportation “is extremely dependent on the era of cheap energy, and the era of cheap energy is over,” he adds.

Human rights activist Dr. Vandana Shiva protects seed from biotech food giants. Shiva compares seed to Gandhi’s spinning wheel, a metaphor for life and self-empowerment. “Earth is the most generous employer and job provider,” she notes, but “lack of work is a product of the marketplace.”

Adam Grubb and Dan Palmer of Permablitz redesign people’s backyards into “very edible gardens.” It’s also a way to meet people, have fun and learn.

Shop ‘til you drop?

“Classical economics is the real religion of this age,” says environmentalist John Seed. “It’s a very insidious religion. It’s consuming the Earth with a fervor.”

Seed was director of the Rainforest Information Centre, which successfully campaigned to save the sub-tropical rainforests of New South Wales. He co-authored the deep ecology classic Thinking Like a Mountain.

Our wasteful way of life is a “systemic trap,” says Holmgren. Harding agrees that “suicidal growth cannot continue.”

Sustainable growth

Perpetual growth is a dangerous practice, Holmgren argues. “Natural systems only grow at a maximum of 5% per annum.” We exceed that at our peril, he says.

Holmgren foresees “the economy of the household, the economy of the community” in gift and the barter economies. Money economies like LETS (Local Energy Trading Systems) are free from “the perpetual need to grow.”

 

Energy ROI stats startle

Holmgren cites world averages in energy returns on investment (ROI) compared to energy expended (e.g., the costs of drilling).

Oil currently gives a 10:1 ROI. (When oil was plentiful, the ratio was 100:1.) PV Solar achieves a 10:1 ROI. Wind energy yields an impressive 25:1 ratio. ROIs from coal (3:1), tar sands (2:1) and nuclear power (2:1) are relatively poor.

“Biofuels (2:1 or less ROI) are a bit like emissions trading schemes,” says Seed. Holmgren warns that using “renewable versions of what we’ve got” to perpetuate overconsumption would “drive us over a cliff.”

Earthships take off

Eco-architect Michael Reynolds, creator of the Earthship concept, says our way of life must change because of the effects of “population explosion and climate change and dwindling resources.”

Earthships are built into the ground with recycled and/or natural materials. Solar energy can fuel flat screen TVs and computers in an Earthship, while heating, cooling and electricity are powered “off the grid.”

Musical mind journey

Downey composed the theme song The Inner Workings. Also featured are The Permie Song by Michelle Morgan, and music by the Jed Rowe Band.

The director-cinematographer-editor says he followed permaculture design principles to make this independent, low budget film with love and minimal resources. (4 out of 5 stars)

If you like Anima Mundi, you might enjoy:  Dirt! The Movie; Thrive; 2012: Time for Change.

 

Anima Mundi   2011  /  NR  /  1 hour, 17 min

Cast Overview: David Holmgren, Dr. Stephan Harding, John Seed, Michael C. Ruppert, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Noam Chomsky, Michael Reynolds, Dr. Christine James, Dr. Mark O’Meadhra, Dan Palmer, Adam Grubb

Director:  Peter Charles Downey

Genre:  Documentary

 

Filed Under: Awaken, Community, Current Affairs, Documentary, Ecoactivism, Environment, Nature, Nature and Science Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,