If a good definition of the word Resilience is “a strong, diverse community, able to deal with any future challenges” (Climate Change, peak oil, collapsing economies and local disasters) then last Saturdays Transition Salt Spring’s Resilience Fair proved that Salt Spring residents are very interested in being resilient and that, as a community, we are on our way, with many successes under our belt, in 2012 alone. There was standing room only for a good part of the day and over 25 community groups were represented.
The afternoon started with opening remarks by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Movement, who taped a message especially for this event. He was very congratulatory about the many Salt Spring island initiatives and impressed with how much our little island had accomplished. He knew about and had ordered Salt Spring Dollars before there was a Transition Movement (now over 2500 groups in 40 countries) and has been curious since then about Salt Spring. He highlighted our new Abattoir, the SS Investment Coop, successes of our local food production groups, community pathways and Transit System and just generally how SSI seems to be a community that is steadily moving toward becoming more resilient and sustainable. The main thrust of his talk was on Local Economic Resiliency and he spoke eloquently about the importance of groups taking the time to celebrate their successes.
This was the main purpose behind the Resiliency Fair – to high light and celebrate SSI community’s successes at becoming more resilient and to support the groups doing the on the ground work. Transition Salt Spring did this by inviting organizations /groups to the fair to tell the community about what it is they do, their successes, and to engage the public with a question or two, the answers which might help direct their work into the future. This was the public engagement part of the day – The Fair. A number of these groups’ successes were highlighted on stage. A few new groups were introduced: A new Clean Energy Group, Letter Writing Group, and Car/Truck/Camper Van Coop group.
Elizabeth May surprised the audience by showing up and introducing the Key Note Speaker, her friend, Michael Lewis. Lewis is the author of the book Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady – State Economy.
Keynote speaker Michael Lewis made the case a transformative change from a global growth economy fed by fossil fuels toward more local and resilient economies. Co-author of “The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative transitions to a Steady State Economy.”, he challenges the conventional assumption that economic growth is “good” and that exponential growth is possible on a finite planet. To support his case, Michael noted that the current collective consumption needs 1.5 planets, that the gross disparity of wealth is “morally corrupt and socially unsustainable” and that “the holy trinity of free trade, free markets, and free movement of capital is the bane of a finite planet”.
In answering the question-can we navigate away from the growth imperative to the resilience imperative? – Michael described the seven resilience principles in his book: diversity, modularity, social capital, innovation, overlap, tight feedback loops and ecosystem services.
He introduced some of the basic innovations out of the thirty plus in the book. For affordable shelter, the model of community land trusts combined with community supported agriculture and conservation easements (covenants) has been shown to work, separating ownership of the land from market forces and allowing local consumers to take on an active role.
One of the biggest issues is to find innovative ways to finance “the multiple projects, large and small, that aim to reduce carbon and to reweave our economies on a more local and self-reliant basis.” The Sangudo Opportunity Investment Cooperative in Alberta was described as a model for engaging local communities in local projects and is being tested in six other communities.
Michael closed with an appeal to recognize we are interdependent, that we can diffuse and expand the many cooperative transitions that can help us navigate our way to a steady-state economy. He asked-“What stories will you and I be able to tell our loved ones 20 and 30 years from now about what we did to advance the Great Transition? Their future depends on our answers and our efforts.”
By all accounts the day was a huge success. This is an annual event for Transition Salt Spring. It is their mandate to encourage and support the organizations and the work being done on the island to make this island more resilient. The taped message by Rob Hopkins will be available on the Transition SS web page.
Transition Salt Spring – Education Committee
Jean Gelwicks 537-4859
Jon Healy 537-1222
Katharine Byers 931-1236
Peter Lamb 537-4859
Elizabeth White 537-2616