In the London suburb of Brixton, Euros, pounds sterling or a new local currency called the Brixton pound will all suffice at many local businesses.
That new local legal tender emerged last year from Brixton”s participation in Transition Towns, a global movement now involving 475 communities that was introduced to a full house at Fort Bragg Town Hall last Friday.
Transition Towns is an effort to create economic localization on a global scale. While many communities are hearing about economic localization for the first time from Transition Towns, the concept has long been a beloved idea in Mendocino County.
In 2004, Jason Bradford started Willits Economic LocaLization (WELL), followed the Coast Economic Localization Link (CELL). People such as Maggie Watson and Steve Heckeroth, who helped energize CELL, are now involved in Transition Towns. WELL now advertises Transition Towns on its website.
The new Mendocino County effort is being spearheaded by Charles Cresson Wood, a computer security consultant who lived half time in Albion and half time in Sausalito until about two years ago when he moved to the coast full time.
Wood has written several books on the implications of technology, such as “Kicking the Gasoline and Petro-Diesel Habit.”
The economic localization movement is driven by both the loss of local autonomy and concerns about “peak oil.” Peak oil is the concept that the days of cheap, easy oil peaked and we are headed on a downslide toward scarce and much more expensive oil.
The current BP blowout in the Gulf is only the beginning of instability that will be created as the world looks for oil in increasingly difficult places to satisfy economies built on endless growth, economic localists believe.
Economic Localization seeks to empower locals with efforts ranging from “shop local” to creation of locally-owned energy companies. Local currency is a throwback to days before the global economy and a sign to some that the free trade consumption party is skidding to an end.
“For example, if we are going to have a local alternative to PG&E, no one individual can do this. We need to work together. That”s what Transition Towns is about,” Wood said.
Paradoxically, Transition Towns creates a brand identity for localists, who are battling to regain control of communities from mega agriculture and national chain brands. But Wood compared Transition Towns not to franchises but to well-known 12-step programs.
Although dissimilar in purpose, Transition Towns hopes to also offer a successful template which locals can empower in their own way, without a hierarchy, or the profits being sent elsewhere.
“Transition Towns is now a brand, it has some good will; we can get people to join us,” Wood said.
Transition Towns is also modeled on Rotary International, another globally recognizable “brand” which brings a template for honesty, integrity and service to business communities in virtually every American community and much of the world, a Transition Towns film revealed.
While there were at least three members of the Fort Bragg City Council (Dan Gjerde, Meg Courtney and Dave Turner) on hand, along with a few Rotarians, the bulk of the crowd was people involved in previous economic localization efforts.
Wood and fellow organizers said there is a lot of work to do, but Mendocino has all the tools and history to do that work.
Mendo Moola is an existing local currency accepted by at least a dozen inland businesses. Locals have sought to create a local energy alternative but have run into financial and time barriers.
Wood said Transition Towns is about putting local talent and land into action producing food, energy and a locally sustainable economy.
“This is not more talk, talk talk. It”s about getting into projects, it”s doing what we needed to have done 10 years ago that we desperately need to have in place right now,” said Wood.
Along with Wood, the other organizers of Transition Towns include Bernie Macdonald, Maggie Watson, Steve Heckeroth, Liz Haapanen and Toni Rizzo.
For information, contact Wood at ccwood@ix.netcom.com or 937-5572 or go to www.transitionmendocinocoast.org.
