18 Jun 2008
From Friends of the Earth’s Earthmatters Magazine.
“The Transition Handbook is skillfully structured to help you and your neighbours move from oil dependency to local resilience. Its author, Rob Hopkins, argues that making changes to your lifestyle makes you feel more in control, ready to cope rather than collapse with post petroleum stress disorder. He should know: Hopkins is not just a brilliant communicator, he is the founder of the Transition Town movement - a grassroots burst of empowerment that provides solutions to the twin changes peak oil and climate change must bring. If Hopkins is right about the viral spread of the Transition concept, then he has to be a runaway contender for a Nobel Prize. Until then the Transition Town story is powering up The Archers plot on Radio 4″.
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10 Jun 2008
It is often said that there is nothing new under the sun. As we stand on the collective precipice presented by peak oil and its many companion challenges (recession, runaway food prices, climate change and so on), it is easy to think that we are the first generation to have to face these issues, indeed, for many of us, anything else has not really happened within our lifespans. However, we have been here before, and the idea that rampant oil prices will necessitate a major rethink of society is not a new one. The oil crises of 1973 and 1979, although politically rather than geologically imposed, focused the mind in much the same way that peak oil is starting to now, and there is a great deal that we can learn from the experience of that time.
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3 Jun 2008
Using Natural Finishes: lime and earth-based plasters, renders and paints. A step-by-step guide. Adam Weismann and Katy Bryce. Green Books. 2008.
The first book on natural building I ever read was Becky Bee’s book ‘The Cob Builder’s Handbook‘. What was so refreshing about it was that it was a building book written by a woman, and it was as intuitive and accessible as it was technical, and much of it read like a cookbook in its descriptions of the materials. This same spirit has gone on to pervade the growing natural building movement, a playful, intuitive and inspired rethinking of the creation of shelter that does much more than just keep the rain off.
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15 May 2008
The Rocky Road to a Real Transition: the transition towns movement and what it means for social change. Paul Chatterton & Alice Cutler. The Trapese Collective. A free download available here (warning: it is a huge file): 2008. 41pp.
It is flattering that so early in a movement such as the Transition movement, people take the time to sit down and write such a detailed critique of it. Trapese Popular Education Collective were previously behind the excellent ‘Do It Yourself Manual’. As the first published external examination of the Transition model it is to be welcomed, and the authors raise a number of important questions. From my perspective, “The Rocky Road…” does a very good job of identifying many of the key areas where Transition is distinctly different from other approaches to social activism.
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