News from Dundas in Transition for June 2010

News from Dundas in Transition for June 2010
Hello Friends,
Some busy months have passed for Dundas in
Transition. We have now incorporated as Dundas in
Transition, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation. We did
this as we are finding that organizations such as
granting bodies and insurance companies need us to be
a legal corporation to execute various transactions.
In This Newsletter:
Please read on for highlights from recent activities and
some healthy food for thought. Thank you for taking
the time to get informed. Your interest and ideas are
what will make this Transition Town experiment a
success.
• A Year in Review – page 4
• New Neighborhood Garden – page 1
• More News Highlights – pages 2 & 3
• Call for Cactus Festival Volunteers – page 3
• What’s next? – page 5
• Perspective – page 6
• Membership – page 7
Wishing you all a happy, productive summer!
Neighborhood Garden
Launched in Dundas
On Monday, May 19th, we broke ground at a
new neighborhood garden in partnership with
Knox Presbyterian Church and Today’s Family
Childcare. We had some extra muscle provided
by the young people at Katimavik, who were
visiting from across Canada and volunteering at
community organizations in Hamilton between
April and June.
The Katimavik volunteers get ready to dig!
The garden is a joint project, intended to provide
some learning for the young children at Today’s
Family, to create opportunities for Knox
parishoners to pass on their experience, and to
grow some vegetables, a portion of which will be
donated to the Salvation Army Dundas Food
Bank.
Ideas for action? Want to volunteer? Write to us… [email protected]
News from Dundas in Transition for June 2010
page 2
A Transition Tale
Michelle Chin spoke on behalf of Dundas in Transition
at the 5x7 Forum on June 9th at Carnegie Library.
She presented “A Transition Tale” of how life could be
in Dundas if we reduced our carbon footprint. This is
how her story began:
“Once upon a time, in a land near near by, the
town of Dundas was born. Like many other
towns of that day, it depended on natural water
power. Personal transport was by foot or atop a
noble and trusty horse. Simpler times.
One day the Internal Combustion Engine came to
town. Now the good townspeople used cars and
trains, trucks and planes to travel wherever they
liked, and had their choice of food, clothing –
anything they ever wanted from anywhere in the
world delivered right to their doorstep. Their
lifestyle now absolutely depended upon copious
quantities of oil and gas….”
Farmer’s Market Reopening
The Dundas Farmer’s Market
reopened this week and will
continue every Thursday from 3pm
to 7pm through October 28, 2010.
Once again we are gleaning for the
Dundas Food Bank this year. Last
season, local vendors donated
generously at the close of the
market each week.
Ideas for action? Want to volunteer? Write to us… [email protected]
News from Dundas in Transition for June 2010
Cactus Festival Volunteers Wanted
page 3

We will be manning a Dundas in Transition booth at this year’s Dundas Cactus Festival
on August 20th-22nd. If you feel that you can spend an hour or two introducing the
idea of Transition to the general public, please contact us. No experience necessary: we
will provide training, materials, and company during the event.
Totnes Issues Its
Energy Descent Action Plan
Totnes, the home of the Transition Town
movement, released its Energy Descent Action
Plan on May 10th. Here’s how they describe the
purpose of the plan:
An Energy Descent Action Plan is a guide to
reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and
reducing our carbon footprint over the next
20 years, during which we expect many
changes associated with declining oil
supplies and some of the impacts of climate
change to become more apparent. In this
EDAP we have built a picture of this future
scenario based on visions of a better future.
What we have tried in the process to invite
the community to dream how the future
could be, and to then work out the practical
pathways by which we actually get there.
Don’t forget to check our
website for other volunteer
opportunities that may interest
and inspire you. ☺
http://www.dundasintransition.ca/
volunteer-opportunities.php
CAN
W E M A N A GE W I T H OU T GR O W T H ?
Our current economic model is dependent upon
growth. Recessions, when the economy contracts,
are always considered a “bad thing.”
Governments around the world focus on growth
to end the recessions, eliminate debt, and make
good their promises.
We were encouraged seeing this release –
encouraged because the founding Transition Town
has issued their plan after three and a half years of
transitioning. This shows that it is a long process,
and here in Dundas we should not be discouraged
with our rate of progress.
Countering this solution, Professor Peter Victor
spoke at Environment Hamilton’s AGM in April
about his new book Managing without growth.
Mr. Victor pointed out that despite all the growth
seen in the modern economies, they have not
solved the problems of poverty, hunger, and
environmental degradation. He suggested that
growth should not be the driving policy
objective.
You can read the Plan at
http://totnesedap.org.uk/book/ and also a
fascinating analysis of EDAP alternatives by Rob
Hopkins at http://www.postcarbon.org/blogpost/101283-energy-descent-action-plans-for-cities
Once we ask the question “Can the world
economies grow forever given limited resource
supplies?” the idea of no growth becomes
something that we must clearly learn how to deal
with.
Ideas for action? Want to volunteer? Write to us… [email protected]
News from Dundas in Transition for June 2010
page 4
Dundas in Transition - A Year in Review
The Transition movement here in Dundas had its first public meeting
just over a year ago, in April 2009. In June 2009, we became the third
officially recognized Transition Town in Canada.
Since then, the movement has grown, both worldwide (over 300
Transition communities) and in Canada, where there are now seventeen
communities officially recognized and many others in the planning
stages.
Over the past year, world events have continued to suggest that the
future holds many reasons for Dundas to become a more resilient
community: the ongoing volatility of world financial markets; the muted
response of world leaders at the Copenhagen talks regarding concerns
around climate change; and the newest instance of environmental
degradation with the Deepwater Horizon spill. In Dundas, our
Transition team is continuing the push towards increased awareness,
recognizing the need for local responses to these issues.
We’ve tackled a wide range of concerns, such as food security,
emergency preparedness, renewable energy, permaculture, climate
change, and education on the issues surrounding peak oil and energy
scarcity. We have communicated through public meetings, presentations
for local service organizations, as well as articles and letters in the
Dundas Star.
We found that the area of greatest interest is FOOD. A presentation on
Food Security generated a lot of discussion and stimulated several
actions. At the suggestion of a local farmer, we started gleaning at the
Dundas Farmers Market with the results being donated to the Salvation
Army food bank. Food preserving skills were learned at two canning
workshops. Vegetable starting skills were covered at a “Get your
veggies growing” workshop. And most recently, we led the creation of
the neighborhood garden with Knox Baptist Church and Today’s
Family day care.
Public Meetings Held in
The Past Year:
2009
• Ideas Contest – helping to
make Dundas a more
sustainable community
• Home Insulation Retrofit –
one family’s experience
• An Introduction to
Permaculture Practices
• Film – The Power of
Community
• Food Security in Dundas –
skills and resources needed
• Climate Change – can free
markets mitigate climate
change?
• A Low Consumption Holiday
Season – Christmas in
times gone by with
Westfield Village
2010
• Film – The Age of Stupid
• Get Your Veggies Growing gardening workshop
• Emergency Preparedness with The Red Cross and
Hamilton Emergency
Services
• Renewable Energy –
products and solutions
Clearly there is a lot still to do. We’ve barely scratched the surface in
engaging members of the community and we need more volunteers to
work in areas that interest them. To accomplish greater community
involvement, we are starting on a new campaign called “Transition
Connect” to create a network of local organizations working together
towards increased resilience for the Dundas community.
Ideas for action? Want to volunteer? Write to us… [email protected]
News from Dundas in Transition for June 2010
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DUNDAS IN TRANSITION?
Our immediate goal is to create a number
of strong links to other local organizations
that contribute to the life of Dundas. We
can then engage them in actions that will
increase our community’s resilience.
Transition movements around the world
have seen the need to act as bridges to
the community. By finding the gaps that
need to be filled between organizations,
groups, and individuals, projects can be
initiated that move us “from oil
dependency to local resilience”.
page 5
Awareness presentations given
to local community groups:
To broaden awareness of Dundas in transition, we
presented the Transition Town ideas to other local
organizations.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Dundas Rotary
Dundas Sunshine Rotary
Copetown Lions Club
The Upwind Downwind Conference
The University Women’s Club
Kairos Cap and Trade Seminar at St James Anglican
Partnering events:
Steering Committee members are
approaching key organizations and
individuals in Dundas, inviting them to
join in a workshop to envision Dundas in
the future and consider how we can
collaborate in projects (without
duplicating efforts) to create that future.
• Climate Change Champions Speed Greening event
• Canning workshop with Hamilton Fruit Tree Project
• Back to Your Roots with Hamilton Eat Local,
Manorun Farm and Dundurn Castle
• Hamilton/Burlington Earthday Tree Planting
Festival 2010
“A Low Consumption
Holiday Season –
Christmas in Times
Gone By” in
cooperation with
Westfield Village
Ideas for action? Want to volunteer? Write to us… [email protected]
News from Dundas in Transition for June 2010
page 6
What is sustainability?
There is a lot of talk about sustainability these days.
Here is the most commonly used definition, which was
included in the UN Bruntland Commission of 1987:
“…meeting the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their needs.”
This diagram from Wikipedia’s article on
sustainability summarizes the requirements nicely.
Sustainability requires a successful interaction
between social, environmental, and economic needs.
CANADA SET TO BECOME THE USA’S LARGEST CRUDE OIL SUPPLIER
Recently, the Globe and Mail reported that Canada would become the USA’s single
largest supplier of imported crude oil – 21% of total imports – most of it from the
Alberta Tar Sands. The article quotes the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense
Council as saying that the development of Alberta’s Tar sands represents “…a Global
disaster because it will all but guarantee the failure of efforts to combat global
warming.”
Meanwhile, Canadian economist and author Jeff Rubin wrote about the Deepwater
Horizon disaster: “Deepwater drilling might not survive; no company’s shareholders will
be willing to accept the consequences that BP will soon have to face.” He described the
deepwater dilemma: “Without a steady stream of oil from fields below the ocean floor,
not only can’t world oil production grow, it can’t even stand still, since we rely on oil
from deepwater fields to replace the bulk of the four million barrels per day of global
production we lose every year through depletion (out of a total of roughly 86 million
barrels per day).”
This rate of depletion means that we have to discover and tap the equivalent of 25% of
existing wells in the next 5 years just to maintain current production. But our current
production levels will not be enough, even with conservation in Western countries,
because of growing demand in China and India.
Ideas for action? Want to volunteer? Write to us… [email protected]
News from Dundas in Transition for June 2010
page 7
Membership in
Dundas in Transition
Like most not-for-profit
organizations, we need to raise
funds to enable the work we do.
Currently our expenses are
mainly in the areas of printing,
advertising, license fees to show
films, and rental fees for booths
at various shows. We are also
anticipating that sometime in the
near future we may need to pay
insurance premiums.
You can help by becoming a
member at a cost of $10 a year
or by making a donation.
Cheques should be payable to
“Dundas in Transition Inc.” and
sent to: Treasurer, Dundas In
Transition, c/o 13 South Street
W, Dundas ON L9H 4C3
Attendees at our workshop last November,
stretching and looking for inspiration
Cheerful Disclaimer from the Transition Town Wiki
Just in case you were under the impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have
all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact.
We truly don't know if this will work. Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale.
What we are convinced of is this:
If we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late
If we act as individuals, it'll be too little
But if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.
Ideas for action? Want to volunteer? Write to us… [email protected]