Environmental Change-Makers has served as the "initiating group" for Transition ideas for many areas of Los Angeles.  As local area community groups begin to form, the new Transition Los Angeles organization offers support, networking, and advanced education in Transition ideas.

Peak Oil, Global Warming, Biocapacity:

• The Peak Oil Primer (single webpage)
• Global Warming:
  • Union of Concerned Scientists, "Our Changing Climate: Assessing the Risks to California" (16 page pdf)
  • 350.org and the study that inspired it ("Target Atmospheric Co1: Where Should Humanity Aim?" by NASA's James Hansen, et al)
  • 100 months - Andrew Simms on a new study that says we have 100 months from August 2008 to do something about global warming. (100months.org )
• Ecological Footprint:  overview, and world trends (two single webpages)

Transition concept:

• Upbeat descriptions of what the Transition concept is:  in The Guardian (Sept 2008), in the Christian Science Monitor (Sept 2008)
• Transition Primer by the Transition Network
• Hopkins, Rob, The Transition Handbook (Green Books, 2008).  A detailed discussion of the Transition concept and a refinement of several years of what Hopkins has explored in the UK and shared on his Transition Culture blog. 
• selections from the Transition Culture website:
  • Resilience (page 5 of this pdf)
  • Trough Oil
  • What Exactly Is Energy Descent?
• The international Transition Network
• The Transition Initiatives Primer from the Transition Network
• Transition Los Angeles tri-fold pamphlet
• "Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) Primer" single webpage from Adam Grubb
• Kinsale 2021: Energy Descent Action Plan (pdf)
• HopeDance Magazine Transition Towns issue (Sept 2008)

Permaculture resources:

Specific topics:

• (culture change) "10 Things To Do to Prepare for Life Beyond Oil" by Rob Hopkins (pdf)
• (energy) "Worse than Fossil Fuel" George Monbiot
• (energy) "Nuclear Energy in Brief" a single page from the pdf book The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy by David Fleming
• (energy) Nuclear Guardianship by Joanna Macy
• (education and culture change) 12 Tools for Transition by Rob Hopkins.
• (food/agriculture) Gardening for the Future of the Earth, Howard Yana-Shapiro, editor
• (finance/economics) Genuine Progress Indicator Executive Summary (pdf)
• (government) Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, a Guidebook on Peak Oil and Global Warming for Local Governments, by the Post Carbon Institute.  Free abridged pdf version available online, or copies of the complete work may be purchased.
• (health care)"Healing Without Harm: Ecologically Sustainable Medicine," by Joel Kreisberg, DC

Connect with others:

• The Environmental Change-Makers have established a YahooGroup so that people interested in exploring Transition ideas can connect with each other about implementing these ideas in Los Angeles and Southern California.  Join our email group here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TTLA
• In the Central Coast (Tri-Counties area, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo) there is a similar discussion at the "Central Coast Transition Towns Discussion" listserv through HopeDance (some members are on both LA and Central Coast lists) www.hopedance.org/cms/content/view/156/81
• The unofficial ning sites - These hotbeds of activity all formed circa Autumn 2008 and as of Dec 2008 were not linked into the "official" Transition network.  But they might be useful in finding people and events in your local area prior to the unleashing of the official Transition United States site. Each state has one, plus there's a national one. Transition California
• Transition Trainings - contact transitiontrainings "@" gmail.com for full information.

• find local Transition action:  see the sidebar of the Transition Los Angeles webpage
• Transition Los Angeles City Hub main webpage
• mailing list: get email notices of meetings
  (low volume, announcements only)
• discuss Transition ideas with others in Los Angeles and Southern California (email-based discussion)

For our first event, we held a Sunday evening screening of The End of Suburbia, followed by a community discussion of what has been called "post petroleum stress disorder."  When people learn the gravity and impacts of peak oil, it is a heavy shock to the psyche.  Our event used exercises developed by Rob Hopkins to cope with the emotions.

• We opened with the Think and Listen exercise from Hopkins p. 154
• We said a few things about Fear - how you can allow fear to stop you, or it can propel you forward into action.
• We discussed Chris Johnstone's concept of "Inspirational Dissatisfation"
• After the movie, we did the Think and Listen exercise from Step 3 at http://transitionculture.org/2006/12/05/the-12-step-programme-for-breaking-oil-dependency-a-useful-tool-for-powerdown-groups/  After the individual discussion, we invited a few people to share with the entire group.
• Then we did the Post-It Notes exercise from Hopkins p. 155
• As people left the session, we distributed small slips of paper with the text of the quote box from Hopkins p. 83.  The backs of those slips listed the dates and times of the rest of our series.

Nearly a week later we held a full-day Saturday session, providing an orientation to the Transition concept and including what were perhaps Los Angeles' first working sessions in a Transition direction. 

The day was divided into four sections: 

I. Understanding What Lies Ahead (global warming, peak oil, biocapacity)

II. Possible Outcomes (per Holmgren, Heinberg, Macy)

III. How Do We Get There From Here? (Timeline to Sustainability, the Transition Era, The Permaculture Flower, and the Transition concept)

IV. Roll Up Your Sleeves (the working sessions)

• Our agenda from the full-day session (.pdf)
• Our "Peak Oil Self-Teach" slides  (.ppt for Powerpoint, 2288KB)
• Contents of our handout packet  [coming soon]
  • Rob Hopkins' letter to Los Angeles
  • Transition Network flier, revised for Los Angeles
    (.doc so that you can edit it)
• Many of the handouts from the side table are available online.
• "What worked / didn't work" analysis

The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience,
by Rob Hopkins

Environmental Change-Making: How to Cultivate Lasting Change in Your Local Community, by Joanne Poyourow with the Reverend Peter H. Rood, Jr.

.

Resilience refers to the ability of a system, from individual people to whole economies. to hold together and maintain their ability to function in the face of change and shocks from the outside.     (p.12)

The benefits for a community with enhanced resilience will be that:

• If one part is destroyed, the shock will not ripple through the whole system
• There is a wide diversity of character and solutions developed creatively in response to local circumstances
• It can meet its needs despite the substantial absence of travel and transport
• The other big infrastructures and bureaucracies of the intermediate economy are replaced by fit-for-purpose local alternatives at drastically reduced cost.

(p.55, quoting David Fleming)