Transition Birmingham?

Copenhagen was never the be all and end all it was billed to be….But, at least we got a lot of rhetoric out of our leaders….

I have talked to a good few of you about this, many of us seem think that well… our governments have kind of failed to get their act together … and maybe never really intend on organizing the piss up in the brewery in the first place, so…. What is our alternative?

There are thousands of things that we can do, at individual, community, national and international levels in order to combat the climate crisis reduce our impact on the environment and work towards a fair, sustainable future…. Yeah our governments could help facilitate that … but well, we can do it without them! Maybe there will come a time when Politicians across the world stop being a central part of the problem only influenced by big business and their own careers and they will lend a hand (lol).

Since the politicians are part of system so inept, that they can’t even save themselves our alternative must be, I think, organizing ourselves and working together creating and implementing solutions …. And getting a “transition” to a low carbon society started ourselves.

Our working aims last December where….

1. Raise awareness of the upcoming climate change summit at Copenhagen
2. Discuss the deals which may, or may not be made
3. Encourage activism and for people to come to ‘The Wave,’ a climate change protest being held in London on the 5th December
4. Encourage everyone to lead more ethical, carbon neutral lifestyles
I think we need to recognize that with the failure of Copenhagen that our purposes have evolved …I think we should shift our tactics and aims. I still think we should participate in those big “lobby Gordon” activities …. It just that I now feel they are less relevant to us and we need to shift what we are doing.
Our four could be working aims could be for example…
1. Educate people about how the University community works.
2. Make sure everybody knows about our transition efforts, our activities and get everybody involved.
3. Set up practical Programs’ to help people and the university cut our carbon pollution and waste.
4. Spread our work beyond the University, into the local community and forge working links with local government.

Additionally I would like to change the name and description of this organizing group to “Birmingham University Transition Organizing” and the “how old will you be in 2050” to “transition Birmingham university”.

The groups and networks we built up during the Copenhagen campaign are a valuable resource we should utilize, from which all of us could promote our efforts like the big green fair that was organized at the end of last term.

What does everyone think?