Transitioning Missoula

A friend told Claudia Brown about the Transition Network this summer. The retired preschool teacher borrowed the handbook detailing this movement, and she knew this was something she had to share with others.

"There are so many issues that are converging today," Brown said. "Weak economies, natural disasters, water shortages and rising sea levels — just to name a few. It's paralyzing, and people don't always want to talk about it."

Rob Hopkins is one person looking for change. In 2006 he founded the Transition Network in Totnes, England, to deliver a model that helps communities alter their practices to become more sustainable. Across the world, nearly 400 cities have groups committed to making their communities Transition Towns.

Missoula is next, Brown said.

Thursday those in the Transition Missoula group are hosting a talk by Dr. Steve Running called "Thinking Beyond Climate Change to Transitioning Societies." Running will speak at 6:30 p.m. in the University Congressional Church.

In the face of global economic hardship, climate change and diminishing fossil fuels, the future looks bleak. Yet, this is why communities are latching onto the ideas of the Transition model.

This August, Brown and nine other women sat down to read the Transition Handbook. The book, written by Hopkins, details his model in 12 steps for communities to become more resilient, or self-sustaining, in a changing climate with depleting natural resources. Some ways the book says that towns can achieve this is through organizing and growing their own food, learning the benefits of and ways to build with local materials, and methods to generate their own power.

Derek Kanwischer is an environmental studies graduate student researching ecological communities that have acted as models for social change, also called "ecovillages." He said these places are made up of groups of people who have a "deep reverence for the environment and make a formal commitment to live in balance with nature."

"The Transition Initiative takes a lot of experiences from ecovillages and applies them on a larger scale," he said. "This enhances the capacity for those bigger communities to have more sustainable lifestyles."

Kanwischer said the University of Montana Forum for Living with Appropriate Technology is demonstrating this idea with one home, which could turn into an entire community block. The FLAT is a house for students who practice sustainable living. Kanwischer assisted in founding the FLAT in 2008.

"We need transition communities to be a leader in this effort. Our country should be a leader, but how can it if we represent so much of the world's emissions?" Kanwischer said.

Brown thinks Missoula has many aspects of a Transition Town.

She listed organizations that are doing work in line with the Transition model, including the Missoula Urban Demonstration project, Missoula farmers' markets, Imagine Missoula, 1,000 New Gardens, Missoula Initiative for Sustainable Transportation and the Occupy Missoula study group.

"Missoula is very receptive to change, but there isn't one organization that represents all the other groups that are trying to make a difference," Kanwischer said. "Transition Missoula can be that representative."

Boulder, Colo., was the first transition town in the United States. Tommy Knoll, a Boulder-area business owner, is involved with Boulder's Transition movement as well as the one in Louisville, Colo. A few of their biggest projects focus on smart transportation, using less energy and obtaining it in different ways as well as improving local food and nutrition access.

"It's important that you strike a balance in your messages to the public," Knoll said. "There has to be a balance between urgency and optimism. It's different for every community but we've got to be super realistic in what we can achieve by talking with hope and necessity."

hannah.ryan@umontana.edu