11 Sep 2008
A peak into the future.
Described as ‘a social experiment on a massive scale’, the Transition Town movement offers positive ideas for low-carbon living
Sarah Lewis, The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
When Waterstone’s recently asked 150 MPs about their favourite summer reads, number five on the list was a book from an environment group that only two years ago almost no one had heard of. But in that time, the Transition Town movement has grown from a classroom idea to a sprawling international network, which many think holds some of the answers to our environmental problems.
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5 Sep 2008
Critiques of Transition come in all shapes and sizes, and are often fascinating. In the US, Robin Mills recently described it as “mistaken, appalling and dangerous” (one of my favourites) and Jim O’Neill, Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs, recently said on the Business Daily Show on BBC World Service that he had just read a book by a Californian with no geological or economic background (that’s me apparently…) calling for Transition economies, and stated that he had never read such rubbish! It has been intriguing in recent weeks to follow the various, and largely more coherent debates and discussions that have emerged in the wake of the Climate Camp, and also as the discussions about Transition that the Trapese Collective’s ‘Rocky Road’ document stimulated have rumbled on.
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27 Aug 2008
I was up in Nottingham a while ago giving a couple of talks to a very young but vigorously emergent Transition Nottingham group. The first talk was to an invited audience of business people and local councillors, and the second was a public talk with almost 200 people. There is some very good work going on there, a good deal of energy and momentum. On the Every Action Counts website, you can find this excellent update on what they are up to, which I have also copied below. We are planning a Transition Cities event for some time around the end of the year, which we hope will be in Nottingham. Watch this space.
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21 Jul 2008
I had the privilege last week to attend a kind of think tank thing organised by Colin Hines, which preceded the release today of the Green New Deal Group’s report, which I think is something that all of you involved in Transition work will find extremely useful. The Group has been meeting since early 2007, consisting of Larry Elliot, Colin Hines, Tony Juniper, Jeremy Leggett, Caroline Lucas MEP, Richard Murphy, Ann Pettifor, Charles Secrett and Andrew Simms. The opening paragraph of the report runs as follows;
“The global economy is facing a ‘triple crunch’. It is a combination of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, accelerating climate change and soaring energy prices underpinned by an encroaching peak in oil production. These three overlapping events threaten to develop into a perfect storm, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression. To help prevent this from happening we are proposing a Green New Deal”.
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1 Jul 2008
Sometimes I pass things so ridiculous I have to go back again for a second look. The other day I was near Paignton, and I passed a zebra crossing and its attendant Belisha beacons (see right). Interesting fact for the day (or quite possibly not), Belisha beacons are named after Leslie Hore-Belisha (1895-1957), the Minister of Transport who introduced them in the 1930s. The idea of Belisha beacons is straightforward, a black and white stripey pole with a yellow flashing globe on top which shows people where to cross the road. The yellow flashing light has long been considered adequate in attracting attention and which in turn insinuates where the stripey pole is to be found (if anyone should be interested). This Belisha beacon near Paignton had come up with an ingenious, energy-wasting way of solving a problem that I never knew existed, lighting the pole up from within!
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A peak into the future.
