Transition Town Brixton is working on a new website that will be more interactive and easy to update by the legion of people who are active in visioning, designing and pioneering a BETTER low energy future. Please have patience and join us at the following events to get involved in the greatest agenda of our time:
NEWS:
TTB has decided to keep the shop in Granville Arcade for at least the next 6 months. It will be home to our 3 Future Jobs Fund workers and we hope to develop it as a really useful Transition Resource and Work Centre. Come and get stuck in. Sign up to volunteer.
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
to volunteer for slots staffing the shop.
All 3 covered markets in Brixton, Reliance Arcade, the Market Row and Granville Arcade (occasionally called Brixton Village) are to be 'listed' which means they are much less likely to be threatened by developers. See Friends of Brixton Market website for the full story. TTB made 2 submissions to the Department of Culture Media and Sport who listened to local people and over-ruled advice from English Heritage. Thank you to Paul Bakalite who initiated and drove the campaign with passion.
EVENTS:
BRIXTON
PERMACULTURE PICTUREHOUSE every
2nd Monday of the month, an evening of film & talk. Upstairs at The Prince
Regent 69 Dulwich Road,London, SE24 0NJ. 020
7274 1567map Food...'Mondays
Meal' at The Prince Regent - 2 courses for £11. Order downstairs.
Available from 7pm £2 (optional, suggested)
donation on the door. Doors open 6.30, film 7.30.
Monday 10 May. 7.30pm
THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHNtrailer The epic tale of a maverick mid-Western farmer. John
Peterson inherits his family farm aged 18, nearly loses everything and
drops out. But defying all odds he comes back to transform his
land into a revolutionary farming community and a cultural mecca, where
people work and flourish providing fresh vegetables and herbs to
thousands of people every week.
The Peterson family farm has become Angelic Organics, one of the
largest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms in the United
States, a beacon of today’s booming organic farming movement..
Unbelievably special…a real and gripping story
with insight and humor.
~ Al Gore, former Vice-President ~
"[The Real Dirt] offers one man's extraordinary life as a gateway
to a larger history of tragedy and transition. It's an unflinching
account of what farming takes — and, more important, what it gives
back... ~ Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times ~
The film evolves into a deeply moving metaphor for the struggles of
an entire generation. His triumphant story is essential for all of us
city folk who have found ourselves despairing for the Earth and what
has seemed like our inevitable alienation from it. ~ Mark Achbar, director, The Corporation ~
Another story of a grass-roots pioneer of Transition. We cannot leave
it to governments - it will be too little too late. See you there and
let's start thinking about Community Supported Agriculture for Brixton.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TTB on Open University
An excellent short film
on Transition Town Brixton now features on the Open University website. It was made, together with another about Transition Town Totnes by TTB film-maker James McDonald of Angeleye Films.
Just a note: this was made before the launch of the Brixton Pound on 17 September 2009. There are now more than 130 business accepting and trading in B£s and more than B£35,000s are sticking to Brixton and stimulating the independent local economy and the conversation about localisation.
The RoadtoCopenhagen: EdMiliband MP
Q&A session with the Climate Change Secretary | 30 November 2009 | Lambeth Town Hall
Several hundred people attended a Q&A session last night hosted
by Labour's Parliamentary Candidate's Chuka Umunna. If elected, Chuka
will be the first MP for Streatham who grew up in the area. TTB is
thrilled that he clearly aspires to work towards helping us solve our
deepening environmental crises. Lambeth Town Hall was filled to
capacity with local residents and several groups of sixthform students
who participated in a Q&A session on one of the last days before Ed
Miliband's departure for Copenhagen.
Both Chuka Umunna and Ed Miliband made a case to move swiftly towards a
strong deal in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, Ed Miliband failed to answer
important questions. Meanwhile, global networks of environmental
grassroots activists are organising in preparation for the fact that we
have very little faith in an effective or fair deal in Copenhagen.
The Copenhagen agreement will not solve our problems because:
1. The climate crisis demonstrates that it’s impossible to have infinite
growth on a finite planet. The Sustainable
Development Commission's report Prosperity without Growth describes how 'perpetual
economic growth is totally at odds with our scientific knowledge about
the finite resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for
survival'. The negotiations at Copenhagen do not address this dilemma.
2.
The climate talks put corporate profits before the needs of people and
the atmosphere. We need a deeper analysis of the problem and more
support for communities developing solutions.
3. The market based solutions being pushed in the UN Climate talks
lead to land grabbing and more inequity. False solutions like carbon trading will not
solve the climate crisis.
4. We need a just
transition and systems change not climate change! Transition Towns is
one example of a grassroots movement working for a world which is both
just and sustainable.
3. Whatever happens in Copenhagen, local communities in transition are in need a much greater level of support and cooperation. £10m
has been found for 20 communities in the UK to pioneer the Low Carbon Communities Challenge. Lets put this in context;
the refurbishment of
Brixton Central Square costs £9.5m. Is £10m, the amount it cost to
give Brixton a new square, an adequate amount to help one community stop catastrophic
climate change? What about the hundreds or even thousands of communities that are not part of the chosen 20?
The deal on the table
in Copenhagen suffers from the same problems that made the Kyoto Protocol a failure. We are no closer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions than we were when
negotiations
began fifteen years ago. Emissions continue to rise at
ever faster rates - including emissions in this country if the embedded
emissions in the products we buy from abroad are included in
calculations. Solutions on the table are unjust and are unlikely to reduce net emissions.
Our local community is engaged with this issue. If we can't
look to government to solve it for us we must take the lead in
pioneering solutions and alternative ways of living well within
planetary limits. Luckily there is a global movement of groups like
Transition Towns who are also working to build a resilient and low
carbon future. When governments start to support people not profitable
carbon trading schemes - we will have the beginnings of a effective
climate treaty.
This Community Think Tank Day, brought to you by Transition Town Brixton, aims to gather the ideas of Brixton residents to put together a strong application for the Low Carbon Communities Challenge. This two- year funding programme from the Department of Energy and Climate Change will provide financial and advisory support to 20 pioneering ‘test-bed’ communities across the UK that are seeking to cut carbon emissions and foster community leadership.
Each successful community will receive up to £500K for capital expenditure on households
or community buildings (with up to 10% for project management). Brixton has already
won funding to be a Low Carbon Zone which gives us an even stronger chance. The
deadline for the application is 30 December 2009, so we need to act quickly
TTB has decided to keep the shop in Granville Arcade for at least the next 6 months. It will be home to our 3 Future Jobs Fund workers and we hope to develop it as a really useful Transition Resource and Work Centre. Come and get stuck in. 
The epic tale of a maverick mid-Western farmer. John
Peterson inherits his family farm aged 18, nearly loses everything and
drops out. But defying all odds he comes back to transform his
land into a revolutionary farming community and a cultural mecca, where
people work and flourish providing fresh vegetables and herbs to
thousands of people every week. 