Building Transition Together in Lancaster
It may come as no surprise for you to hear that climate change hasn’t been fixed yet! We can’t actually leave this job to governments and large global corporations to sort out for us. Certainly it helps that finally, after decades of ignoring environmental activists and climate scientists, the media and mainstream organisations are now recognizing the need to bring down carbon emissions as soon as possible. However, what we can all agree on is that individuals, families and SME’s also need to be actively involved in changing their lifestyles and business models to lower their carbon footprints. This is…
Transition Volunteer Groups for Action
Would you like to volunteer for one of our new Action Groups? Carbon Footprint Reduction – using cafs.org.uk as a starter and showing families and businesses how to use their carbon calculators – businesses and organisations encouraged to display their progress on their websites Community ENERGY Start Up – using Solar Mapping Tool from cafs Carbon Literacy Courses – receiving training from cafs.org.uk and offering these online through LERNIN Cold to Cosy Homes Model – free advice line for helping people with tips on making their homes warmer and using thermal imaging Tree Planting – see aafaf.uk Wildflower Meadows –…
Community Energy
The Transition City Lancaster Energy Group tried over a number of years to obtain land where a community group could set up a windfarm and was very close to succeeding when the rug was pulled out beneath their feet and the land could not obtain permission at that time. Time has moved on and these days many local groups have succeeded in getting community energy schemes approved and working. This type of scheme allows renewable energy to be provided to the local community and for local investors to look forward to obtaining financial reward for their support. In other words,…
OUR Community – a new economy for working together
We are pleased to announce that a new Transition Action Group is being propsed to launch an experimental community economy in Lancaster and Morecambe. We are looking for a small number of local people of all ages who are interested in helping us get this started towards the end of 2022 ready for a wider release in 2023. OUR Community is a mobile App and an e-commerce site that allows members to join focus Groups who work in their spare time on projects beneficial to their local community and for the benefit of the planet. Instead of being rewarded with…
Can we Relearn our Eating Habits?
In his recent book called “Why Do We Eat (Too much) – The New Science of Appetite”, Dr. Andrew Jenkinson states that we have all been persuaded to eat heavily processed and addictive food by manufacturers who put profit above the health of their customers. The chemical effect of this is that our brains react as if we are starving ourselves by storing increasing amounts of fat in our bodies. These are shocking and controversial proposals. We may think we have conscious choice about what we eat but how many of us struggle with maintaining a healthy weight through following…
A New Vision For TCL?
Has the time come for Transition City Lancaster to be re-born from the ashes of the COVID-19 pandemic? I’ve just been re-reading the Constitution that we set up back in 2012. You can do so yourself if you’ve a mind to since it has it’s own page on this website. <download our Constitution> We had a vision back then of how individuals could count by working towards preventing climate change from destroying our lives. It was a vision based on individuals coming together in small groups, volunteering their time and their energy and focussing it into specific jobs that needed…
Astroturf – a covering over of nature?
I’m noticing more and more artificial grass being used now in private gardens as well as playing fields and football grounds. Again, it’s one of those modern conveniences that are creeping into families lives to save time and energy. All that mowing of real grass when all you are looking for is a place for your kids to kick a ball around – so why bother? It seems to make sense to roll out some artificial grass and not have to wait for it to grow. Maintenance is easy – just put it in the bin every ten years and…
Starting Again
Just wandering through the centre of Lancaster, now that the cafe’s have customers seated inside, enjoying a chat with friends again, after not being able to even see them for months, and it’s beginning to feel like a return to normal is on the cards. It’s been a difficult and lonely year, since the start of the pandemic, and some of us aren’t even still around or are fighting their way back to health after being hospitalised. Transition City Lancaster used to hold regular monthly meetings in the Friends Meeting House and groups of us would meet in each other’s…
Climate Assembly UK Final Report
In June 2019, six Select Committees of the House of Commons called a citizens’ assembly to understand public preferences on how the UK should tackle climate change because of the impact these decisions will have on people’s lives. Following this decision The Climate Assembly UK was selected to form a cross section of UK citizens over the age of 18 by a careful process to ensure a wide distribution of opinions. This Assembly met in Birmingham during the months January to April 2020 and have now produced a report based on their discussions. This is now being presented to the…
