Rebuilding Community Resilience and Self-Reliance

We have all been watching the play of events in our country and the world for the past year or more, and many of us here in Siskiyou County have been affected in one way or another by the unsettling events concerning the economy, energy and climate change. Now a group of Mount Shasta residents is spearheading the implementation of a “Transition Initiative” for Mount Shasta and, in time, Siskiyou County as a whole.

An international re-localization and community sustainability movement called “Transition Network” (Transitioning from Oil Dependence to Local Resilience) is presently underway, to help communities become more self-reliant, and more resilient in the face of the changes we are witnessing in the world today. Mount Shasta became the 18th official “Transition Town” in North America on March 9, 2009.

We are working under the sponsorship of “Transition US”; a non-profit organization that provides support, training and resources for Transition Initiatives across the United States, and works in close partnership with “Transition Network UK”, which supports Transition Initiatives around the world. Since the unveiling of “Transition Town Totnes”, England (the first village in the UK to adopt the “Transition Initiative” in the summer of 2006), the Transition concept has spread rapidly around the world. To date, there are 152 officially designated “Transition” towns (cities, districts, or villages) worldwide and some 600 additional communities who are in various stages of becoming “Transition Initiatives" or considering whether they’re ready for this journey.  Ashland and Portland (Oregon) and Santa Cruz (California) number among them. The thinking behind “Transition Network” is simply that a community using much less energy and resources than currently consumed from outside sources, could, if properly planned for and designed, be more resilient, more abundant and ultimately a more secure place to live than other municipalities that have not taken seriously these important steps towards self-reliance at this time

Only 80 years ago, this would have been a non-issue since communities were locally self-reliant out of necessity. These days we rely on food, energy and supplies that come from great distances, using more energy, costing more, and driving money away from our local economy. Furthermore, there is a real potential for change in the infrastructures that provide these critical services to us here in Siskiyou County.

Our goal as “Transition Mount Shasta” is to create a resilient community (and county) that is self-reliant for the greatest possible number of its needs–thereby largely reducing dependence on heavily globalized systems for food, energy, health and economy. Utilizing the talents, vision, inherent resources, intelligence and collective skills of our community members and county residents is key to this process. We look for the involvement of all county residents: farmers, ranchers, business owners, municipal servants, young people, retirees—and all other community members.

The “Transition Mount Shasta” team is beginning several practical projects to heighten awareness within Mount Shasta and Siskiyou County about our potential for becoming and remaining much more self-reliant in light of the challenges we see unfolding in the world today.

We have just published a “Siskiyou County Sustainability Survey” to get us all thinking about these issues, and find out where we are on this spectrum. We urge all of our citizens to take 10 minutes and participate in this important survey. We will be sending the link to this survey via email to Siskiyou County residents and are asking for your help to forward it on in a grassroots effort to ALL your contacts in Siskiyou County.

You may soon receive an email titled:  Siskiyou County Sustainability Survey.  Or you may go to www.transitiontowns.org/MountShasta-CA-USA for the survey link.

We have also developed a free Community Exchange website—www.shastacommons.org—so that Siskiyou County residents can begin to interact, trade, search for or offer jobs, goods or services and much more.  Please help us make these two initial projects a success by getting involved! Spread the word please!!!

This article is only an initial introduction, as “Transition Mount Shasta” will be giving updates on our projects in future articles and other media outlets in Siskiyou County soon. We welcome serious and dedicated persons in our County to join us. The organization known as APPLE-Shasta (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) has merged with Transition Mt Shasta. For more information please visit www.transitiontowns.org/MountShasta-CA-USA  or contact us at:

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

 

---