1. COMMUNITY - Street party - Food - Shared experience - common purpose - sport - music - art - culture - theatre - play - sharing 2. LAND - THE LAND IS OURS - LAND VALUE TAX - COMMUNITY LAND TRUSTS 3. MONEY - Rags to Riches / Comedy - MONETARY REFORM - COMMUNITY CURRENCIES - MUTUAL CREDIT - TIME BANKS - LETS - CROWDFUNDING - COMMUNITY INVESTMENT - GIFT ECONOMIES - FREECONOMY - Sharing 4. MEDIA - TURN OFF TV - STOP BUYING NEWSPAPERS - INTERNET - MOBILES - VIDEO CAMERAS - CAMERAS - Spread the word - Share stories - Storytelling - 5. FOOD: TOGETHER IN GROUPS - COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE - ORGANIC FARMING - ORGANIC CARP FARMING - FOREST GARDENING - AGROFORESTRY - COMMUNITY COMPOSTING - COMMUNITY ALLOTMENT - COMMUNITY GARDEN - CITY FARM FOOD: EVERYONE CAN DO - COMPOST - ALLOTMENTS - VEGETABLE PATCH - RAISED BEDS - SELF WATERING CONTAINERS - SOIL - SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY - GROW - FOOD CO-OPS - FARMERS MARKETS - VEG BOXES - SPROUTING - WINDOW FARMS 6. SHELTER - HOUSING -- HOUSING CO-OPERATIVES -- COHOUSING 7. ENERGY - SOLAR -- THERMAL -- ELECTRIC - WIND - BIOMASS - BIOCHAR - ROCKET STOVE - Mycelium ECOVILLAGES INFRASTRUCTURE CREATE SHARE TRANSITION INITIATIVES COMMUNITY CO-OPS BUID PUBLIC PARALLEL INFRASTRUCTURE LOCAL HUMAN SCALE HOUSEHOLD The Basic Meta-plot Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage & Return, Comedy, Rebirth PLOT about building an absurdly complex set of problems which then miraculously resolve at the climax. 1. Anticipation Stage The call to adventure, and the promise of what is to come. Initial Wretchedness at Home. Oppressed in the Empire's Cities of Destruction. ‘Fall’ into the Other World. Under the Shadow. A little world in which people are under the shadow of confusion, uncertainty and frustration and are shut up from one another. A young hero or heroine falls under the shadow of a dark power 2. Dream Stage Some initial success - everything seems to be going well, sometimes with a dreamlike sense of invincibility. Out into the World. The Journey (Ordeals of the Hero/Heroine & Companions) may include some or all of the following: a. Monsters b. Temptations c. The Deadly Opposites d. The Journey to the Underworld Initial Fascination. Everything seems to go well for a while. The Threat Recedes. 3. Frustration Stage First confrontation with the real enemy. Things begin to go wrong. The Central Crisis. Arrival and Frustration. The Threat Returns. Eventually the threat approaches again in full force, until the hero or heroine is seen imprisoned in a state of living death. 4. Nightmare Stage At the point of maximum dramatic tension, disaster has erupted and it seems all hope is lost. Independence. Final Ordeal. Nightmare Stage. Tightening the Knot. The confusion gets worse until the pressure of darkness is at its most acute and everyone is in a nightmarish tangle. The Dark Power Triumphant. The state of living death continues for a long time when it seems the dark power has completely triumphed. 5. Resolution The hero or heroine is eventually victorious, and may also be united or reunited with their ‘other half’. Final Union, Completion and Fulfilment. The Goal. Thrilling Escape and Return. With the coming to light of things not previously recognised, perceptions are dramatically changed. Shadows are dispelled, the situation is miraculously transformed and the little world is brought together in a state of joyful union. Miraculous Redemption. If the imprisoned person is a heroine, redeemed by the hero; if a hero, by a young woman or child The Unrealised Value The chief dark figure signals to us the shadowy, negative version of precisely what the hero or heroine will eventually have to make fully positive in themselves if they are to emerge victorious and attain 'the complete happy ending'. Therefore, the villain metaphorically represents what the hero or heroine will conquor both within themselves, and in the world of the story. Above and Below the Line In general, (and especially in comedy) there is a dividing line in effect. Above the line is the established social order, and below the line are the servants, ‘inferior’ or shadow elements. The problem originates ‘above the line’ (e.g. with tyranny) but the road to liberation always lies ‘below the line’ in the ‘inferior’ level. Below the line can also be represented as a ‘shadow realm’, containing the potential for wholeness. In the conclusion of the story, elements may ‘emerge from the shadows’ to provide resolution. Archetypes Negative Dark Father, Tyrant or Dark Magician Dark Mother, Dark Queen or Hag Dark Rival or Dark Alter-Ego Dark Other Half or Temptress Positive Light Father, Good King or Wise Old Man Light Mother, Good Queen or Wise Old Woman Light Alter-Ego or Friend and Companion Light Other Half (light anima/animus) Other archetypes: The Child The Animal Helper The Trickster peak oil and climate change mean small is inevitable Peak oil and climate change * Peak Oil - we are nearing the peak. * Climate change - The greenhouse effect * intertwining peak oil and climate change. * peak oil engage people more than climate change * contradictions of the Hirsch Report. * future with less energy looking inevitable. * 'Energy Descent' rebuilding resilience is as important as cutting carbon emissions * ingredients of a resilient system * Life before oil wasn't bad * The cake analogy * Echoes of a resilient past. * Britain's 'wartime mobilisation' small is inevitable * Relocalisation. * The dangers of clinging to the illusion of large scale. * Top-down or bottom-up? * Where does government fit in? oil age draws to a close positive vision is crucial 'Post-petroleum stress disorder' * Clammy palms, nausea and mild palpitations * A sense of bewilderment and unreality * An irrational grasping at unfeasible solutions * Fear * Outbreaks of nihilism and/or survivalism * Denial * Exuberant optimism * The 'I always told you so' syndrome Psychology of Change * An interview with Dr Chris Johnstone * The FRAMES model Harnessing the power of a positive vision * visions work. * Visions of abundance. A vision for 2030 - looking back over the transition * Food and farming * Medicine and health * Education * Economy * Transport * Energy * Housing attempt at community visioning * Energy Descent Action * lessons from the Project. * Reflections on the process. * What's happening now? Summing up Part 2 from ideas to action: inspiring local resilience-building Transition * philosophical underpinnings. * Six principles * Project Support Project concept. * scale * local politics. start a Transition Initiative * The seven 'Buts'. * The Twelve Steps of Transition. first year of Transition Town Totnes * background * prehistory viral speed of concept * Transition Penwith. * Transition Falmouth. * Transition Town Lewes. * Transition Ottery St Mary. * Transition Bristol. * Transition Town Brixton. * Transition Forest of Dean. The Great Transition: Revaluing Redistribution Rebalancing Localisation Engagement Reskilling Economic Irrigation Interdependence In the Great Revaluing * building social and environmental value should be central * prices reflecting real social and environmental costs and benefits. * building real value requires us to accurately measure outcomes * build these measures into the core of public and private decision-making. In the Great Redistribution * redistribution of both income and wealth * creation of Citizens’ Endowments of up to £25,000 for all people on reaching the age of 21 * Community Endowments to provide commonly owned assets to invest in our local neighbourhoods. * inheritance tax on all estates to 67%. * need to redistribute time. * shortening the working week to four days * better balance between paid work and the vital ‘core economy’ of family, friends and community life. * redistribution of ownership to create a form of ‘economic democracy’ * shares are progressively transferred to employees * resurgence of mutual and co-operative ownership forms. In the Great Rebalancing * positive case for markets if * a) prices reflect true social and environmental costs and benefits * b) markets operate within scientifically defined limits. * market rebalanced alongside the public sphere and the ‘core economy’ * ‘core economy’ – our ability to care, teach, learn, empathise, protest and the social networks these capacities create. * state should be seen as ‘us’ and not ‘them’, * state as a domain where we come together to achieve those things that are best done collectively. * broader definition of ‘public goods’ * importance of maintaining low levels of inequality * ‘co-produce’ well-being in areas such as health and education. * balance between direct provision, co-production, and the fostering of strong local relationships * people are encouraged to come together to pursue their shared goals and shape their own outcomes. The Great Localisation (and Engagement) * expanded concept of ‘subsidiarity’ * decisions are best taken at as local a scale as possible. * made more genuinely participatory and democratic but also more meaningful. * moving real power away from the centre to devolved democratic bodies * giving local people a real say in how this power is exercised. * what things are best produced locally, regionally, nationally and internationally? * greater local self-sufficiency * regional, national and international trade * Big is clearly not always ‘best’ but neither, necessarily, is small. * appropriate scale * a clear means of deciding what this should be. The Great Reskilling * greater local production * relearn many skills * returning to appropriate scale * less passive in terms of consumption and production * regain our autonomy * life-enhancing renaissance * local decision-making based on active participation In the Great Economic Irrigation * finance could facilitate many of the changes * public finance * tax and spending * national and local levels * shift from taxing ‘goods’ such as work, to taxing environmental and social ‘bads’ such as pollution, consumption and short-term speculation * variable consumption taxes, replacing income tax for the majority of the population * private finance * large-scale projects such as building a green energy and transport infrastructure funded through national level environmental and ‘land’ taxes * creation of public money where appropriate * national ‘Green Investment Bank’ * linking the ability of banks to create credit with the ability of borrowers to build social and environmental value * get us out of the debt trap we now face * New national Housing Bank * opportunity to transfer a portion of mortgage debt into equity and paying social rent on the balance * ‘ecology of finance’ of private, public and mutually owned institutions designed to meet local needs * priorities should reflect local, democratically determined priorities. The Great Interdependence * global ‘deal’, which addresses global inequalities from both a development and an environmental perspective * global cap on carbon emissions * UK’s share of this total carbon budget is broadly based on its population * ten-year period where the UK reduces its emissions to align with the required ‘convergence’ path * Reducing total imports * question the wisdom of export-led growth * environmental impact of transporting goods around the world was factored into prices * rebalancing of internally and externally * more local production * more regional trade * carefully managed * well funded * development accelerate and ‘stick’ * more resilient in a stable and environmentally sustainable global context * poverty and global inequality being progressively reduced * huge dangers to developing countries of irreversible climate change averted. These are big assumptions, but we do not apologise for that. A global deal along the lines outlined here is essential for environmental reasons, but also to finally rid the world of the scourge of poverty and inequality. Business as usual has also failed in this regard. Just as within countries, trickle down approaches at global level have brought us to the brink of environmental disaster, while also increasing inequalities and entrenching grinding poverty in many parts of the world. Locally, nationally and globally we need to change direction quickly and radically. We need nothing short of a Great Transition – to collectively build a different future. This report concludes with a discussion of two big challenges that have to be addressed before this can be achieved, but also sets out clear steps that can be taken straight away to start the journey. While there is much that the Government needs to do, there are also things that we can all do now. We cannot afford to wait and neither should we. The possible future sketched out in this document is not intended to be prescriptive in any way, but to show that not only is fundamental change possible, it is also very appealing. We might have to give some things up, but these are not the important things in life. What we could gain, on the other hand, would be something really worth having. The Great Transition can start here. A tale of how it turned out right A tale of how things turned out right. There we were back in 2009 feeling as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse were bearing down on us. The global economy was falling apart, we were accelerating towards the cliff edge of catastrophic climate change, and our oil-addicted economies were set to go cold-turkey as their fossil-fuel fix grew much more expensive and harder to get hold of. At the same time the world was divided by great wealth and extreme poverty; overwork and unemployment; hunger and obesity; and even the relatively rich global minority found themselves consuming ever more but without any noticeable rise in their well-being. It was all going horribly wrong. Then, suddenly, common sense kicked in. We realised that we had one chance left. If we blew that, there could be no turning back, no excuses. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t been warned, or that we didn’t know what was going wrong. Change became the name of the moment. The Great Transition began. A future was mapped out that would allow the country to live within its fair share of global environmental resources. We even worked out how to manage the Transition in a way that improved our well-being, enhanced community life, and promoted social justice. And, after it all turned out right, this is how an average, working urban-dwellers day in the UK panned out. With less time spent working in the formal economy and more flexibility over when we work, the choice is ours – take the kids to school, go for a run, read a book. With a new focus on real wealth and well-being, previously overconsuming rich countries have now cured most cases of the twin evils of work addiction and unemployment. The huge debts and interest payments that kept us chained to our desks have been designed out of the system by new forms of credit and ownership, for land, homes and other big ticket items. Because we’re more content, having more time for ourselves, friends and family, we need less income too for the false consumerist promise of buying happiness. More flexible working practices have made it much easier for us to work part-time, take sabbaticals and tailor where and when we work. We’re using technology cleverly to make for smart work. Those of us choosing the early morning run enjoy fresh air in our lungs and clear paths as dramatic reductions in traffic have transformed city air and streets – the result of a successful shift to mass transit systems and the new popularity of walking and cycling. When we do need to buy things, there’s no call to sweat over every shopping decision: business and Government have got it together to make socially and environmentally sustainable trade the (carefully checked) norm. They have also ensured that both work and incomes are much more equally shared. The weekly food bill has gone up – but so has the quality, and so has our ability to pay for good, healthy food. Also we’re saving lots of money later in the day, and are no longer struggling under unsustainable levels of personal debt. The damaging consequences of cheap food systems have gradually been rolled back. This is sustainable consumption universalised – no more scanning labels. A few deft and well-planned moves in boardrooms, Parliamentary chambers and the Inland Revenue helped to make food markets fair and sustainable. Flexibility and technology have massively reduced our need to travel for work. The hours gained and stress lines postponed make us more effective and committed to the work we do, particularly as our successful organisation is likely to be one creating real social and environmental value. But these changes are about more than work. Social networking software has thrown us together with new people– our desktops give us a global network, but also connects us in new – live – human ways to the communities in which we live. For those of us happy to live without a computer, there are plenty of benefits in the new sense of community that has evolved from the revival of local shops (where the shopkeepers actually remember who we are) and the way that residential streets and town centres, liberated from suffocating traffic, have become people-friendly. Streets are safer for children to play in, with some entirely car-free, and many towns have reclaimed central plots of land as public squares. A calmer environment and more opportunities for casual contact between neighbours make public space more accessible to all. People of all ages gather and talk to each other more and, as a result, even in cities people, particularly older people, feel less lonely and vulnerable. Crime has fallen, too. We can take some time out late morning to plan our summer trip. While the big increase in the cost of fossil fuels has seen international travel become a much rarer experience, it tends to be much better – and longer – when we do head off on your travels. With more leisure time and good cycle and public transport links, low-impact local excursions are a much-loved part of many people’s lives. But with our experience of both cities and countryside transformed by investment in really great public spaces – whether it’s the park or local recreation ground, the village hall, local pub or café, theatre or cinema – we feel less need to get away in order to unwind. A journey to work? Problems are as big as we make them: it used to be said that we wouldn’t give up our cars. Cars were bought; roads were built; resources (including our own wallets) were burnt in pursuit of a very particular form of mobility that becomes less enjoyable and more polluting the more people take it up. But by raising revenue from polluting and inefficient fossil-fuel-run cars to invest in alternatives, governments were able to completely transform people’s experience of cities and towns. Owning and driving cars to meet most of our mobility needs has come to seem simply eccentric. Lifespan and quality of life have dramatically increased. Transport options range from trains, trams and quiet clean buses, to on-demand rural shared taxis and simple car-share schemes that meet the range of needs we have throughout a year. In the evening, time released from long working days, and the fact that fast food and ready meals have gone up in price now that they reflect their full ecological costs, has seen a revival of home cooking. With lots more single households there are some twists. More people get together to take turns to share informal meals in a neighbourhood. In fact, everywhere, people are relearning skills that for much of human history were second nature, but which had been largely lost in just a couple of generations. Stories and music are as old as campfires. For a time we forgot it, but being actively involved in making entertainment made us feel much better than just passively watching others perform. Perversely, though, the fashion for reality TV talent shows early in the twenty-first century triggered a widespread revival in people wanting to do things for themselves so, in any case, we started to spend fewer and fewer hours in front of the television. It’s now common in pubs, clubs and in any available hall to find groups of friends showing films they have made on inexpensive, easy-to-use equipment, and putting on a wide range of music and other performances. The urge to take part goes beyond arts and culture. Even politics has become a way for us to come together and make our voices heard. Political power, once locked away in distant centralised institutions, is now embedded in local communities. Taking part in politics now means debating issues with our friends and neighbours; open public meetings where anyone of us can have our say on the issues that matter to us. Just as people are happier to go out more locally during the day, because towns have become more pleasant places to be, the same is true at night. As in countries like Italy, in the early evening people of all ages take to strolling around town, just for the sake of it. The increase in spare time means people start reviving half-forgotten festivals and celebrations, as well as creating new ones to mark everything from important global events, to the seasons, local history, people and important events. There is much more partying in general, and not just for the young. A revival of distinctive local economies also brings more character back to different areas, making it worth travelling around the local area to visit other unique local festivals, bars, restaurants, cinemas and theatres. Clone towns dominated by identical chain stores and outlets are consigned to history. The Great Turning in Bullet Points The Great Turning provides a powerful framework for understanding our time within a deep historical context and for defining the collective choice we must now make as a species. These are the key elements: * We humans face a choice between two contrasting models for organizing our affairs: the dominator model of Empire and the partnership model of Earth Community. * After 5,000 years of organizing human affairs by the dominator model, the Era of Empire finally has reached the limits of the exploitation that people and Earth will sustain. * A mounting perfect economic storm born of a convergence of peak oil, climate change, and a falling U.S. dollar is poised to bring a dramatic restructuring of every aspect of modern life. * There is no technological fix for the human crisis. The underlying problem is a consequence of social dysfunction and the only solutions are cultural and institutional * We now face a choice between a last man standing imperial competition for what remains of Earth’s natural bounty and a cooperative sharing of Earth’s resources to create a world that works for all. * Empire’s power depends on its ability to control the stories by which we humans define ourselves and our possibilities. Whoever controls the prosperity, security, and meaning stories that define the mainstream culture, controls the society. * The key to changing the human course is to displace the prevailing Empire prosperity, security, and meaning stories that define dominator hierarchy as the natural and essential human order, with Earth Community prosperity, security, and meaning stories that celebrate the human capacity to live in cooperative balance with one another and Earth. * Healthy children, families, communities, and natural systems are the true measure of prosperity. * To end poverty, heal the environment, and secure the human future it is necessary to turn from growth to the reallocation of resources as the defining economic priority. Eliminate harmful uses (military, advertising, sprawl, and financial speculation), increase beneficial uses (environmental regeneration, food and energy self-reliance, health, education, and productive investment), and give priority to the needs of those the old economy excludes and represses (the desperate, hungry, and indentured). * Security and social order depend on strong, caring communities based on mutual responsibility and accountability. * All being is the manifestation of an integral spiritual intelligence seeing to know itself through the on going creative unfolding in search of unrealized possibility. * We humans are a choice making, choice-creating species that can choose to create societies that nurture our higher order capacities for compassion, sharing, and commitment to the well-being of all. * Meaning is found in discovering our place of service to the whole The Great Turning * Story Power * Earth Balance * Fair Share * Living Democracy Story Power We humans live by stories that frame our understanding of ourselves, our world, and our human possibilies. Our shared stories create a culture of shared values, understanding, and expectations that is an essential foundation of coherent community life. (See Tom Atlee's discussion of story fields.) Because we literally see the world through the lens of our cultural stories, we are strongly inclined to conform to the cultural norms of our tribe or community. For this reason, those who control the prevailing cultural stories, control the society. Herein lays the key to understanding how the dominator hierarchy of Empire has maintained its hold on human societies for 5,000 years and why most people in contemporary societies have been inclined to accept and conform to the stories of economic values and relationships that legitimated rule by the institutions of Wall Street. Ruled by Stories Throughout history, imperial institutions have disrupted the relationships of community and the processes of cultural regeneration by which authentic communities continuously renew and affirm their shared values and understanding. The propagandists of Empire then replace cultural stories that affirmed values of mutual caring and accountability with stories that celebrate the special merit of those in power and the duty of each citizen to comply with the dictates of imperial authority. Empire maintain's its control in part through the coercive power of sword and gun, but its ultimate instrument of control is cultural power, the ability to control the defining stories of the public culture. The result is a cultural trance, rather like a hypnotic state, in which Empire conditions us to accept submission as liberation. Want to know whether you are engaging the world in an awakened state? This link will take you to a simple test. The Earth Community Advantage Although Empire controls the mass media and the formal education system, Earth Community holds the natural advantage because most Empire stories are fabrications that deny: * Reality and our daily experience, and * The potentials of our higher human consciousness it is our nature to cultivate. We humans are born to learn. Although suppressed by Empire, a natural drive to know and understand our world is inherent in our human nature This gives truth an inherent advantage. Although this advantage is greatest with those who have awakened from the cultural trance, the thirst to know resides in all of us. The faster the awakening spreads the greater truth's advantage becomes. Change the Story, Change the Future To change the human course, we must change the stories that frame our shared understanding of the nature and means of attaining prosperity, security, and meaning from: * Fictional Empire prosperity stories of financial capital, economic growth, free trade, and consumerism to authentic Earth Community prosperity stories of living capital, equity, local self-reliance, and sufficiency. * Fictional Empire security stories of global competition and military domination to authentic Earth Community security stories of global cooperation and demilitarization. * Fictional Empire meaning stories of dead worlds, jealous patriarchs, and the meanness of human nature to authentic Earth Community meaning stories of integral spiritual intelligence and the potentials of a mature human consciousness. These are also known as our creation stories. They are foundational because they shape our understanding of the nature and purpose of reality and of our human nature and possibility. See the Big Three Story Matrix for an outline summation of the contrasting Empire and Earth Community prosperity, security, and meaning stories. One key to liberating ourselves from Empire is learning to recognize Empire stories as fictions designed to hide truths that Empire finds inconvenient and to give voice to the truth embodied in the contrasting stories of Earth Community. Once we learn to recognize Empire stories for what they are, the trance is broken. Much of the work of the Earth Community Navigator involves facilitating processes by which people come to recognize Empire stories instinctively and file them away in a mental category labeled "fiction," as they call forth the corresponding Earth Community story. The Navigator's point of entry may be an Empire fiction of particular relevance to a given individual or group that eventually be exposed to the overarching meta-story of the Great Turning and the defining human choice between the Empire (dominator) and Earth Community (partnership) models for organizing human relationships. If you want to engage the Great Work of reclaiming our power from Empire, don't attack its armies with physical force. Rather spread the awakening by exposing imperial fiction for what it is and sharing the good news of the possibilities of Earth Community. Bring the good news into your conversations with friends and colleagues. Organize an Earth Community Dialogue. If you have a leadership role with a progressive organization, consider defining the mission of your organization in terms of the cultural story that will be changed if you succeed in achieving your objective and then define a story change strategy. For examples from my own experience, see "Change the Story, Change the World." See also a collection of examples from other organizations compiled by Earth Community Navigator Michael Greenman. Our companion Great Turning Initiative website is devoted to guidance, resources, and experience sharing on initiatives throughout the United States and Canada to advance the awakening and bring forth the stories of Earth Community change the prevailing cultural stories through dialogue. A Change the Story Resource New Economy Working Group Ten Top Framing Messages I. System Redesign: The financial meltdown is our wake up call. We do not have a broken economic system in need of repair; we have a failed economic system in need of fundamental redesign. To respond to the social and environmental needs of the 21st century, the new design must feature a new financial and money system, new real wealth performance indicators, a redistributive framework, new ownership models, and new models of wealth creation that recognize the difference between real living wealth and phantom financial wealth. II. A Real Wealth Economy: Real wealth includes all things that have intrinsic values, such as land, labor, knowledge, health, and education. The most valuable forms of real wealth are beyond price: healthy, happy children; strong families; caring communities; a secure, dignified, and meaningful source of livelihood; healthy, biodiverse ecosystems; and peace. A real wealth economy is devoted to enhancing the quality of life for all, in contrast to a phantom wealth economy devoted to making money for the few in order to control and consume real wealth produced by others. III. A Life Serving Money System: Money is merely a number of no intrinsic value created from nothing when a bank issues a loan. Yet, because most essential transactions in a modern society depend on money, those who control the creation and allocation of money control the society. We have allowed Wall Street to achieve monopoly control of the creation and allocation of money and thereby to make its values and priorities the values and priorities of the society. It is a largely predatory system engaged in creating money from nothing with a simple accounting entry when they issue loans, charging exhorbitant fees and interest, deceiving borrowers, falsifying securities ratings, and extracting public bailouts on threat of withholding credit and crashing the economy. We must replace the predatory Wall Street money system with a life-serving money system that functions as a properly regulated public utility responsive to the needs and priorities of just and sustainable Main Street economies. IV. Sustainable Consumption: The human future depends on reducing aggregate human consumption and sharing resources equitably to balance human use with the regenerative capacity of Earth's living systems. Instead of managing the economy to maximize consumption, we must manage it to maximize well-being. V. Resource Reallocation: To meet the essential needs of people and nature on a finite planet, public policy must support an equitable reallocation of resources from harmful and nonessential to healthy essential uses. This includes reallocating from war to peace, from automobiles to public transit, from urban sprawl to healthy cities and rural reclamation, from advertising to education, from speculation to productive investment, and from producing extravagant display to producing the essentials of a healthy and productive life. VI. Indicators that Measure What We Want: We give priority to the results we measure, so we must assess economic performance against indicators of the results we really want: healthy children, strong families, caring communities, and vital, species diverse natural systems. Growth and profits are only means, not ends, and should be so treated. GDP and other financial indicators are measures of cost, not benefit. VII. Economic Democracy: Reducing extremes in wealth and income—between and within rich and poor nations—is essential to strengthen democracy, improve human health, strengthen community, and bring human consumption into balance with Earth’s regenerative capacity. VIII. Community Control and Self-Reliance: Markets need rules that maintain the conditions of socially efficient resource allocation—including local control, cost internalization, balanced trade, the absence of private monopoly, and a just distribution of economic power. Properly regulated markets support local democratic self-rule and allow each community to manage its local resource base to optimize the sustained and self-reliant production of goods and services to meet the essential needs of all its members within a framework of fair and balanced exchange with its neighbors and the free sharing of information, technology, and culture. Wall Street correctly views these rules as barriers to the global concentration of unaccountable corporate power and works tirelessly to eliminate them. Democracy, economic justice, and environmental sustainability all depend on restoring appropriate market rules to restore community control and self-reliance. IX. Community Accountable Enterprises: The Wall Street economy is comprised of large, limited liability corporations controlled by Wall Street investors and devoted to serving Wall Street values and interests. Healthy Main Street economies are comprised of human-scale, locally owned and accountable enterprises that recognize that their primary purpose is to provide beneficial goods and services that meet the needs of their neighbors and build community wealth within ecological constraints. X. Citizen Leadership: A corrupt system cannot reform itself from within. The leadership for change must come from informed and engaged citizens who recognize the need for a balance between individual and community needs and are committed to creating a world that works for all. Hi all, As part of my Transition Session project (the goal of which is to write/ record and album/ play that tells the story of how humanity rose to the challenges of climate, energy and economic uncertainty, overcame the domination of Empire and grew an Earth Community founded on partnership based relationships) I'm going to start organising "Transition Sessions (Song) Book Clubs" where will read the same books/ report and then get together to try and come up with lyrics/ scenes :) Some of the books/ reports I'm thinking of are: The Great Turning by David Korten (and his new book Agenda for a New Economy) http://www.davidkorten.com/GTbook http://www.thegreatturning.net/ http://www.davidkorten.com/NewEconomyBook The Great Transition (report from the new economics foundation - great stuff!) http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/the-great-transition The New Economics http://thebiggerpicture2009.org/book Gaian Democracies: Redefining Globalisation and People-power (an amazing must read book) http://www.feasta.org/documents/review2/gaian_democracies.htm Building Sustainable Communities: Tools for Self-Reliant Economic Change http://p2pfoundation.net/Building_Sustainable_Communities http://www.amazon.com/Building-Sustainable-Communities-Concepts-Self-Reliant/dp/094285036X Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: http://www.radicalsustainability.org/rust/toolbox DIY: A Handbook for Changing Our World http://hbfc.clearerchannel.org/ Plus Transition Handbook and Transition Timeline. Highly recommend them all. Smiles, Josef.