According to an organizer,  thirty-seven participants attended the June 9, 2009 Transition Sullivan community meeting.   Their purpose is to build a Sullivan County whose economic base is “sustainable and resilient in a new age of expensive oil, galloping climate change, and reduced funding for communities.”

Like Transition Towns in England, Transition Sullivan participants will investigate two crux issues:  how does a community evolve past  its dependence on declining petroleum resources and reduce its carbon emissions in order to strengthen itself and its people?

The notion of communities powering themselves is not new but it is gaining in vigor.  This past weekend, I was delighted to spend  time with Tom Lambert who’s been a long time champion of Sullivan County’s evolving independence.  We reminisced about attempts twenty years ago to extend high speed rail service to Callicoon from Port Jervis.  (The memory of those frustrated efforts  spurred one of us to  unseemly language  and it wasn’t Tom.)  By the end of the discussion,  we cautiously agreed that perhaps we’d been too early to the party twenty years ago.

Whether it’s farmers growing their way out of oil dependence in Iowa, powering a town with wind in Minnesota or generating radio broadcasts with water power in Jeffersonville, NY,  the seeds of change have been sown locally, nationally and internationally.

In the past, some activists  stopped listening  the minute they heard “bio-fuels.”  Others buried their heads at the mention of  “wind towers”  and others sputtered unintelligibly when “nuclear” was  whispered.  We each have preferences.  Each of us is  capable of finding faults in any solution but more than ever, we recognize that our futures are being sorely wasted.

Today, The Center for Discovery’s Thanksgiving Farm is inspirational in its scope.  New York State’s Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) was an unknown agency just a few years ago but today, it reels beneath the demand for licensed professionals capable of comprehensive green renovations.  Our very own  Sullivan County Community College stepped up and now offers a degree program in Green Building Maintenance and Management.

Seems to me that Tim Shera and Maria Grimaldi have organized their Transition Sullivan initiative at the perfect time.  Grab your neighbors and family.  Join them on June 16, 2009 at 6:00 PM at the Sullivan County Cornell Cooperative Extension for the second organizational meeting.

Try to  visit Transition Towns and Open Space Technology beforehand  so you’re familiar with the Transition Towns  model in England  and how the meeting will be conducted.  Think about the town, hamlet or village where you live.  Jot down a list of resources your community brings to the larger table and  for an overview of the first meeting, please see the new article at The Catskill Chronicle.


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According to an organizer,  thirty-seven participants attended the June 9, 2009 Transition Sullivan community meeting.   Their purpose is to build a Sullivan County whose economic base is “sustainable and resilient in a new age of expensive oil, galloping climate change, and reduced funding for communities.”

Like Transition Towns in England, Transition Sullivan participants will investigate two crux issues:  how does a community evolve past  its dependence on declining petroleum resources and reduce its carbon emissions in order to strengthen itself and its people?

The notion of communities powering themselves is not new but it is gaining in vigor.  This past weekend, I was delighted to spend  time with Tom Lambert who’s been a long time champion of Sullivan County’s evolving independence.  We reminisced about attempts twenty years ago to extend high speed rail service to Callicoon from Port Jervis.  (The memory of those frustrated efforts  spurred one of us to  unseemly language  and it wasn’t Tom.)  By the end of the discussion,  we cautiously agreed that perhaps we’d been too early to the party twenty years ago.

Whether it’s farmers growing their way out of oil dependence in Iowa, powering a town with wind in Minnesota or generating radio broadcasts with water power in Jeffersonville, NY,  the seeds of change have been sown locally, nationally and internationally.

In the past, some activists  stopped listening  the minute they heard “bio-fuels.”  Others buried their heads at the mention of  “wind towers”  and others sputtered unintelligibly when “nuclear” was  whispered.  We each have preferences.  Each of us is  capable of finding faults in any solution but more than ever, we recognize that our futures are being sorely wasted.

Today, The Center for Discovery’s Thanksgiving Farm is inspirational in its scope.  New York State’s Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) was an unknown agency just a few years ago but today, it reels beneath the demand for licensed professionals capable of comprehensive green renovations.  Our very own  Sullivan County Community College stepped up and now offers a degree program in Green Building Maintenance and Management.

Seems to me that Tim Shera and Maria Grimaldi have organized their Transition Sullivan initiative at the perfect time.  Grab your neighbors and family.  Join them on June 16, 2009 at 6:00 PM at the Sullivan County Cornell Cooperative Extension for the second organizational meeting.

Try to  visit Transition Towns and Open Space Technology beforehand  so you’re familiar with the Transition Towns  model in England  and how the meeting will be conducted.  Think about the town, hamlet or village where you live.  Jot down a list of resources your community brings to the larger table and  for an overview of the first meeting, please see the new article at The Catskill Chronicle.


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