WiserEarth Group Support

Transition Brighton and Hove is a group of volunteers aiming to start a city-wide community response to the challenges of climate change and peak oil. We want to bring together the collective skills and creativity in Brighton & Hove to evolve a sustainable low energy future reflected in an Energy Descent Action Plan. We are part of an international network of towns and cities with the same aims, theTransition Network.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

Two main reasons: climate change and peak oil.

Climate change due to increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 is now generally accepted as a result of human activity and is affecting us right now: with permafrost melting and collapsing ice sheets in Alaska, and altered growing seasons, changes in animal migration patterns, heatwaves, droughts, famines and floods becoming more frequent and extreme both abroad and here in the UK. The scientific consensus identifies high levels of greenhouse gases due to human activity (mainly carbon dioxide and methane) as the main influence. For more information, see the article on Wikipedia.

Peak oil is the point at which the point of maximum global oil production is reached. After this point, the rate of production enters terminal decline. Because of the high dependence of almost all modern transport and many industrial systems on cheap oil, the post-peak production decline is expected to lead to severe increases in the price of oil, with negative implications for the global economy. For more information, see the article on Wikipedia.

Both issues have the same cause: our excessive consumption of fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels is the main source of greenhouse gases, and there is only a limited amount of them on the Earth, which means that depletion will have severe implications for our energy usage if they continue to be our main source of energy.

In view of this, it is essential that we reduce significantly the amount of fossil fuels we use, starting at the local level.

WHO ARE WE?

We are all volunteers, some of us involved in other environmental groups, some not. The organization is divided in several overlapping sub-groups:
• Transition Interest Groups: they work on specific aspects of the transition (see the current list). See a graphic of the groups and their aims.
• Neighbourhood groups: they work on specific Brighton and Hove neighbourhoods (see the current list). See a graphic of how they link to other groups.
• Coordinating Hub: they track what the other groups are doing, do basic administrative tasks (webmaster, treasurer, etc.), facilitate information exchange between the groups and gather the input from everybody to design and co-ordinate our strategy. See a graphic here.