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.