Transition Olympia

Transition Olympia is a group of people in Olympia, Washington (and surrounding areas) that is actively addressing the triple threat of Global Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Economic Contraction by catalyzing local community, sustainability, resilience, and human scale solutions.

Our overarching goal is to plan for and create a system of community that will thrive when the world becomes a very different place:

Global Climate Change: "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." -- James Hansen - NASA's chief climatologist. Peak Oil: "I say this because I detect in this strident plea the desperate wish to keep our "Happy Motoring" utopia running by means other than oil and its byproducts. But the truth is that no combination of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used French-fry oil will allow us to power Wal-Mart, Disney World and the interstate highway system -- or even a fraction of these things -- in the future. We have to make other arrangements" -- James Howard Kunstler - author of Long Emergency and World Made by Hand. Economic Contraction: "We need an economy that asks questions other than "How can I make it bigger?" The two key additional questions: "How can the economy make us more satisfied with our lives?" and, in an age of ecological peril, "How can the economy assure some durability for our communities?" -- Bill McKibben - author of Deep Economy

These three issues are global in their scope and scale, and are inextricably linked. Any one person or any one small community could not hope to change or solve these problems. Ironically, the answer to the question "How do we thrive in a world with an altered climate, scarce energy and natural resources, and a smaller economy?", is almost certainly based on small, site-specific, community-based solutions.

Transition Olympia is modeled after the global Transition Initiative http://www.transitiontowns.org/ movement. Founded in the United Kingdom, the movement has spread throughout the world. Transition Towns seek to "unleash the collective genius" within their people, in order to create locally-based, resilient solutions to the coming effects of changing climate, expensive and scarce fossil fuels, and the loss of familiar jobs and patterns of consumption.

We invite you to join us on this transitional journey to take hold of our collective future!

Please contact us, visit the Ning social network site (www.transitionolympia.ning.com), participate in a local event, tell your friends and neighbors, and contribute to the solutions of our time! Email me if you are interested in joining us. joanne -at- naturalcoach.com

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
-- Charles Darwin

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