Tooting goes to Town!

A Tooting team travelled up to town last night to hear the final results for the TippingPoint Commission on the roof terraces of the National Theatre on The South Bank. Out of 178 applications nationally the Trashcatchers' Carnival in Tooting was one of 4 awards presented by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, pictured here with (standing on the right of the picture, Lucy Neal, Hilary Jennings, (co-Chairs TTT), Indrajit Patel (Chair of the Tooting Partnership Board/Tooting Business Network), Audrey Helps (Tooting Town Centre Manager), Deb Mullins (Emergency Exit Arts), Faye Mayer (Tooting Community Programme Co-ordinator for Tooting Schools), Fabio Santos (Project Phakama), Ines Tercio (Project Phakama) and to Ines' immediate Regis Gnaly (Project Phakama). Taking this picture was Mike Grenville who came up from Forest Row to represent the Transition Network, thankyou Mike.

The award is thrilling. It gives £20,000 to Project Phakama and Emergency Exit Arts to lead a year long project in Tooting to use art, carnival, celebration and the collective ingenuity of all the community to create a large scale promenade on the 2010 summer solstice - from Trash! Using recycling as a metaphor, (and as piloted at June 13th Funday) we can build a vision of a low-energy future for Tooting and have a lot of fun in the process. We will post here soon national news about these prestigious awards, created by TippingPoint to encourage artists to introduce audiences to the imaginative thinking necessary to contemplate and inhabit a world dominated by climate change.

Yes, that's us! All would-be sewers, beaders, makers, designers, dancers, musicians, recyclers, cyclers, performers, costumiers, hairdressers, puppeteers and carnivalistas please step forward!

LN

Trashcatching Pics

Here are a few more photos of the Trashcatching and making at last weekend's BATCA funday. Thanks to local photographer Neila (neila@hotmail.co.uk) for these.

BATCA Midsummer Funday

This afternoon at the BATCA Midummer Funday, TTT helped Project Phakama, Emergency Exit Arts and a small army of Tooting kids turn TRASH into great CARNIVAL COSTUMES for a'Trashcatchers' Carnival procession!

There are grand plans for 2010 but in the meantime here is a selection of photos from today. We should be able to post some film up too shortly.

Imagine if you saved every bit of rubbish for a year what you could make at the end of it?!!! Hmm now there's an idea!

Send in Your Photos for Plant of the Week!

As part of the build up to this year's Tooting Harvest Foodival on Sunday 27th September Giles wants your entries for Tooting's home growing plant of the week! The Foodival now has its own webpages here. Mail your photos to Giles asap for a chance to win ... er ... well at least the honour of sharing your home or garden with a Plant of the Week! Some early contenders ...

Tooting helps pull off National TT Conference!

Need to pause to take stock of the last few weeks before getting ready for exciting summer of events coming up..... The National Transition Conference held at Battersea Arts Centre 2 weeks ago was a spectacular success.

Transition initiatives from all over the UK and those from further afield. Our own Sadiq Khan was heard to declare in this interview that 'Transition has legs' - that's good! It was Sadiq with help from local Councillors and Transition team Tooting that were responsible for getting the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Milliband, to make an appearance at the Conference on Friday May 22nd. Milliband duly joined the 350 transitioners present to discuss over 100 issues - from the current state of oil depletion to building resilient local economies to how to run food growing workshops.Listen to his interview with Rob Hopkins and Peter Lipman here.

Sounds like he's pretty interested in the Transition experiment. Team Tooting then pulled out all the stops for the 2 Hour Energy Descent Action plan which with help from a total team of 40 dramatised the '12 steps' of transition around the Grand Hall.

Film coming shortly. There was SO much to learn from others present at the conference about how other communities are managing this extraordinary process of changemaking at grass roots level. It was affirming to read Madeleine Bunting's views the next day on how the Transition movement is a positive force to be reckoned with looking peak oil and climate change squarely in the eye...

Tooting's next steps for a summer of events over the next few weeks are ready to go: the piloting the Trashcatchers' Carnival at the Midsummer Funday in Tooting on June 13th 12-4.30pm; screenings of Age of Stupid (7pm on June 18th, The Bedford on Balham Hill; June 29th at Springfield Hospital and July 3rd Tooting Graveney School). And hurray we finally have a leaflet to hand around. The Tooting Town Centre manager has also asked us to take care of one of the Town's noticeboards so people can pick up on what's happening as they stroll around....Lots going on and elderflowers to be picked for cordial making next weekend as well..

Launch of Tooting Harvest Foodival 2009!

Transition Town Tooting are busy organising this year’s Harvest Foodival taking place on Sunday 27th of September and are looking for all growers great and small to join in.
The event is a celebration of all things green and growing in the town and restaurants down the high street from Tooting Bec to Broadway stations will be cooking up locally grown fruit and veg on the day so locals can sample the true tastes of Tooting! Along with the cooking will also be a number of walks to venues near the high street where food is already being grown above and around shops with talks on urban growing and the possibilities for broadening Tooting’s food production.
At the end of the day there’ll be a fantastic finale event including a growers competition with a category for “Fruit or Veg that Most Resembles a Celebrity” – truly a must win event! So we’re encouraging everyone to get growing and be a part of what looks set to be an amazing day that celebrates Tooting’s rich food culture with more than a sprinkling of fun!
For more details on how to be part of the event or to be emailed updates on what’s happening when and where, please contact Giles Read at giles@cen.org.uk or on 0773 892 8215.

Transition Town Meet-up

TT Tooting members were involved in a successful 21st Century Network Transition Towns meet-up at EnlightenNext in Islington on Wednesday (13th May). Lucy was speaking along with TT Brixton's Duncan Law and TT Forest Row's Mike Grenville while David was facilitating. Loads of good ideas appeared in the breakout discussions and I personally was particularly taken with the idea of giving my garden shed a green roof - something like this one perhaps. This group has someone with a good camera taking pics at every event that provide a good record. I think TTT could endeavour to do the same? Any Tooting Annie Liebowitzs or David Baileys out there?

Tooting Sakura April 2009

I paid an interesting visit to the Tooting Commons MAC last night, a group who act as a consultation partner for Wandsworth Council, and for other bodies who carry out work on or near the Commons with a diverse range of interested parties attending. Discussion ranged from wind turbines and road closures to guided walks and plum trees! Gave me some ideas which I'll bring along to tomorrow night's meeting. Aren't we lucky to have such a great open space right on our doorstep? Just in case any of you have been stodging inside too much of late and missed this April's cherry blossom, here are two fine examples from Tooting Graveney Common, dt.

Guess who's coming to dinner..

Transition Town Tooting were pleased to be invited to join Sadiq Khan MP who hosted Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change at a supper in Tooting last week. I attended on behalf of TTT and was invited to join Mr Miliband's table where I was quizzed by him about the transition movement. As well as an opportunity to hear him speak, it was great to have a chance to share with him my personal enthsuiasm for TTT and for the growing community response to climate change and peak oil which is developing in Tooting. It also provided an opportunity to invite both he and Sadiq Khan to attend the upcoming transition network conference in Battersea in May. A short video clip of them in conversation appears here on Sadiq's blog. http://www.sadiqkhan.co.uk/index.php/blog/5-general/319-dinner-with-ed-miliband?4bcca4bd673637b028d7767aee95d1b6=e59ba59755b55c5fb5e3f25ddb9c4e08 - I managed to remain out of the limelight just left of shot...

Hilary

London transitioners flock to Wandsworth

Around 50 members of 15 different London transition networks met on Monday 23rd at Battersea Arts Centre (venue for the upcoming network conference in May) for the first ever London-wide transition event. We were welcomed by one of BAC's co-Artistic Directors, David Micklem who gave us some insight in to the venue's history as a centre for radical thought and action.

The evening started with a World Cafe event run by Asha Bee which focused on the particular challenges and benefits of transitioning in cities. Asha was then going on to run simliar events in other cities including Bristol and Brighton - all the input from which will feed into the new book on Transitioning Cities which Asha will be writing over the coming months.

After this there was a chance to meet and chat with other London TT networkers and to discuss the conference and plans for London beyond May. It was a great opportunity to share experiences and Finsbury TT has already stepped up and offered to host a future event possibly in June.

Happy Birthday TTT

Transition Town Tooting tonight celebrated its 1st birthday at Mushkil Aasaan! Lucy & Hilary led a good discussion with a review of what's been achieved, a creative visualisation of the future, working groups and a birthday cake with its own rocket launcher!

Local Heroes Community Awards

Tooting really is an inspiring,  quirky, humorous, resilient, inventive and diverse place. Just returned from an incredible evening at Jasmin's Club on Tooting High St, host to this year's Community Awards. A full house organised by the indominatable Balham and Tooting Community Association recognising the work done by 'ordinary' people on the ground. Transition Town Tooting had its moment: Iqbal Turk and I presented a snap-shot picture of the Tooting Earth Talk Walk as a prelude to Tara Art Pauline Nakirya's one woman performance of The Animal's Lawsuit (based on a 10th century Basra poem). Iqbal, Mary Boley and I were also nominated for TTT related community awards which was humbling given a) the short time TTT has been around and b) the company we were in: long-serving health workers, choir leaders, community champions for the elderly, children and women's groups. Great Gustos singing and all topped by MP Sadiq Khan's triumphant arrival at 11th hour with news Springfield Hospital Mega-Development Plans have been turned down by a Wandsworth Council meeting tonight.Hurray! All to play for now on a Sustainable Tooting front.  LN

The Age of Stupid

The Age of Stupid - join us at Wimbledon Odeon on 15th March

'The first succesful dramatisation of Climate Change to hit the big screen' - The Guardian A new film, The Age of Stupid (http://www.ageofstupid.net/ and attached), looks like its going to be a fantastic vehicle to raise public awareness of the issue of climate change. The film makers are trying to get into the Guinness Book of records for the biggest premiere ever and so on 15th March at 5.30pm it is being screened simultaneously in cinemas across the UK. Sustainable Merton have managed to secure a screening at the Wimbledon Odeon and all TTT members are encouraged to attend. If it is a packed showing the Odeon have promised to hold a further free screening of the film! Tickets are available online here - looks like they are selling fast http://www.odeon.co.uk/fanatic/film_info/s142/Wimbledon/m11958/The_Age_Of_Stupid_/

More Earth Talk Walk Photos

Thanks to Sara for these photos

May Transition Town National Conference lands in a town near you...

Really Exciting News! The National Transition Town Conference will be held in Wandsworth! May 22nd-24th at our very own Battersea Arts Centre. Check this link to Rob Hopkins' blog in Transition Culture to find out more. A chance for you to really see with your own eyes how transitioning work is transforming communities all over the UK. Booking for the conference opens on March 2nd. Be ready to book!! Transition Town Tooting will play a role in helping to host transitioners from all over the country (and visitors from further afield as well). Lots of workshops, inspiring talks, practical activities. Exciting news. Change-making brought nearly to your own front door.

LN

Earth Hour

I like this idea that everyone could stop using energy for just one hour. On Saturday 28 March 2009 at 8.30pm, WWF will stage their 3rd Earth Hour, when they hope up to a billion people, businesses and iconic buildings around the world will switch off their lights for an hour and send an important message to the world's leaders.

What creative ways can we think of for spending an hour in Tooting without our fossil fuel driven power?

OK I'll start.
Um ... take a picnic down to TB Common and see if I can see some stars in the anticipated absence of light pollution! DT

Earth Talk Walk Photos

I am afraid that this montage is the best I have been able to cobble together from the Earth Talk Walk on 31st January. Any other photos gratefully received.

Anyway ... well done to Hilary for organising a really interesting day meandering between Tooting's different places of worship. What was striking was how similarly the different faiths look at care of the earth and how much the residents of our diverse community have in common.

On a personal level, the slightly daunting prospect of a hastily arranged address to the faithful at evening prayers in the mosque was survived without incident! Thanks for the opportunity. DT

Tooting In The Snow

Far from being a crisis or a terrible blow to the economy as some sections of our media would like us to think, the snow has been great!

On Monday, Tooting Bec Common was mobbed with people enjoying the snow, making snowmen and ... talking to each other! Yes can you believe it? I talked to lots of people I had never met before and even got invited back for a cuppa and cake by some newly discovered neighbours.

The power of communication, in evidence again after the weekend's successful Earth Talk Walk.


Glad to see that there is quite a bit of creativity out there in our community. Which snowman is your favourite?

Next Sunday Swap

The Selkirk on 60 Selkirk Road, SW17 0ES, has kindly let use use one of their upstairs room for our next Sunday Swap, so put Sunday the 1st of March, 1-4pm in your diary now!

The swaps are a great opportunity to arrive with something you don't want, and leave with something you do. The previous ones has seen anything from books to fragranced candles and doorstops being swapped, and the sky is the limit.

As spring is upon us (really!) and it's time to get those seeds in the ground I thought it might be a nice idea to bring along unwanted seeds, gardening tools, swap ideas and advice on what to put in the ground this year. Anything else unwanted from that spring clean is of course also welcome.

So come along, grab a drink or a bite to eat with us, chat away and swap some stuff on 1st of March!

For any further info please email transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

Sara

Earth Talk Walk

For your very own, lovely, souvenir edition, print out, keep and collect autographs map of the Earth Talk Walk route on Sat 31 Jan, click here

The Wandsworth Guardian will consider printing any interesting shots of the day so ... will Lucy be dressing up? Will Hilary be using her thespian skills? Who has a good digital camera?! We await the day with excited anticipation! DT

Earth Talk Walk - 31st January

The focus of the walk will be a dialogue between different faith and community groups’ about the responsibility towards the earth and its conservation. The walk will address concerns about climate change, oil prices and the potential scarcity of the earth’s resources. It will help to build up a common set of beliefs and values in this exceptional part of multifaith London and make a powerful affirmation of shared values and writings around the guardianship of the earth. We will be joined by Tara Arts Centre’s youth theatre group, Arts Beat, with a performance based on an ancient text from the Basra region about a council of animals taking ownership of the earth.

For more details and a map for the day please email transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

Barack Offers Hope For Better

Barack Obama speaks so eloquently and his message of hope is so uplifting and revitalising that I just hope that our expectations of him are not too high.

In yesterday’s inauguration speech I was particularly happy to see that he gave several nods to the environmental issues facing our world:

“each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet”

“We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories”

“We will work tirelessly… to roll back the spectre of a warming planet”

“We can no longer afford indifference to suffering beyond our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect”

If he can live up to the soaring rhetoric and has the will to leap the inevitable obstacles in the way, we have the possibility of a real change for good in the world’s attitude to climate chaos and our monumentally unsustainable ways of living.

Best of luck to you Mr Obama!

DT

Hats off to the Hens

I have been feeling very sorry for them. Everytime I go out in the morning to let them out and fill up their food, the ice on their water bowl has thickened. As they rush out to peck at the unforgiving stone hard ground I worry about them. To make things more lively for them I have taken to boiling up our vegetable peelings for a few minutes to put out - a kind of bird broth which is much appreciated. After evolving for 1000s of years, they have clearly got resilience down to a fine art and are the hardiest of creatures. The next day the youngest produces her first very small egg. It's 1.5 inches long, a lovely brown and we serve it up for breakfast to pack a little goodness into our daughter returning to university that day.

A really excellent first TTT meeting of 2009 on Jan 5th. As someone said, 2008 was all about coming to terms with the enormity of the world's challenges, reading loads, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by it all. 2009 can be a year of doing and actions.
More soon on all this.
LN

Carols in Tooting

A Buddhist and her non-aligned friend dropped into the New Testament Assembly in Beechcroft Road for their Imagine Hope Gospel Carol Concert on Saturday, not knowing exactly what to expect and left pleasantly surprised, moved and uplifted! Some of the singing was so good it brought ecstatic responses from the congregation, particularly "Blessed Voices", a four piece gospel a capella group who literally blew the crowd away with their harmonies. The power of the collective and unrestrained joy in the communal were evident for all to experience. Vital ingredients for any community in the coming post oil age - aren't we lucky to have such a melting pot on our doorstep? I can't wait for the Tooting Earth Talk Walk in January to discover more of Tooting's hidden gems.
Merry Christmas to everyone and here's looking forward to TTT going from strength to strength in 2009. DT

Cities of Community!

Lucy and I headed off to Nottingham for the Transition City Conference last week - held specially for communities working to set up Transition Initiatives in Cities and attended by about 150 good people from cities across the UK and beyond. It proved to be a fantastic opportunity to meet with and hear the experiences and ideas of others facing the same issues and challenges and culminated in an open space session at which we thrashed out a revised 12 step transition model for the city environment.

Highlights for me included finally getting my head around the potential of The Sustainable Communities Act - hearing inspiring stories of community engagement from the Akashi Project in Cambridge - revisiting Beeston where I lived as a student and sharing a wonderful South Indian curry for lunch which made me homesick for Tooting.

One thing that struck both Lucy and I was the need to shout out about and celebrate the strength of community in cities. Often people talk about the breakdown of communities in urban areas but our experience - and those of many others at the conference - is of cities teeming with multi-layered communities around race, faith, politics, sport, art, social support, geographical locality, health and many many more. These communities may not leap out at you physically as you walk down the streets of London (and you won't be able to find them all meeting up in the village hall) but if you look closely at the buildings you walk past every day you start to notice how many house a community group. On a regular daily journey in Tooting I pass a sea scout group, a nursery, schools, many places of worship, a constitutional club, a yoga centre, a swimming club a political party and a gym. Many many others have no physical home - but are no less strong for that - a road with its own composting group, an improvisation group that meets in a pub weekly, a weight loss support group at the local community centre.....

Certainly engaging with a vast, multi-layered and often invisible web of communities presents challenges for Transitioning in cities - but like a physical web, the multiplicity of strands and connections should give our urban areas a strength of community and diversity which we should celebrate.

HJ

Sunshine on a yellowed oak tree

Has anyone noticed what a remarkable autumn we have experienced in London this year? It compensates for the slightly disappointing summer tenfold; we have had wonderful glowing mornings filled with scents, colour and sounds. Yes, there have been more than a couple of rainy days. But they have rarely lasted more than a day, and once the rain has passed the sun has cast its’ admiring glances at us yet again, filling the world with unusual warmth.

I like to think of this autumn as the autumn of a way of living we have all taken for granted for so long. There’s been remarkable destruction, as there always is in autumn. And winter will bring even harsher times still. But we all know that at the end of winter sprouts will penetrate the solid ground yet again.

I think this wonderful autumn we’ve seen has encouraged us to enjoy the small things: sunshine on a yellowed oak tree, the wading though wilted leaves and the array of mushrooms in all sorts of spaces we think we’ll never know if we can eat or not. The late meals we share with our friends that turn out not being so late as it’s dark outside at 4pm. The log fire we all thought we’d have this year.

I think the small things we’ve come to enjoy this autumn have showed us what we’ll need to appreciate for the next few years. Until the spring.

Sara H

CLIMATE SAFTEY: FINAL REMINDER

The climate safety report will be officially launched on Thurs 27th Nov'08, with debate held at 7pm at Friends House, 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ. Event is free,  open to general public. Speakers include Caroline Lucas, Tim Helweg-Larsen, Jeremy Leggett and others. Report available to download free from website, on or shortly after launch date. If you are in London, come to this important event, let others know it's happening and invite them along too!

Feels like the 1950s ...

Our heating doesn't work. Feels like the 1950s. Great for saving on energy bills, and for bowls of warm porridge in the morning, but look forward to a smidgeon more heat.

Off on Thursday to the Transition City Conference in Nottingham which is being held specially for communities working to set up Transition Initiatives in Cities. That's us. The progamme looks really interesting and includes sessions on: The Sustainable Communities Act, Energy Descent Plans, Diversity in Cities, Transforming Cities into Hubs of Sustainable Food and Working with Conflict. Will report how Hilary Jennings and I get on there. Anyone else feel like coming, there are still spaces. This excellent article in the Times speaks in detail about transition initiatives sprouting up all over the globe - a growing army of 'local heroes' determined to turn challenges of climate change and oil depletion into 'our finest hour'.

In the last week Transition Town Tooting's heroes have been in contact with Capital Growth; London Sustainability Exchange, London 21, Sustain. There's interest in linking up with any TTT initiatives we can get off the ground around carbon reductions, food growing, health programmes and so on.

We have begun a conversation at Tooting Bec Lido around renewable energy for the site. The Cold Water Swimming Championships will be held again there on January 24th. Registration by Dec 24th if you want to enter!!! An excercise in resilience if ever there was one.

Just found some very fine photos of Tooting on flickr. If anyone recognises the one above as theirs give a shout to transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

LN

Autumn

We are well and truly into autumn, my lilac tree has shed most of its leaves and I can now see my neighbours garden again; winter feels close at hand. What's news?

A good friend of TTT, Polly Higgins, recently made a very inspiring speech to the United Nations (UK and Northern Ireland) Climate Change Conference in Belfast calling for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights. You can keep up with progress on that campaign at the Trees Have Rights Too site. What a great idea. How can mankind really have superior Human Rights that are not balanced by the rights of every one of this Planet's wondrous elements from trees to mountains to ... even wasps? Yes why not, we can't leave wasps out? Polly has a climate change speaker event at Conway Hall on Tuesday Nov 18th - details here.

This blog is just starting up and I know that all those involved with the TTT project would like to extend special thanks to the support that has so far been provided by the brilliant Project Dirt team who have been actively supporting TTT since its inception and providing a place on the web where people can go for information not just on Tooting but on loads of other environmental initiatives springing up across South London. Loads of interesting stuff on their site.

In Upper Tooting, (is that the posh part? oh I like to think so!) the tomatoes stayed resolutely green in our postage stamp garden so this "bacon & eggs is my speciality" bloke decided to try his hand at making spicy green tomato chutney for the first time. Made a mess but it was fun and initial tasting is promising! I'll will update this blog with a health warning if anyone gets poisoned!
DT

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing". Arundhati Roy

'Another world' - maybe we don't need such a quiet day to hear her breathing now. Maybe now she can be heard quite clearly - even above the celebratory din of the wheels of change clunking into action? With Barack Obama bouncing onto stage this week as President elect of the US, suddenly all manner of things feel manifestly possible - for all manner of people, ourselves included. The Great Turning - from the dying days of the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining, ecological revolution - seems to have just been given one great big new swing. Hurray Hurray. Now's the time to maintain momentum and pressure to keep moving in this more hopeful direction.

Here's how Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement, sums up the changes Barack Obama's policies, despite their challenges, can bring:

" I never thought I would see a US President who actually took climate change seriously, talked about a Green New Deal for the US, and whose policies included;

• Reduce the US's carbon emissions 80% by 2050 and play a strong positive role in negotiating a binding global treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol

• Withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months and keep no permanent bases in the country

• Establish a clear goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons across the globe

• Close the Guantanamo Bay detention center

• Double US aid to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015 and accelerate the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculoses and Malaria

• Open diplomatic talks with countries like Iran and Syriam, to pursue peaceful resolution of tensions

• De-politicize military intelligence to avoid ever repeating the kind of manipulation that led the US into Iraq

• Launch a major diplomatic effort to stop the killings in Darfur

•Only negotiate new trade agreements that contain labor and environmental protections

•Invest $150 billion over ten years to support renewable energy and get 1 million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2015"

So for each piece of negative news that comes crashing through about collapsing markets, global recession and negative equities, there is the speedy arrival of good news to support the evidence that the beginning of a more sustainable way of living is worth working towards whilst we still have time to plan.

Rosie Boycott launched her Capital Growth project with the Mayor Boris Johnson this week in Battersea Park. Check out http://www.capitalgrowth.org. for how she is planning to support 2012 new food growing spaces in London by 2012. How many of these could be in Tooting? Get looking.

2 very successful Transition Town Tooting meetings took place on Nov 2nd and Nov 4th giving added momentum to plans and visions. Notes on these and other Tooting meetings to date on this site. Next up a Sunday Swap on Dec 7th at the Tram and Tooting Social. 2-3pm. Over to you Claudia..If you're reading this and wondering how to get involved contact transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

LN

Roller Coaster Days

In the last few days, clocks turned back an hour. Darker days on their way. Will have to wait 'til St Lucy's day in December for the turning of the solar year, the winter equinox and a little more light. Have spent the weekend gathering jumbo crop of apples from my father's garden. They are now cooked up and coming to a 'rolling boil' in a huge pan in the kitchen. A tang of apples pervades the house. Winter may be on its way but there will be apple jelly.

It has been a roller coaster couple of weeks: stock markets tumbling, house prices falling, banks in crisis, a 'full blown recession'.

Over the past months as Transition Town Tooting has been finding its feet, I've been struck by the perspicacity of this movement to forsee the urgent need to plan ahead, build resilience and collectively invent how our low energy future will sound, look and feel like. The realities of the Triple Crunch (credit crunch, peak oil, climate change) are playing themselves out at top speed in full technicolour all around....All the reasons for creating positive community responses to these global challenges are surely here!

And here is some VERY GOOD NEWS: On October 28th -tomorrow- the government is to announce that the new Climate Change Bill - which will be made law next month, with a commitment to curb the UK's carbon footprint by 80% by 2050 - will now include aviation and shipping emissions. This is the world's first climate change law and is what Friends of The Earth director Andy Atkins has called "a world-class climate change law". This appears to be a direct result of everyone lobbying their MPs who in turn have lobbied the government. Change IS possible.

Now we have to work out how we will actually reduce our carbon footprint by 80% by 2050. Transition Town Tooting (TTT) will continue its events, awareness raising over weeks and months ahead. 2 meetings planned immediately on Nov 2nd (11am-1pm) and Nov 4th (7-9pm). Both at Mushkil Aasaan, 220-212 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 (side entrance, first floor).

The first, a practical workshop with visioning excercise and how we imagine TTT's Energy Descent Action Plan coming into being. A future preferable to the present and built on some of the amazing ideas that have been coming forward and will continue to be dreamt up by all Tooting residents. The meeting on Nov 4th is a planning meeting to build on the momentum gathered over the Autumn for organising events and next steps.

Sunday Nov 2nd will also see first ever Transition Town Tooting Sunday Swap. Bring anything you would like to swap: food, ideas, clothes. Apple Jelly anyone?? See you there. Lucy Neal.

View From A Tooting Window

This Tooting resident seems to be surviving the credit crunch without too much bother. What can you see from your Tooting window?

The Petroleum Interval

History may well regard our lives as being lived in the "Fossil Fuel Age", filed away for posterity or museum visits just like the Bronze or Iron Ages. Rob Hopkins suggests in his Transition Handbook it might be called "The Petroleum Interval", a relatively short "blip" in history when large quantities of oil were extracted from the Earth to fuel human activities.
This graph makes me think Man might just need to use his massively inventive brain to work out how to change how the world is powered asap! What do you think?

Tooting Harvest Foodival

Here are some photos of the Foodival

Where is Tooting?

Tooting is a London suburb about 5 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Here is a map of the Tooting area.


















and here it is from the air!