Transition Towns Find Ways To Face Climate Change, Economic Instability
06/20/12 12:00PM  Download MP3 

Say you want to keep bees, or raise chickens, but you don't know where to start. Well, if you live in a Transition Town, there's probably a list that will tell you which of your neighbors has those skills and is willing to teach you. The Transition Movement began in 2006, in the town of Totnes, England, and has since spread to towns around the world - including six in Vermont. The underlying goal of the movement is to make communities stronger and more resilient, so that they might better weather challenges connected to climate change, peak oil and economic instability. We talk to Ruah Swennerfelt, a co-founder of Transition Town Charlotte, Joan Bowman, a member of Transition Putney, Bill Laberge, a member of Transition Town Manchester, and Josh Schlossberg, a member of Transition Town Montpelier and a co-organizer of the Village-building Convergence, a free event dedicated to celebrating community and sustainability.
Also on the program, a loose affiliation of Vermont fiction writers is banding together and calling itself the Vermont Book Shelf. Partly a promotional tool, it's also a fellowship where writers who focus on the Green Mountain State can talk about their craft and the business of trying to sell books. We talk with founder Beth Kanell, author of young adult novels "The Darkness Under the Water" and "The Secret Room," and R. A. Harold, author of "Mortal Knowledge" and "Heron Island."
And for the next installment in Vermont Edition's Summer School series, we get a sneak peek at how to make the perfect creemee, that quintessential Vermont summer treat!
