Towards a more sustainable future

Bruce Stahlberg points out the various types of solar cookers available during a class sponsored byTransition Longfellow on Saturday, May 19, 2012. The solar cooker in the front is made by the Solar Oven Society, which is owned by Mike and Martha Port of the Longfellow neighborhood. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)

Transition Longfellow members focus on their own habits and homes. From there, a community changes.

by Tesha M. Christensen

Longfellow resident Annette Rondano knows that it is easy to get overwhelmed by big environmental issues such as the rising cost of fuel and oil depletion.

But that’s why she and the other members of Transition Longfellow are focusing on changes they can make at home and in their community, rather than on big policy changes.

“What’s important is for people not to get overwhelmed by sustainability options, to take them one step at a time, and to ask for help,” Rondano said. “Between local businesses helping with sustainability goals like solar installations, gardens, rain water capture, and composting, and the expertise of your neighbors, there is ample opportunity to start somewhere and to get help.

“Drop by drop the bucket fills even in a rainstorm.”

MEETINGS, MOVIES, CHALLENGES

Transition Longfellow meets on the first Saturday of each month, 10:30 a.m. to noon at Riverview Wine Bar. During these monthly meetings, attendees share tips and help for urban gardening and household chores, among other things.

“We really are simply making an offer of community in an otherwise do-it-yourself kind of world,” said Rondano.

They also challenge each other. In April, the challenge focus was on food/seed. Some people worked on getting their gardens ready. Others researched CSAs (community support agriculture). Some learned about the Monsanto stranglehood on seeds. When the group gathered back together, members shared what they did, problems they encountered and resources they found.

“We don’t tell people what they should do,” said Leslie MacKenzie, one of the group’s co-organizers. “Everyone has different resources, abilities, income and interest. We try to create a time and space where people can think about what they can do in their own lives around a particular issue.”

 The group also hosts movie nights on the third Friday of each month at Bethany Lutheran Church. The event starts with a potluck at 6:30 p.m. and the movie begins at 7:15 p.m. A speaker concludes the evening.

June’s movie will be the last for the spring. On June 15 view “Blue Gold: World Water Wars,” an award-winning documentary that examines environmental and political implications of the planet's dwindling water supply, and posits that wars in the future will be fought over water. The film also highlights some success stories of water activists around the world and makes a strong case for community action.

On July 20 at 6:30 p.m., the group is hosting a Little Free Library Building and Design event. This event aims to establish a dozen or more Little Free Libraries throughout Longfellow. Little Free Libraries are blooming all around the United States as a way for neighbors to interact and get to know one another. A community potluck and campfire will happen throughout the evening, and pre-reservations are encouraged. Find out more about Little Free Libraries at www.littlefreelibrary.org.

A Community Picnic is set for Aug. 17, 6:30 p.m., in Longfellow Park. Relax, meet your neighbors, and find out more about Transition Longfellow at the picnic.

“Every time I come to a movie night, I learn a host of things that were not on my radar before,” observed Rondano, a woman who has been environmentally and politically active for her entire adult life. “I think everyone is in a different place about sustainability. I learn something new about it every day.”

What has drawn her to the Transition movement is its focus on local control.

“Creating a resilient community, the focus of the Transition Movement internationally, looks so much more doable to me than trying to affect change on the national, or even state, level,” Rondano stated.

“It turns out that the groundswell of people joining in on the Transition Movement has already alerted local units of government to focus more of our tax dollars on resiliency issues like food, energy, and alternative transportation.”

Transition Longfellow is looking towards the future.

“Our group is concerned about the impact that climate change and peak oil will have on our economy, our community, and our households,” said MacKenzie. “Climate change and peak oil will affect every area of life: food production and distribution, transportation, heating and cooling, the water supply (droughts as well as flooding), and transportation. Although political will is lacking at many levels of government, we are not hopeless to address these issues and to create a more sustainable, resilient future.

“And we do not have to do it alone.”

LEARN MORE

Learn more about Transition Longfellow by joining the Facebook group (Longfellow Sustainability/Transition Group), or signing up for the newsletter.

Feel free to speak with steering committee members, including: Annette Rondano (612-221-0131), Rebecca Cramer, Aggie Hoeger, Bruce Gregg, Elizabeth Blair, Brooke Dirkhiesing, Leslie MacKenzie and Peter Foster.

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ABOUT TRANSITION LONGFELLOW

• The group formed after the November 2010 Transition Town conference at South High School, which featured guest speaker Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute talking about the challenge of peak oil, climate change and economic instability.

• Transition Longfellow is interested in steps “we can take as individuals and as a community to smooth the inevitable transition from fossil fuels, which will effect how we work, travel, heat our homes and grow our food,” according to its Facebook page.

Goals of the group:

• Educate people about the challenges of global warming and the end of cheap fossil fuels.

• Facilitate the creation of a positive vision of the future, one that values and protects our natural resources as well as all people in our community, regardless of age, ability or income.

• Support individual, business and community change efforts through teaching and learning, sharing and role modeling, support and encouragement.

• Promote available resources to help individuals and businesses reduce their carbon footprint while meeting their needs for food, heat, energy, transportation, etc.

• Gather additional resources to share with the community in order to increase resilience.

Activities:

• Helping Jacob’s Well church with its hard-to-recycle plastics collection effort in the summer when the church was not in session.

• Touring Minnesota’s first green cemetery

• Touring neighborhood fruit and vegetable gardens

• Conducting a presentation at Bethany Lutheran Church about the transition movement. Group members are available to do more of these presentations for churches and other groups.

• Staffing a table at neighborhood events and at the Seward Sustainability Fair

• Holding classes on solar cookers

• Co-facilitating a discussion on transition towns at the Alliance for Sustainability Community Conference

• Petitioning the Minneapolis City Council to develop an energy descent action plan. An energy descent action plan looks at how city services will be impacted by rising fossil fuel prices and then plans for how those services can be delivered in a way that minimizes use of fossil fuel. 

This story printed in the June edition of the Longfellow/Nokomis Messenger.