Several months ago I attended a meeting at the Windham Library about “Transition Towns.”

There, I learned that the Transition Town movement began with Rob Hopkins, a permaculture teacher in the United Kingdom, who founded the movement when he became aware in 2004 of the reality of the probable effects of peak oil on our oil-dependent culture.

Permaculture is a holistic, ecologically based approach to agriculture. Peak oil refers to the fact that all the easy-to-find oil has already been pumped and used, and now the oil companies are looking eagerly for new oil fields to exploit (think Iraq). Subsequently Hopkins worked with his second-year permaculture students as they designed the first “Energy Descent Action Plan” in Kinsale, Ireland, (since adopted by the town council) and started the first “Transition Town” (Totnes, in Devon, UK) in 2005.

Hopkins warns that we face “twin challenges” that must be addressed together. As he puts it, “Climate change says we should change, whereas peak oil says we will be forced to change.” To those two challenges, I will add “worldwide economic distress.” It is inevitable that we need to localize and simplify our lives.

At the meeting held at the Windham library, our speakers for the evening, Alastair Lough and his wife, Pat Proulx-Lough, asked the group of about 20 people, “How many in the room know how to can food?” Two of us held up our hands. “How many know how to darn socks?” One person held up her hand. (I realized that I have thrown out my mother’s darning “egg.”)

As the questions and answers continued, it became clear that we, as a town, must continue for the time being to depend on our own individual cars for transportation and on foreign oil for our energy. It is clear we face a looming crisis.

I live in a small community on the east side of Highland Lake. We all have to drive into Windham or Portland to do grocery shopping. Our jobs are not near our homes. Our doctors are either in Windham or Portland or further afield. It is seldom I see children playing in their yards or riding their bicycles in our streets. I presume they are all at school or day care. All of us depend on Central Maine Power for electricity. Gardens or backyard chickens are a curiosity. Most of us live in isolation from our neighbors. Limitations to self sufficiency abound. But the ideas presented by Transition Towns offers a multitude of opportunities.

Let’s paint a different picture of my small community. We would have wind turbines on Fire Tower Mountain (though the fire tower was taken down long ago) that would provide electric power to all our homes. We would have a “community car.” Many families would not need two cars, because they could schedule the “community car” for trips to the doctor or the grocery store. A small fee would reimburse the initial cost of the car plus insurance. More people would have backyard chickens and small gardens. Some in the community would offer to mend clothes for others in exchange for someone to change the oil in their car. We could have our own “hour exchange.” We would plant nut trees on every corner and fruit trees in our yards. We would encourage home businesses so that more people could stay at home with their children.

If this intrigues you as it does me, e-mail me and let’s begin the process soon. Time is of the essence.

Sally Breen has gardens (being eaten by the slugs this year), fruit trees, and backyard chickens. She can be reached at sallybreen@roadrunner.com.