One day in 2005, Rob Hopkins, an ordinary British citizen, started knocking on his neighbors' doors in the small town of Totnes, where he had just settled. He was proposing that they come together to organize nothing less than a new, locally based economy. A new model, the Transition Town, harnessing resources at hand: no longer expect food to arrive from the other side of the planet at great fuel costs, but instead create short food supply chains and cultivate all the available land (gardens, rooftops, municipal parks); no longer complain about pollution, but federate fellow citizens around a project of local renewable energy cooperatives; no longer rail against the banks and the stock markets, but adopt a local currency that enriches the community. His experience has not only been successful in Totnes; it has spread to 1,200 cities in 47 countries. Each of the Transition Towns are transforming their communities, without fanfare, without outside funding, making them more autonomous and more resilient to the crises looming ahead-a network of oases offering a wealth of solutions.
This book is a series of interviews between Lionel Astruc and Vandana Shiva, worldwide icon of ecological revolution and winner of the "alternative Nobel prize". Worthy successor to Gandhi, Vandana Shiva tells about her life and fight as a leader of the alter-globalization movement, underlining such important concepts as peace and democracy, but also ecofeminism and the importance of the preservation of our planet resources. Her purpose is to explain that there is no such thing as a useless act or, as she says, no "little nobody". Every single commitment matters: that is her message to the world.
The current crisis clearly demonstrates that our model of society has reached its limits. The time has come to recognize that our affluent societies have more than enough to meet their essential material needs-provided it is done fairly. The time has also come to question whether we are going to live with less, rather than more, money. We have the necessary means to do so, provided we accept this as an irrevocable principle of our lives. Rather than losing heart, this crisis can instead awaken within us unprecedented creative forces so that together, we can construct a satisfying world for heart, mind, and spirit.
In the face of a joyless society of overabundance, the "power of restraint" represents a realistic alternative. As a liberating moral and physical force, it is a political act of legitimate resistance to this juggernaut that is destroying the planet and isolating the individual. The time has come to break free of these bulimic habits and the constant quest for more and more. Pierre Rabhi adopted this way of life many years ago; he offers us a form of simplicity and gratitude that gives meaning to our existence, along with a unique sense of lightness: the power of restraint.
