Volunteer Roles for Carnival

TTT is looking for several different people to assist over the next few months in the build up to Tooting's first ever Trashcatchers Carnival on July 4th. Could you help out with vital Fundraising or be the key Community Liaison person with all the local groups? Or perhaps you know all about Press & Publicity? Click on the respective links for more details of each role and how to apply.

Energy Specialist Jeremy Leggett in Tooting

Further to the successful talk held in September with Prof Tim Lang and NEF’s Andrew Simms, we are holding a 2nd talk in association with the Wandsworth Environment Forum this week. What will Tooting look when cheap oil runs out? And how can we make the transition? Come and hear from Energy Specialist and Director of Solar Century Jeremy Leggett, a leader in raising awareness about Peak Oil and the coming energy crunch, and also for a local insight Rex Cassidy, Director of Facilities and Patient Environment at Springfield Hospital, will tell us about the energy challenges faced by the hospital.

Thursday 28th January - 7.30 pm, Mushkil Aasaan, 220–222 Upper Tooting Road. PS: See Jeremy's article in Saturday's Guardian

Reflections on Involvement with TTT

We asked Tooting Transitioners what they'd learnt from getting involved with our local collective response to global challenges. Here's a random selection of what they said:

Malsara:
I am touched and amazed by the generosity and kindness of the people I have met through TTT. What a refreshing change from the profit driven madness of the recruitment world, thank goodness I have left that behind me! …Being a member of TTT has given me the opportunity to learn new skills and do things I would not have had the opportunity of doing, it's been quite an experience.

Ethel:
Knowledge is power, and this is why I joined TTT and I have never looked back. The whole experience has made a difference in my daily life, I stopped driving to work at Chelsea and Kensington and travel by bus or train. I tell my friends and family to live gentle on the land God has given us to plant more trees and to use the produce at harvest time for our food. I have learnt a lot from the meetings, the conference at Battersea Arts Centre and also watching Age of Stupid, raised my awareness to some of the issues affecting poor countries in the world, and that we should try and live simply and allow others also to live. I think I can make a difference, as a midwife giving advice to pregnant women about health and wellbeing, I can look into health issues. I envisage the future for Tooting is to have trees on the pavements on the High Streets, and no cars to cut down on the carbon.

Jo:
To me being part of a transition group, even on an adhoc basis due to my travelling, helps me to give a moment, sometimes just a thought, to how I live my life and how that effects others near and far.

David:
I have been amazed at how a seemingly small insignificant thing can snowball into a much bigger more significant thing; for instance my photos and videos as picked up on and used by others. It makes me feel that small things can assist in facilitating real change towards a more sustainable and resilient society. An ocean comes from many raindrops.

Lucy:
I look at everything differently. I feel clearer about my role and I feel calmer that I have now taken into my own hands responsibility for acting on behalf of the planet and my community. I am hopeful and excited about some of the things I think we can achieve in Tooting. I have learnt that the earth needs our help and there is a lot we can do. TTT has helped wake me up to this and set me on a road that will be full of adventures. It has given me a framework in which i can lead my life which is coherent and committed.

Hilary:
I’ve learnt that I don’t need the ‘authority’ of a job or a job title to get out and make things happen. I’ve walked through doorways in Tooting that I passed by for years and behind them have found wonderful spaces, lovely people and caring and supportive communities. I’ve met many great people with whom I can share my fears for the future without fear of judgement but also make plans with a sense of imagination and creativity which feels like it might just make changes possible.

Giulia:
I really do believe now that together people can make a difference and that there is scope to reinvent our lives and the places we live in. It has been a very "dynamic" year, exchanging great ideas, developing our vision of a better future and mostly, making things come true!!

We look forward to welcoming more of you in 2010

Sustainable Future?

The government of The Maldives held a cabinet meeting under water last month to emphasise how their nation is threatened by rising sea levels and climate change.

And an article in the Guardian today claims that the International Energy Agency has been deliberately underplaying the looming oil shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.  Hmmm ...

Meanwhile, closer to home, consultation is under way on Wandsworth Council's environmental policy document entitled 'Ambition for a sustainable future'.  The Wandsworth Environment Forum is holding a workshop on Monday 16th Nov. to (a) find out more about what the council is proposing (b) contribute local people's views about the proposals and (c) shape the Council's environmental priorities over the coming years.  All are welcome and full details of how to attend are here

All About The Oil

What is it about Peak Oil that helps to 'get one's head' around the converging challenges of this time in planet history? I like to see it as the 'first story': all the others - climate change, economic 'recession', arctic ice melts, pollution, obesity, loss of bio-diversity, floods, famines, having to recycle our waste and think about using the car less are 'second stories'. Peak Oil is certainly the thing that made me, a theatre producer, sit up and decide to act consciously for the earth. 


This new report from Bristol City Partnership and Council. is an incredible resource for us to be able to learn from. At 104 pages it's quite a read, (exec summary short) but it is mesmerising as it covers not only every aspect of the challenge of peak oil, but also the practical steps that can be taken in the face of it. For example, the NHS is heavily dependent on transport for patients and services travelling to and from hospitals. How will rising cost of fuels, have a knock on effect on the rest of health care budgets? Let alone in the longer term, the profiligate use of oil for transport needs when so many other precious things come from oil derivatives and 'oil-embedded' processes: medicines, drugs, hospital equipment, plastics, detergents. Oil is precious (took millions of years to form); has no equivalent as a resource and supply is declining at a time when the world's demand for it is increasing. What does this mean for every aspect of our daily lives and how much oil would we like to be left for our children and their children and generations to come? It's all a lot to imagine. What the Bristol Report does brilliantly is break this all down for us to see how it could work if we start NOW. The single most important suggestion they make for Councils is to 'Publically acknowledge the threat of Peak Oil'. Transition Towns play a part here in creating the public space to hold these discussions for anyone and everyone who wants to get their heads around this amazing challenge. As our Trashcatching workshops showed, children and artists are beginning to do this. Let's join them!

LN

Trashcatching Workshops

Well done to everyone who was involved in last week's Trashcatching Workshops at Graveney School.  A short film of some of the action can be watched below! There will be more workshops over half term in February as we prepare for the big Trashcatchers' Carnival in Tooting on July 4th 2010. Any children or adults wishing to get involved, you can, it's free and we'd love to have you on board!

News both inspiring and concerning

A few of us from Transition Tooting made it up to the New Economics Foundation's Bigger Picture festival of interdependence on Saturday (although overwhelming numbers did leave others standing in a lengthy queue or giving up all together).  Highlights for me were: hearing Jeremey Leggett and Juliet Davenport giving both the harsh reality and the currently untapped potential for us to survive life after oil, visiting the Ministry of Trying to Do Something about it and receiving my carbon ration book, and of course hearing our own Lucy Neal on a panel investigation of whether Art can save the Earth.  In support of the key role art can play Lucy quoted Brian Eno ... "Humans are capable of a unique trick, creating realities by first imagining them, by experiencing them in their minds. As soon as we sense the possibility of a more desirable world, we begin behaving differently, as though that world is starting to come into existence, as though, in our mind's eye, we are already there. The dream becomes an invisible force which pulls us forward. By this process it begins to come true. The act of imagining somehow makes it real....And what is possible in art becomes thinkable in life."
Time to get imaginging some new realities..

Talking of which - I'm already half way through NEF's new publication, The Great Transition - Tales of How it Turned Out Right - described as the first comprehensive blueprint for an economy based on stability, prosperity, fairness, sustainability and well-being.  Some of the ideas - like valuing products on the basis of the environment are already being tackled in other countries such as Sweden.  Interesting how 'Transition' seems to be the go-to word these days to describe the changes we are going through.

Meanwhile on the Peak Oil front a great (though depressing) summary of where we are by Ashley Seager here in the Guardian on Monday.

Journeys We Undertake ...

In the summer TTT's Bruce Mackenzie made an inspiring return to the Isle of Eigg, one of the Scottish Small Isles in the Inner Hebrides. The people of the island of Eigg have already made great strides towards sustainability and retaining local identity for their island, including generating their own power via Eigg Electric. To read and comment on Bruce's article go here to TTT's ning discussion board. What thoughts does anyone have about the future of the "Isle of Tooting"?  More ...

Events This Week

Don't forget that tomorrow, Transition Town Tooting is running an an interactive discussion event at Tara Arts - Studio in Earlsfield entitled "Imagining Tooting in 2030, a positive vision of life beyond oil". It's FREE! Come along & bring your imagination!

If you missed The End of the Line, the film about overfishing and the threat to fish species, it will be screened at 10pm on More4 tonight, Tuesday 20th October.

The New Economics Foundation is running The Bigger Picture Festival of Interdependence this Saturday 24th October at the Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf on the South Bank. They promise "learning, making, doing, celebrating and debating" with plenty of speakers, films and things to try out. It's free too!

The festival is part of the 350 international day of climate action 350 is 350 parts per million - what scientists estimate to be the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There are loads of other events on Saturday tying into this.

On 27th October the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil has an event entitled: Will Global Oil Production peak Before 2020? Anyone can register to attend. Claudia is a veteran I believe and can recommend!

Tooting Harvest Foodival 2009 Highlights

Watch the video ...

And for more information, reports and all the pictures go to the Foodival Site

Tim Lang & Andrew Simms in Tooting

Last Thursday, TTT & Transition Town Wandsworth organised a discussion event with Tim Lang, Professor of Food Security at City University and Andrew Simms, Policy Director of the New Economics Foundation at Mushkil Aasaan. There was then some time to chat, brainstorm ideas and ask questions. A really enlightening evening with a good turnout. This video contains brief excerpts from the speakers.

And here are the post-it boards:

What Are Transition Towns? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and why families get involved

Kate Birch's article for Families South West magazine looks at Transition Towns including TTT and TTBrixton. Click the image below to read in full.

Rob Hopkins at Mirch Masala

Rob Hopkins, the creator of the Transition Town concept, made a flying visit for a late afternoon snackette at Mirch Masala last night, the table cunningly adjacent to our Foodival poster, before being ferried to the Brixton Pound launch in Lucy's van!

Also, a whole hour was devoted to Transition Towns and the B£ on LBC yesterday courtesy of Jeni Barnett who thinks Rob is a visionary hero! She's right of course.

Now what shall we call the Tooting currency when it arrives and who shall we put on it? Just thumbing the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People for a decent mugshot of Tōta, the c.6th century Anglo-saxon, and his people the Tōtinges, from whom the name Tooting apparently descends. dt

Tooting Harvest Foodival - 10 Days To Go!

Final preparations are taking place for this year’s Tooting Harvest Foodival which takes place on Sunday 27^th September. We are aiming to highlight the possibilities for local food sustainability with this event which will involve high street restaurants cooking up dishes in their own inimitable styles using ingredients grown and supplied by local people. The Food Walk starts at 12 noon at Al Mirage, 215 Upper Tooting Rd arriving at Fircroft School for a Food Fete from 2pm. For more details go to the Foodival page

Foodival in The Post

More press coverage of the Tooting Harvest Foodival in this week's Mitcham, Morden & Wimbledon Post.

Click on the image to enlarge

Foodival In The Wandsworth Guardian

Great bit of publicity in today's Wandsworth Guardian for next month's Foodival - well done Foodival team! We now have a good selection of Tooting's restaurants signed up and ready to get involved, cooking up great locally grown food in their own inimitable styles and are also grateful to several other supporters (see below). All it needs now is for Tooting residents to keep nurturing those plants and to keep fingers crossed for a bumper crop come September! As usual head for the Foodival & Veg Pledging sites or contact Giles Read or Claudia Ruane for more details. Click on the pictures below to enlarge them.

The Psychology of Climate Change

In a surprise first for this "correspondent", a whole meal was created from the bounteous produce of our postage stamp garden this week (see below). It IS possible! OK we didn't "grow" the fish but ... an ocean is made of many raindrops. And doesn't that carrot look like a well known Tooting resident? Answers on a postcard please.

Out in the ether, todays' Ecologist has an article entitled "The psychology of climate change: why we do nothing" which is an interesting read. The article cites Renee Lertzman a PhD Research student in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University who, looking at the unconscious motivations behind many people’s responses to climate change, reckoned that:
"more participant-led models such as the Transition Town movement where people were encouraged to bring there own ideas rather than being lectured at, were more likely to succeed".
Let's hope so! The positive outlook of the Transition Movement, its open framework and inclusiveness do seem to engage the "man or woman in the street" on climate change and peak oil issues better than beating us about the head with scenarios of impending doom!

Meanwhile back in South London's vibrant melting pot, TTT are busy signing up the town's restaurants to cook local produce for the Foodival next month and looking for more growers to pledge food to be cooked and served to the public on the day. Can you help? Surely you can do better than my lookalike carrot? Contact Giles Read HERE to join in the project.

Finally, if you just can't get enough of TTT in your life, you could join our Facebook group or follow TTT on Twitter. Whatever next?! DT

What Might Trashcatching Look Like?

A few excerpts from June's Trashcatching Procession at the BATCA Funday

A Few Interesting Things

Here's a free guide to Urban Fruit Harvesting which looks good.

Here are some showings of climate films at the London Bridge Festival next week.

And here is a an Earthwatch debate in November called "From Tsunami to Drought" where they are looking for an extra speaker aged 18-30.

Meanwhile, Giles still needs your pictures of all things growing for the Foodival site and, demanding as he is, he now also wants pledges of what you will bring at harvest time ... so please get pledging here !

And Giles look >>>> these are going crazy! DT

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