Transition Culture

An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent

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I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.


3 Jan 2013

Welcome back, and a vision for 2013

Welcome back to Transition Culture for 2013.  It is a year fraught with dangers yet also rich with possibilities.  I hope that Transition Network, and this blog, and all the other resources out there for people wanting to embrace these possibilities will continue to support and inspire you through 2013.  Let’s kick this year off with a talk I gave last October at Communicate 2012: Breaking Boundaries, hosted by the Bristol Natural History Consortium.  I was asked to speak about what was my vision for 10 years in the future.  May 2013 bring more, and firmer, steps towards its realisation:

Comments are now closed on this site, please visit Rob Hopkins' blog at Transition Network to read new posts and take part in discussions.

14 Comments

Sarah Astor
3 Jan 11:09am

Thank you Rob for this inspiring talk..all excited for 2013!and I can’t stand the suspense as well

Peter Willcox
3 Jan 11:19am

Welcome back to you too. Excellent talk as ever!
Peter
Transition Town Letchworth

Chris Johnstone
3 Jan 1:49pm

Wow, what a great start to the year, and also the next ten years. I feel energised with excitement. Thank you Rob.

Paul Handover
3 Jan 2:57pm

Great talk. We all need inspiration wherever we are in the world. Without that the future is grim.

Happy New Year to all.

Trish Knox
4 Jan 1:43am

Happy New Year Rob & Transition Culture/Network! A great vision is one that is filled in with action and you offered just that bringing in 2013.

Amanda Cuthbert
4 Jan 2:45pm

Fantastic stuff, as ever.

eleanor stoneham
4 Jan 3:46pm

I love the mycorrhiza analogy – did my PhD on those many years ago! Motivating stuff – many thanks!

Len Puglisi
5 Jan 6:46am

Rob – I enjoyed your talk. But I think you’re making a conceptual mistake in setting up cultural versus environmental/climate change perspectives – quite apart from the potential antipathy that can emerge between ‘people who should be friends’. The underlying position that we all have is that ‘economic growth forever is neither feasible nor desirable on a finite planet’. Surely, you accept that position, and if so, people for cultural change and people for environmental change are in this together.

Rosie Bell
5 Jan 12:30pm

Just the burst of inspiration I/we need to start the year – thanks Rob

Simon Bates
7 Jan 10:55am

I’m inclined to agree with Len. I think it would be unlikely that street groups did not mention climate change in their discussions, especially given the record breaking wet year. However, a very good, upbeat, clearly delivered talk by Rob.

eleanor stoneham
10 Jan 5:05pm

I have listened/watched this a few times and really don’t think Rob is setting the two against each other intentionally – environmental change v. cultural change – I think what he really means is that cultural change is needed to go beyond the straightforward environmental sustainability initiatives – the first needs the second to achieve its full potential – this is discussed in The Transition Companion at page 74 and expanded to discuss intrinsic and extrinsic values in a culture and an individual – something I also incidentally look at in my first book, which was somewhat prescient in its message as it happened. Good talk anyway!

Len Puglisi
11 Jan 12:08am

Eleanor – Rob not meaning to set one against the other? I’m sure that’s right. But in expressing the situation in the way he did, that conclusion might be implied – mistakenly perhaps, but nevertheless possible.

Of course our habits, our values, and therefore our culture(s) have to change. But one of the principal reasons this is the case is that our habits, our values and our cultures have developed – by setting up all of living nature and the planet to be controlled by humans – have developed to confront and deny the essential importance of nature in the formation of who/what humans are.

John Robottom
15 Jan 12:03pm

What Rob is contrasting is top down environmental pressure groups trying to stop something they disagree with,often with limited success, whereas the Transition approach is bottom up voluntary behavior change.

Len Puglisi
15 Jan 9:59pm

John – adding in the word ‘pressure’ tends to give a perjorative twist to the important work that environmental groups do against great odds, and is emphasising an unnecessary dichotomy between various action groups that I mentioned in earlier comments. If TC is not about the sad and getting sadder state of the planet – but providing one positive way of dealing with the degradation afoot – then what is it about? All I’m suggesting is that there shouldn’t be promoted an ‘us and them’ mentality. (And of course there are other positive ways too: ‘Prosperity without Growth’; Steady State Economics; de-growth and Simpler Way initiatives…. Vital actions at the macro-level that are as important as TC initiatives.)