Can we get beyond denial about peak oil, climate change, and economic troubles as long as we don’t find forms of action open to us?

The genius of the “transition town” movement is that it starts with a positive vision, focuses on local scenes, teaches skills, invites people to develop plans, gives them other obviously useful things to do together, and thus provides the added-value of intensifying community. You can find this in its handbook, of which the second edition will soon be published.

Despite the joys of social networking, community happens when we see people who are not on a flatscreen, and gather with them; work, share, argue, and celebrate with them. This can happen anywhere, but is perhaps easiest in a small town.

The transition movement has limitations; everything does. It does not directly challenge the corporate and political elites whose actions or inactions determine the context within which localities exist. But the movement does offer a way forward. As one of my English friends said when I was grumbling, “let’s get on with it, now, shall we?”

Rob Hopkins, who with his colleagues started the transition movement, settled in Totnes, a small market town near the south coast of England, but the movement now has affiliates not only in towns but also in the neighborhoods of big cities and in rural areas — affiliates that are still “mulling” over the prospects and at least one that has already produced its “energy descent action plan.”