The newsletter for the month of April can be found here

Click here for our March 2016 newsletter.

Did you notice we have a new tab on the website? It’s called “Get Involved”.

Right … some options to volunteer some of your precious energy and time to spread the Transition Sooke message and be part of the change! Find out more here.

Our latest newsletter can be found online here. If you’d like it sent to your in-box on publication, please make a request to sooketransition@gmail.com. 

Transition Sooke’s energy reduction challenge at the Jan. 13 Awareness Film Night generated a diverse range of practical commitments from filmgoers covering lifestyle changes, home retrofits, transportation choices and positive activism.

Following the screening of This Changes Everything – the Avi Lewis/Naomi Klein documentary focused on how marginalized populations around the world are pushing back against the resource extraction industries and economic systems largely responsible for climate change – Transition’s Andrew Moore and facilitator Michael Tacon were joined on stage at EMCS by the Sierra Club BC‘s Larissa Stendie and City Green Solutions‘ Glenys Verhulst.

The speakers engaged in a wide ranging, upbeat yet realistic discussion about the challenges and possibilities ahead.  “It’s an exciting time to be in this work,” said Stendie, citing the Paris climate talks, the rising interest in alternative economic models (the degrowth movement and the steady state economy included), and community initiatives here on the west coast (especially distributed energy systems such as the T’Sou-ke Nation’s solar project). Stendie is inspired by what she’s witnessing in towns across the province as she works with grassroots organizations to build the Sierra Club’s The Future Is Here Network. 

For her part, Verhulst celebrated the progress made to date through individual action and programs like LiveSmart BC (which involved 37,000 homes in the province during its six-year run from 2008-14). She highlighted current rebate offers (notably the Oil to Heat Pump Incentive Program) and is confident a broad range of incentives will continue to be made available as Ottawa and the provinces work to meet carbon-reduction targets.  “All of us are part of this movement and it’s happening right here and now,” she said. “Collectively we’re winning.”

As the evening continued, our speakers urged the audience to again carefully reconsider how to cut their own energy footprints in making a meaningful personal contribution to the urgent global campaign to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees celsius.

Handcut paper leaves were distributed and everyone was invited to make one non-binding commitment/affirmation/intention. As filmgoers filed out into the night, a total of 81 leaves were posted on the bare branches of an “idea tree” that Moore (pictured here) borrowed from the T’Sou-ke Nation for the evening and had set up in the lobby at EMCS.

Here are the night’s results divided into general categories. For more tips and inspiration tailored to homeowners and businesses, visit BC Hydro’s Powersmart website. Thanks to AFN’s Jo Phillips, facilitator Michael Tacon, our guest speakers and leaf collector/compiler Sofie Hagens. Gratitude also to the District of Sooke for its financial support.

Awareness Film Night & Transition Sooke present … the Avi Lewis/Naomi Klein film THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016 at Edward Milne Community School from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

 Our post-film speakers panel:

 * Larissa Stendie, Energy & Climate Campaigner, Sierra Club BC

* Glenys Verhulst, Communications Coordinator, City Green Solutions

* Michael Tacon, Transition Sooke co-founder (host)

Filmed in nine countries over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change. Directed by Avi Lewis and inspired by his wife Naomi Klein’s acclaimed bestseller of the same name, the film documents the emergence of a new climate movement — one that is breaking out of silos, making new alliances, and building the next economy in the rubble of the old one.

“In the fierce dignity and moral clarity of communities fighting destructive fossil fuel projects, I saw that a climate film doesn’t have to be about polar bears,” says Lewis.

Narrated by Klein, This Changes Everything presents powerful portraits of front-line communities across the world: Alberta’s tar sands, Montana’s Powder River Basin, the wetlands of Southern India, the mining regions of Northern Greece and the smog-choked streets of Beijing, China included.

“Purposely unsettling…..ultimately encouraging.” – Variety Magazine

The post-film session will feature a discussion of Lewis and Klein’s main themes with the Sierra Club BC’s Larissa Stendie in conversation with Transition Sooke’s Michael Tacon. (We’re also hoping that the University of Victoria’s Ana Maria Peredo, Director of the Centre for Co-operative and Community-Based Economy at the University of Victoria, can join us.)

We’ll then turn to Glenys Verhulst from Nanaimo-based City Green Solutions, which specializes in home energy conservation. She’ll introduce a series of practical steps that all of us can take in reducing our energy consumption, and we’ll ask the audience for other tips and suggestions. We’ll document it all for circulation later. And our audience will be asked to make a commitment to undertaking one or more actions in the weeks and months ahead.

Admission is by donation. Thanks to the District of Sooke for providing funding support to cover film and venue rental costs for the evening.

Transition Sooke’s November/December newsletter is now out. Learn about the District’s Climate Change and Parks & Trails committees, how we fared in our Community Grants applications (a .300 batting average, for which we’re grateful), our book of the month (Neighbour Power by Jim Diers), a calendar of upcoming events we figure are of interest to the Transition-minded and some select highlights reeled in from our social media streams. Our thanks to newsletter editor Sofie Hagens and contributors Jeff Bateman and Martin Bissig. PS We’ll add you to our email list by request at sooketransition@gmail.com. 

Our October newsletter is now out and available for online viewing here.

Canada’s federal election will be decided in two weeks, so in addition to what you’ll find on the subject in the newsletter, here are some further links of interest for those of us in the Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke federal riding.