Cocagne joins the Transition Town Network

On November 5th, Cocagne was officially designated the 7th “Transition Town” in Canada.  This international initiative looks at boosting community resilience and self-reliance in response to todays major ecological and energy related challenges.

The Transition Town concept dates back to 2006, when the town of Totnes England decided to take on the joint challenges of Climate Change and Peak Oil.  In fact, since the age of cheap and abundant oil is coming to a close and that its combustion contributes to climate change, communities of all shapes and sizes should gradually wean off their dependency on fossil fuels. We presently use oil for heating, the transportation of people, consumer goods and food, for synthetic products such as plastics, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals, and the list goes on.  In this context, Transition means gradually adapting our communities towards more sustainable solutions.

The transition model emboldens communities to look peak oil and climate change squarely in the eye and unleash the collective genius of their own people to find the answers to these big questions: for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how are we going to significantly rebuild resilience (in response to peak oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change).

Through the promotion of local food, energy efficiency and other sustainable solutions, Transition Towns increase their resilience and their capacity to withstand the shocks associated with peak oil, climate change as well as economic instability. As of today, 245 communities in 15 different countries are part of the Transition Town Network.