“Sustainable Living, Community Resilience, and Transition Towns” with Tina Clarke at Canton Public Library

            On Saturday, March 3, at 1:30 PM, Canton Public Library hosts Tina Clarke in a program titled “Sustainable Living, Community Resilience, and Transition Towns.”  The presentation, which is funded by a grant from the Newman’s Own Foundation, was originally scheduled for October 2011 but was canceled due to the Halloween Snowstorm.

For a while now we’ve lived with the terms “sustainable living,” “locavores,” “reliance on foreign oil,” and “carbon footprint” as we make both daily decisions and long-range policy decisions.  Should we walk, bike, or drive the car?  Should we use the dryer or line dry our clothes?  Should we support farmers’ markets or the local big box grocery store?  Add to that mix of terminology the phrase “transition town,” and you’ll discover an avenue of hope.

            What is a “transition town?”  A town which has recognized that we are on an unsustainable trajectory in our energy use, our economy, and our treatment of the planet.  The international Transition Towns movement seeks to address issues of sustainability by “engaging local communities in vibrant, grassroots community initiatives that increase local self-reliance and resilience.”

            The “transition towns” movement believes that the challenges we face are not insurmountable, but our approach to meeting the challenges is key:  “If we wait for the governments, it will be too little, too late; if we act as individuals, it will be too little; but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.”

            According to Tina Clarke, “Recent weather events have reminded us of the importance of a strong community, mutual support among neighbors, family resilience, and reducing our dependence on external sources of energy, food, and other essentials.  Our grandparents and great-grandparents had skills and technologies, organizations, and a local economy that could weather storms and mobilize for mutual aid.”  Transition towns draw upon some of those skills and behaviors.

            “Thousands of communities around the world are connected in the global Transition Network,” said Clark.  The Transition Towns movement includes not just towns but also cities, suburbs, counties, and even islands.  “It’s a grassroots movement—neighbors coming together to sustain and enhance their quality of life and local economy and environment.”

            Tina Clarke is a certified Transition Towns Trainer who has worked with over 60 communities across the U. S. and Canada.  She has been an advocate, educator, consultant, and director of nonprofit programs since 1985.  She has been providing professional training and support for community leaders and campaigns for over 20 years.   While in Washington, DC, she directed the Greenpeace USA’s citizen activist network.  As a Campaign Director for Clean Water Action, she initiated and helped lead coalitions on environmental justice, toxins, and energy.  She has an MA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and is certified for consensus process facilitation and mediation.  She is a popular speaker on energy and environmental issues, creative frugality, and social change.

            And Tina “walks the walk.”  She lives in a below-zero energy house that she helped design and build, with passive solar heating, Platinum LEED, and low toxins.  In 2009 the home won the Massachusetts utility company-sponsored competition, the Zero Energy Challenge, and in 2010 won the NESEA award for zero energy buildings.  The house is free of all fossil fuels and wood-burning, and it generated 2.5 times more energy than needed in 2009.

The program “Sustainable Living, Community Resilience, and Transition Towns” is free; registration is requested.  Canton Public Library is at 40 Dyer Avenue, Canton.  For information:  (860) 693-5800 or www.cantonpubliclibrary.org