14 May 2008
Things seem to be moving so fast these days. About 6 months ago, BBC Radio 4’s consumer affairs programme ‘You and Yours’ ran a piece about Transition Initiatives and peak oil where Jeremy Leggett debated peak oil with a ridiculous guy from Audacity.org, who basically argued that the free market will solve all ills and there is still loads of oil left. The presenters rather laughed off the peak oil discussion as though it was all rather alarmist and silly. How rapidly things have changed. Yesterday’s ‘Call You and Yours’ was devoted to high oil prices and how they are affecting the consumer, and it was powerful stuff (you can hear the programme for the next 6 days here).
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9 May 2008
One of the downsides to gardening at this time of year is the torchlit slug hunts, wandering around in the dark prising hissing snails and impossibly sticky slugs off tender young runner beans and emerging salads. Years ago I lived in a house in Bristol with an impossibly sluggy garden which was host to my first gardening attempts. I came back from the pub one evening, collected a large plastic pot full of slugs and snails in order to transfer them to the front garden instead, away from my young salads. En route I stopped to make a cup of tea, which led to a chat, which led to more chats, and in the morning, when I came downstairs, I was greeted by the sight of an empty slug pot. Where they all went I never found out, but I often wonder if the current inhabitants are still puzzled to find slugs emerging from under the countertops. Anyway, I digress, for what I want to write about here is the wonderful creature that is the worm.
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7 May 2008
David Holmgren’s permaculture principles are integral to the Transition concept, and are touched on in the Transition Handbook. I see them as really being the design principles underpinning the design of anything in a post-peak context. David has just launched a new site, PermaculturePrinciples.com, which takes a deeper look into the principles. You might find it a useful resource. We are currently exploring how they might be applied to businesses in the Transition concept, more on that later…
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7 May 2008
I have written previously here at Transition Culture about the wonder of nut trees and on the project we have underway here to plant them in and around Totnes. Wendy Stayte and Teresa Anderson who have co-ordinated that project have written a very useful summary of the progress so far with transforming the town into ‘The Nut Tree Capital of Britain’. Their report appears below;
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2 May 2008
Natural born survivors. The Guardian. Friday 2nd May. Original here.
Rising oil prices, global food shortages and the economic crisis are proof for many survivalists that society is on the brink of meltdown. But are their predictions all gloom and doom - or a chance to create new communities? Harriet Green reports.
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