Transition Culture

15 Sep 2006

Unleashing Transition Town Totnes Feedback #1. Our Concerns.

At the **’Official Unleashing of Transition Town Totnes’** on September 6th 2006, people were invited to reflect in pairs on the following question, “when I think about issues such as peak oil and climate change, my concerns are”. These were then written up on post-it notes and stuck on the wall for all to see. They are reproduced below (there are lots of them!).

War
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Wars – Greater divide between rich countries and poor countries and between rich and poor within those countries – Not being possible to visit other countries
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Problem too huge (Appetite for energy in China, India etc) – Sustainability needs economic, political, social, spiritual changes to happen together
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Lack of diversity and exchange in food/meeting people/ entertainment from other countries – Slippage of old habits in the changing process
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Other people’s inability to accept change – Isolation of communities/individuals – The materialistic, consumer driven lifestyle society values, can this be reversed – Will this work in lower income areas?
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The collapse of Civilisation
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Rioting, especially youths – No food in supermarkets – No travel – No Water
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We don’t value the natural world down with us – That people get what this is about on a spiritual level – What will happen to large populations of extremely poor people?
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Climate change – Ecosystem Death – Peak Oil life support system collapse
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War – Societal collapse or rush to coal
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How to survive without a car! – Global warming
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No premiership football to distract me from myself – Food riots in cities – Lack of heating in homes, especially for the elderly in winter – Resource war – Nuclear fall out
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Social collapse – Starvation – People killing each other – Climate too savage to support life
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No transport for food and travel – Heating and electricity
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People are generally too busy – Getting them galvanised is the big problem – So a psychological change is necessary – Brains can be altered to become more spiritually inclined – Its an exercise of mental effort needed
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Global: Majority of people unaware/unwilling to change – Personal: None! I can do it!
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How the most vulnerable people in society are going to be affected – and what is going to be their potential for change if already socially excluded?
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War – Nuclear Power – Reverting to coal
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We might not have a chance to educate ourselves about everything in time!
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To make all aware – How to replace oil in a sustainable way
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Converting politicians of big business – Lack of interest by the masses (Don’t want to lose their “comforts�) – Mass insurrection
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Security – Global conflict
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That the West will gain control of what oil/gas etc is left and the rest of the world will become poorer and poorer, leading to famine, civil wars and so on
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Civil unrest – Puritan atmosphere and victimisation of presumed lavish energy users – The rich and well places continuing to prosper and the ill and poor suffering
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Water becomes scarce – Prices for basic commodities rise too quickly – We are over run with houses springing up and destroying our open spaces
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Inequality between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries in the fight for resources for survival has to be confronted – Catastrophic level of war in the world over oil resources
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Lack of Government support – Lack of awareness – Inertia
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If the oil runs out it means we won’t be able to have crisps and chips etc
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I am concerned to find waste in public places like hot air hand dryers which don’t switch off for ages and water running from them too
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National/Global war – Further divisions between rich and poor, 1st and 3rd world countries – Worries about children, climate change, floods, deserts, reduced bio diversity, inability of young people to cope
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War/Militarism – Defeatism – Environmental destruction
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Addiction to current life is too strong – Motivation is not sustainable – Descent will happen too quickly for change to establish – Fear of what it means to me personally as well as excitement
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We are running our planet – It might be cold with not other type of heating! – Might not be able to afford to heat my house or drive my car
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Oil wars/destruction – Disintegration of community leading to violence – Food shortages
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War – Capitalism, taxing us, gong down dome insane route to get energy – My neighbours wanting to kill me for vegetables I have grown
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Misinformation – Feeling of hopelessness that its too late
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Family lives 1,000 miles apart, ageing parents, grandchildren, I need them, they need me – Social breakdown, violence
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War – Famine – Rich/Poor – Hoarding
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That my children will suffer – That we will loose much
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Chaos – Not enough food, some people having enough, lots of people suffering – People not taking note of the situation in time
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Give up car
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Reduced access to car use – Threat to winter heating
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The loss of our beautiful, beautiful world!
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Reduced travel – Widespread personal tragedies unfolding – Generalised despair and anger especially at the way we’ve wasted our precious resources – That governments and corporations will take too much power and reduce civil rights to look like they know what to do about it and control the population – Culture of fear – That the best solutions will get patented and cop-opted by the wrong people/corporations
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Restrictions on travel
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Tyranny of the committee
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Individuals believing it is too big for them to do anything about – The rich exploiting the situation and the fear of the people to become more powerful and control more and obstruct positive actions
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Have to allow developing world to industrialise – If we change tomorrow it may not matter because what matters is India and China – Will people actually act? – How about the younger generation? Is education properly given/available? – Do people get the severity of climate change i.e. tipping point in 15 years approx – Is Carbon neutrality within the Energy Descent Plan?
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Energy wars – Significant drop in quality of life – Greater division of ‘have’ and ‘have nots’
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The future generations who will inherit out Earth and all the mistakes we made
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Visiting my family and friends who live too far away for walking or cycling
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Not being able to grow enough food or enough variety of food to last through the winter months
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Hard life – Loss of contact – Anarchy
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Family and others not aware – Isolation – What to do?
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Being able to have appropriate transport to see family and loved ones
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Starving – Freezing – Facing scary bands of thieves
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Rising sea levels, flooding – Power cuts that affect business/banks/cash availability/food – Human response? New Orleans scenario
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Coal? What if we go that route, its ecologically unsound and won’t stop market forces
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Apathy of individuals and authorities both local and national – Lack of eco-affordable homes and land use
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No transport easily available is very concerning
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Having an income, dream, vision, dependant on transport and just beginning it
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Do we have enough time available to make the changes we need to make given the resistance there will be?
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How will we sustain our lives? – Where will we get our food? How will we get to work?
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Being able to adapt to the self sacrifices energy descent would entail on a personal level – To be able to make the changes needed – Surviving, eating, living
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Social panic – Fear mongering – Unconscious destructive behaviour – Addictions unchecked!
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Lack of awareness – Chaos – Lack of preparation – Not seeing friends who live far away – well being of friends and family
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That youth of today will reject nature altogether and this will result in carnage
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Getting motivation to help creatively change peoples habits
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Food shortages and under-nourishment – Clean water availability – Wood shortages – Civic chaos and violence – Essential medicines e.g. Insulin – Destruction of Nature Reserves and wild animals and forests – Seas rising and rivers swelling with loss of land and homes
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Why are European countries selling lots of Bio fuels and yet we are saying don’t do it? – Can we find non-oil based products?
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Transporting food from long and unnecessary distances – Clothes ‘cheaply’ made
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My flat ending up under water – Food – Working outside (I’m an office dweller!)
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Being isolated – Hunger – Separate from family – Violence – Deprivation – Not being fit and well enough to manage
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More violence by nations and communities as resources run out
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Because of damage to life on earth including man – wars and governments exaggerating threats from terrorists for instance to suit there agenda for global control (resources, mankind etc) – People burying heads thinking others/government will sort out, that concerns me, we all need to act together
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New Ice Age – Martial Law – Feudalism
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Time remaining until we hit a climate threshold – Science of Peak Oil
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Freak weathers destroying gardens, orchards and low impact dwellings – Masses snatching away crops or army – Can’t travel to see family – Can’t feed ourselves
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Effects on society, breakdown disenfranchisement, anarchy, withdrawal – If climate change is bad how do we grow our own food and heat our homes
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Hoarding – Chaos – Hunger – Mass deaths
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Prices  – Wars  – Water  – Temperature  – Catastrophes  – Localisation  – Communities 
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Widespread panic when the price of oil goes up – Questions about life without transport infrastructure
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Can I do it?
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Lack government leadership on changes needed – Reaching enough people
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People sleep walking – A lack of urgency – Effects on economy, unemployment (No more Free Energy)
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War & Violence – Isolation – Cold – Sickness
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Limited travel and all that brings, contact with family and friends – Wars caused by environment refugees – Destruction of natural environment – Exclusion of poor, less able from future changes
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Anxious that competitive education system and materialisation culture will create severe problem for transition to sustainable society
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The fate of the poor – Conflicts between ‘have mores’ and ‘have nots’
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I will stay in denial and wake up too late – Chaos, Danger, Lack of food and power shortage – Don’t know what to do
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Food insecurity – Heating homes – Loss of jobs and economy
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No food in Morrisons
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Keep a big perspective – Get young people involved
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Can we communitise ourselves enough? – Where are the non-petrol consuming vehicles? – How many others will continue to consume?
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Breakdown of society – Violence – Hunger – Cold
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Global Warming and all subsequent issues – Factory farming, methane issue, deforestation – Individual/Community society desensitisation – Eco-Feminist/Deep ecology views: Critical Understandings
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Will we come together as communities or compete and divide? – Can we change our attitude to death? Do we face the difficulties together or apart?
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Imminent change in our life style – Younger generation not being educated in consequences of Peak Oil and Global Warming
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Aggression magnified – Loss of Biodiversity – Collapse – Energy Wars – Magnification of religious monomania
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Being in darkness – Changing lifestyles – Going backwards
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That people who are promoting and doing this will run out of energy themselves
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Sodom and Gomorra
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Widespread poverty starvation – Its too big an issue to do anything individual about – My children’s future
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Wars for energy – Anarchy
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Brutality towards one another – irreplaceable loss of species
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Our children, grandchildren and the world they will inherit – Has it gone too far and is this too de-motivating?
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Fear of an Armageddon scenario – Society grinding to a halt
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The overwhelming nature of the problems for people – Which brings fear, sadness, panic – The sometimes rather cynical commercial workshop/therapy industry that can exploit this and can compromise integrity etc to pay the mortgage
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Fighting for scarce resources (from world to personal levels)
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Lack of food – Being alone (as a town) – Clean water
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Chaos – Collapse – Confusion
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We’ll keep our heads in the sand – The comfortable stupid state until we’re too uncomfortable too late
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Communities will not be prepared – No local community empowerment – People will do nothing?
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Safety for my family – Food-starving to death – Not enough clean water
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That not enough people feel empowered enough to make a difference and change there behaviour
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Renewed coal use triggers climate chaos
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Riots – Food Shortages – General mayhem
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Not having resources to be self-sufficient
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I’m concerned that I consume massively more than most people in most of the world and its an issue of global inequity but I’m caught up in the way things are here for the UK (for most people)
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That the TTT process may fizzle out after six months like the Market and Coastal Towns Initiative!
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A big section of Totnes community possibly never come to public meetings but rather blot out thoughts of peak oil and climate change with TV, Videos, the pub etc
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I’m concerned people will not do enough unless they are forced to – There is not enough local political will to forget ‘differences’ and talk on climate change as a non-party issue – Peoples lifestyle are so hectic and stressful they just can’t take it all in
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Society breakdown – Life becoming more difficult and stressful – fear of unknown
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Not following through with pink paper
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Vast environmental destruction – Social breakdown and violence – Military and chaotic state
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Mass economic crash/disorder
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Not being able to feed my children – Not enough energy to run hospitals
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People will grab and fight fuelled by fear that their structure is falling apart – That more people will go mad!
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The fear of going back to the past , or becoming a hippie colony – We do need technology and inventiveness to move forward!
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Climate change reaching point of no return, moving beyond human control
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Loss of community, people robbing, killing each other for smallest thing, food etc – Total chaos – Total military state – No one would smile anymore – No one would trust anymore
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This issue is too big – There is nothing we can do about it – Its too late anyway – I don’t want to think about it
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People don’t believe it!
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That wars will break out – People won’t adapt – That I might not have enough to personally survive
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The reactions of people when change becomes essential rather than voluntary
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What we do in Totnes is small in comparison to say the USA who is the biggest cause of climate change etc
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I don’t know how the world will be – People will become more selfish and self preserving
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Food, the distribution of – Transport, being cut off from friends, family, work – Animals, people, plants will die out
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How can we have enough resources for everyone? – People who don’t want to know about change – Being far from people – I’m close to feeling empowered but deskilled
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Everything in the world will come to a standstill – Food and water shortage
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We should be aware of inclusivity i.e. make access to meetings etc workable for all e.g. old, disabled, children, out-of-towners I notice few local folk, mostly incomers in this hall – Work out ways that it all feels relevant
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Weaning myself off oil – Government coming up with mad schemes – Maybe its already too late? – Oil wars, more
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People become more self protective and leads to more conflicts, personally, locally, globally
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Headlines, extreme weather, so wherever we go there will be problems growing food – My family being far apart in the world, want to find land, we can all live together – That nuclear power freaks will win
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Polarisation on people, them and us, greed, people become protective – Food will run out (too centralised distribution/growing), lives won’t change in response until too late – War, Water/Oil etc
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Wars around the world – Lack of response – Nuclear response of government – Loss of my freedom to travel
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The dangers of selfish behaviour – The shortages of food – Difficulties keeping warm in winter
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Difficulty of changing attitudes, mine and others, to personal energy use in developed world – Conflicts in my own lifestyle i.e. energy use, old energy inefficient house vs. not driving negativity
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Shift to unsustainable energy sources – Backwards thinking ‘glorifying the past’ – Travel habits and infrastructure – Business reluctance – Individual apathy
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Social breakdown – Isolation – Violence – Natural disasters – Lack of food, water
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Whether everyone will act and take things seriously – How slow action has been in coming – How long it will take to turn things around – The lack of action from central and local government, lack of funding/assistance
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Instability (War) – Division based on wealth (rich can afford) – Pressure on existing cultures due to extensive land loss and rising sea levels
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Food in the community – Enough awareness in time – Whether change can take place outside Totnes – Enough people caring in Ivybridge
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We (Totnes) are too small to make a difference, in time – China, with its new economy, is about to release millions of extra cars on to its roads – Hard to get everyone on board – Hard to maintain momentum
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Lack of action by local/central government – The misguided idea that technology will provide solutions – The economic/social implications of peak oil, people don’t want to think about it
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Riots in Totnes!
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That nothing I do will make any difference – Use car for work, feels difficult to make change – People I work with will see my concerns as barmy
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Wars, few being fought over oil – Can the UK be self sufficient in food? – Lack of Government planning
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Thousands of houses are being built that are not properly insulated i.e. they require a heating system
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Pressure wars – Massive social unrest
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Environmental damage – Society rejects change and reacts with fear, aggression and increased potential for war
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Social breakdown – Law and order – Food depletion – Cold winter
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Wars – Flooding of many low-lying islands and cities – Homeless people – People not taking it seriously – Politicians avoiding the issue instead of using their influence to tackle it
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Peoples hopelessness – Peoples addictions to make them feel better – Old feelings of its going to be hard
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What we might leave future generations – Too little done too late
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Difficulties of transport – Energy to cook, keep warm – How communities can survive particularly through winter
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Loss of freedom – Not enough people taking it seriously – Lack of infrastructure
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Continuation of denial by government until its too late
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Sea Levels – ‘Life’ – Food – Water – Growth – Basics
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Keeping warm, how best to (feels real threat) – Needing to grow food but have not, need more skills – People getting isolated, finding survival difficult
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Mexican migrants, indigenous people, US taking over all country resources (Mexico as well) – Animal, child welfare
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Lack of seriousness amongst people about climate issues – Rising prices on essentials like gas and food – Physical destruction, wild weather – Breakdown of social order due to scarcity – General increase in suffering
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Mass shortages of essentials – Many deaths due to inadequate heating in winter – Horrific pollution of seas due to rising sea levels imbibing industrial estates and factories full of toxins – Widespread radical aggression
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Future earning opportunities for my children – Equipping the 20-25 year age group for the changes needed – Old age, how will old people cope and will they be ignored, dumped
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Impact on lifestyle – Society breakdown (mad-max) – Would world be run by sanctimonious controlling grunge brigade
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Public transport – Local food production – Local energy production – How to eliminate plastics – Power of the supermarkets – Traffic in the town – Excess street lighting
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Being cold in winter – Life without a car
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Climate change and peak oil, I will not be able to convince my American family
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Fear of climate change and peak oil may be used to manipulate and control human consciousness and awareness and society as a whole rather than awaken us to our true nature potentials and possible future
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Dwindling financial resources to make energy changes, particularly in rural areas where infrastructure is always inadequate
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Seeing family – Feeding such a large population – Providing enough work for everyone – How to cut my power usage by 50%
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Distance between consumer civilian and consumer producer – Misbalance, we take more than we give – Water unsafe – Misunderstanding between needs and wants
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Climate/weather – Treatment of planet as related to treatment of woman, attitude towards planet replicates this critical dynamic – Desensitisation
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