4 Jun 2008
A while ago, on a very hot day indeed, I went to London to be one of the speakers at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPOG, not to be confused with OGOPOGO, a Loch Ness monster type supposed creature reputed to live in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, Canada). The meeting was called Becoming a Low Carbon Society, and I was speaking along with Shaun Chamberlin who spoke about Tradeable Energy Quotas, and Simon Snowden from Liverpool University, who talked about, among other things, Oil Vulnerability Audits.
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27 May 2008
Graham Strouts over at Zone5.org recently posted a piece about the end of term at Kinsale FEC, and the graduation of another year’s permaculture graduates. It was particularly poignant this year because John Thuillier, the college’s Principal who initially got the permaculture course going, and his wife Margaret who handled much of the college’s admin, are retiring. To commemorate, Graham sent me a list of questions exploring the early days of the Permaculture course out of which what is now a 2 year full time course, the Kinsale EDAP and, ultimately, the Transition movement, grew. You can read the original here, and although it won’t be of interest to everyone, some of you might find a taste of the course’s history to be of interest.
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21 May 2008
I enjoyed Sharon Astyk’s recent piece about energy descent “Our Tails Get in the Way”, and its use of Winnie the Pooh as a metaphor. I am similarly reading Winnie the Pooh to my youngest at the moment, and rediscovering what wonderfully written books they are. As I read last night, I found a bit that illustrated something I have been musing on over the past couple of days. Pooh and Piglet are out walking one a very windy day….
“Supposing a tree fell down Pooh, when we were standing underneath it?”
“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh after careful thought.
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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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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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A while ago, on a very hot day indeed, I went to London to be one of the speakers at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPOG, not to be confused with OGOPOGO, a Loch Ness monster type supposed creature reputed to live in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, Canada). The meeting was called Becoming a Low Carbon Society, and I was speaking along with Shaun Chamberlin who spoke about Tradeable Energy Quotas, and Simon Snowden from Liverpool University, who talked about, among other things, Oil Vulnerability Audits.
