In the UK, the main Transition-related story to make the national news over the past month was the suggestion by Ian Jones, CEO of Volunteer Cornwall, that Cornwall should set up its own currency, the ‘Cornwall Pound’. The story made the national news and many references were made to the local currencies already in existence via Transition Towns Totnes (Devon), Lewes (Sussex) and Brixton (London). Jones told the Daily Telegraph “It’s no good if we endlessly talk about our problems, we need to start doing something positive now if we are to avoid being at the mercy of the global storm which is currently raging.”
Today we have a guest post from Jo Homan of Transition Finsbury Park about Edible Landscapes London (originally published here). It is one of the many projects that appears in the Transition Network projects database. Do submit your projects! Let’s start with a short film about the project, before we move on to an article Jo wrote about it:
It’s a brisk Autumnal Monday morning. I’m at Edible Landscapes London, an offshoot of Transition Finsbury Park. This is the cutting edge of no-dig, agroforestry, predominantly perennial and definitely low-maintenance gardening and our practice challenges conventional gardening wisdom. I’m talking about deeply ingrained habits of digging and tidiness.
I already posted a clever thing here that mixed the slides and the audio from a talk I gave the RESOLVE conference in May, well here now is the film of the talk, in case you’re interested…
After my talk in Norwich last week, I met a local authority emergency planner, who said that he had found the talk, and the Transition take on resilience, very illuminating. He pointed me in the direction of the latest ‘Strategic National Framework on Community Resilience’, the latest “national statement for how individual and community resilience can work”, published by the Cabinet Office in March of this year. It is a fascinating document, and is indeed the first official government document on community resilience that refers explicitly to the Transition movement, and as such deserves a post reflecting on it. It also offers a tantalising glimpse into what a government response to peak oil, climate change and economic contraction might look like if anyone had the imagination to create one.
Earlier this week I was in Norwich for the third birthday anniversary celebrations of Transition Norwich’s Unleashing. I had been meant to speak at that event, but had been unable to attend because I was ill, so it was great to get there finally and to be able to take part in their celebrations. Here’s a reminder of what that event was like:
This three-years-on celebration featured a new film about Transition Norwich (which I’ll post here when it is online), a talk by me followed by questions and answers, and then lots of chatting, eating cake, drinking tea and signing copies of The Transition Companion (unfortunately the batteries ran out in my recorder, so I have no audio of the actual event itself). At the end of my talk I dedicated it to Richard Douthwaite, who had passed away the previous day. Transition Norwich are doing some amazing things, and in order to capture some of the voices of some of those who have been involved and the story of Transition Norwich thus far, I interviewed 6 members (thanks Tierney for the loan of the batteries!) and on the train home created the following short podcast capturing where they have come from, where they are now, and where they think they are going.
My thanks to everyone there for their amazing hospitality. Here are a few photos from the visit….
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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