Transition towns

LONDON, England (CNN) — Imagine a life where you cycle each morning to work, and come home at night to tend your allotment and eat a dinner of locally produced food.

Maybe after your meal you take a walk down the car-free streets to the nearest bar where you buy a round of drinks with locally produced currency and settle down in a corner to watch a troupe of musicians play some local folk music.


It might sound like some kind of fairytale arcadia — a return to the simple lives of our forefathers, before fossil fuels and consumer culture turned everything on its head. But in fact this is how many people are beginning to envision our future — a world where we come to terms with inevitable fuel shortages and work towards a less energy-dependent lifestyle.

This vision has found a voice in the ‘transition initiative’, a movement that encourages towns, villages and cities across the world to begin the process of preparing themselves for a carbon-free world.

CNN