Local newspapers cover Transition

This month, the San Jose Mercury News and the Palo Alto Weekly both published nice articles on Transition. See excerpts from the articles below.

Trash or Treasure?

Carol Blitzer, Palo Alto Weekly
March 2, 2012

People reuse, repurpose, recycle while sharing unwanted supplies at Craft Swap.
—
Who doesn’t have some leftover from a once-envisioned craft or art project stashed in the back of a closet, sitting there useless … taunting?

No need to fret. A group of people loosely organized as “Transition Palo Alto” is offering quarterly craft swaps. All you need to do is bring something you no longer need — and go home with something new to you.

Rani Jayakumar, who organized the January swap, describes Transition Palo Alto as a network of 250 worldwide initiatives with a common goal: to be more resilient and less dependent on the rest of the world.

“I’d almost call it a movement rather than an organization. People are interested in being environmentally friendly but also more active in communities. It’s a return to basics,” she said.

Transition Palo Alto “espouses the idea of ‘reskilling,’ relearning skills of past generations,” she said, noting that her grandmother knew how to use a grindstone or to knit a sweater. Skill-building could be making bread, or learning to track animals, she said.

MORE at original

Transition Cupertino members aim to make more connections

Matt Wilson, San Jose Mercury News
March 8, 2012

A recently formed group in Cupertino is asking the West Valley community to join in consuming less, connecting more and being happier.

Transition Cupertino is a loosely formed group that gets together to talk about building local resiliency if the world were to change dramatically. The group is part politics and part support system for dealing with life in a less interpersonal world.

“In this raging river going downstream, [Transition] is this log that I can grab onto,” says Eaton Fenson, a Los Altos resident.

Transition is a grassroots organization based on permaculture, an ecological theory rooted in creation of sustainable settlements. The movement is most concerned with building local resilience in the face of oil shortages, economic instability and environmental change, such as changes to food systems or the climate.

The Transition Movement is guided by the writings of Rob Hopkins, who published The Transition Companion. Members of the movement often think about what life would be like if there were major shocks to our way of life: for example, if the oil supply faded or if climate change were to severely change how we live.

MORE at original [UPDATE – fixed the link – thanks Rani!