The other day I read an excellent piece by Calvin Jones, Professor of Economics at Cardiff Business School (see right) called Technology Cannot Tackle Climate Change. Having argued that, due to a range of issues, economic growth is no longer possible, he writes:
“Faced with these issues it is easy to withdraw into either a belief in an economic growth fairy, or into passive, nihilistic depression. But this is not necessary. Many societies historically have functioned perfectly well without ever-increasing levels of growth and complexity”.
He also wrote “the cognitive dissonance we feel, as GDP figures rise, and we feel ever more tired, stressed and scared, is real, and must be challenged”, rapidly becoming one of my favourite quotes. Given the challenges of condensing complex arguments into short articles, I thought it would be good to have a chat with Calvin. So what follows is either the audio file to listen to while you’re hoovering the stairs, or a transcript of our talk.
Here’s a fantastic video from DW (“Germany’s International Broadcaster”) about Transition in South Africa. It is a clip from a longer programme called ‘Global 3000: The Globalisation Program’, and it looks at the work of Transition Town Greyton in South Africa. It is a fascinating response to the question of “what does Transition look like beyond Europe and the US?” It may well become one of my favourite videos about Transition:
On May 13th at 1pm BST, Transition Network and Resilience.org will be hosting a Webinar entitled Local Economic Blueprints: pioneering or pointless? and you are cordially invited to join us (details for how to watch it will be posted here at the end of the week). It will look in more depth at the recently published ‘Totnes & District Local Economic Blueprint‘. This innovative process, also being trialled in Hereford and in Brixton, looks at the potential of local economies, trying to quantify the potential economic benefits of taking a more localised approach to economic development. It shows that, in the case of Totnes, a shift of 10% of money spent on food could lead to £2.2 million of increased local economic activity, with the resultant growth in jobs, training and so on.
Thanks to Transition Town Freiburg in Germany for this. Horst Köhler, recently-resigned German president (and former president of the IMF) gave a speech to a big world mobility conference (i.e. lots of car companies in the audience), in which he waxed lyrical about Transition! And a few days later he stood down. Here is the video of his talk, followed by a translation of what he said.
We start this month’s Round Up with the first of two awards we’ll be giving out this month, the ‘Dedication to Transition Above and Beyond the Call of Duty Award’. It goes to David and Mark of Transition Keynsham, who will be taking part in the Exmouth Exodus bike ride to raise much needed funds for Transition Keynsham. The Exodus ride is an overnight bike ride from Clifton to Exmouth, a total of around 100 miles with a few hills along the way! If you would like to sponsor them, or send them encouraging words, please click here. Every little helps (as they say).
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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