Stockport

Firstly, for over 100 years cheap oil has given us (aka Western economies) easy access to heat, light, machinery, transport, manufacturing, plastics, clothing, medicine and more. But soon the quality and amount of oil we can drill to the surface will diminish.  What oil remains will be in decline, difficult and very, very expensive to produce. The consequences are likely to be wide-reaching. Already we are faced with steep and rapid price increases.  Can you imagine a life beyond oil?

Secondly, the effects of climate change are also being felt much sooner than anticipated. According to recent reports the average temperature rise could well exceed 2C. This means runaway climate change is going to be even harder to avoid, and billions will be at risk from droughts, floods & hunger. You think these natural disasters are occurring hundreds of miles from your door-step?  We will all feel the consequences, in the price or availability of food, for example.

In response to these twin pressures some pioneering communities in the UK and around the world are taking an active role in preparing local neighbourhoods for changes in their life that will be necessary when adapting to these major changes.   Lots of people need to be made aware and enabled to cope with them:  to learn skills (repairing construction, growing) or tap into the community to solve local supply problems, cheap local food, transport, or waste management, for example. 

A Transition Town is therefore a place where communities help each other to make the shift (or transition) away from a dependency on fossil fuel energy AND reduce their carbon foot-print at the same time. There are now over 200 TTs around the globe and Stockport is now one of them. You can find more information about the national 'Transition Plan' by visiting Stockport Friends of the Earth HERE.

If you would like to find out more about, get in touch with, or join in the Transition Town Stockport movement, click HERE.