Charlotte Du Cann’s piece on Transition and activism has generated much debate and discussion. A few people have mentioned that they were concerned that people were commenting on my response without having read her original piece. So here it is… reposted with thanks.
“To take in what is happening an inter-disciplinary vision is necessary in order to connect ‘the fields’ that are institutionally kept separate”.
John Berger, Hold Everything Dear
“No is one of the most honourable words in the English language,” said Deepak. “It needs to be reclaimed.” Deepak Rughani is a campaigner and co-director of Biofuelwatch and he’s talking about the defence of natural ecosystems, an area he feels the Transition movement ignores.
This post is a response to Charlotte DuCann’s beautiful and heartfelt post over on the Transition Norwich blog arguing that Transition needs to more explicitly embrace activism. It is wonderful to see, whether through that blog, through Transition Voice, or through the emerging social reporting project, new voices coming through in the Transition blogosphere. Charlotte speaks powerfully to the split that some of those engaged in Transition feel, that they almost need to keep their activism ‘in the closet’ in order to remain engaged. She states that she sees her post as a ‘working document’, and invites reflections, so here are a few of mine.
Special Royal Wedding packs of Top Trumps available for sale on Paddington Station yesterday
I spent the day yesterday in London. I arrived thinking it was going to be packed with people, but actually it was remarkable how few people there were. I’ve never seen Paddington station so empty. The London underground was positively spacious. Where was everybody? I did see one plastic Union Jack hat, but that was about it. Anyway, here’s a rather entertaining story from the day…. I met Peter Lipman (Chair of Transition Network) and we headed over to Ladbroke Grove for a meeting we were having there. We had about 20 minutes before the meeting, so went round the corner from the meeting venue and sat on a wall to catch up about this and that.
The other week I did a chat with Karen Rybold Chin for ‘The Nation’ as the final part of a thirteen-part series called “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate”. Here it is….
Following it, Walter Haugen at Local Harvest wrote a post questioning my “1 litre of oil equals 35 days of human work” figure. My source for that was from the end of a report done by FEASTA a few years ago which concluded that “a 40 litre fill-up at a petrol station is the equivalent of about four years of human manual work”. Walter’s calculations, which argue that my figure “overstates the energy value of a liter of petrol by almost a factor of four” are here. Be great to hear your thoughts on this. Not being a mathematician or an engineer myself I’d value your thoughts/analysis….
The concept of localisation is one increasingly being discussed as the debt-based, high carbon, energy vulnerable model of economic globalisation increasingly comes apart at the seams. A recent conference run by Transition Colorado had the subtitle “food relocalisation as economic development”. I think we might argue for localisation in general, not just in terms of food, being seen now as a key strategy of economic development. ‘The Economics of Happiness’, as a film that argues that “’going local’ is the way to repair our fractured world – our ecosystems, our societies and our selves” has therefore arrived at the right time, but is it the convincing, accessible and rousing film about localisation that we need in order to raise the issue to the next level of the debate? Here is the trailer:
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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Charlotte Du Cann’s piece on Transition and activism has generated much debate and discussion. A few people have mentioned that they were concerned that people were commenting on my response without having read her original piece. So here it is… reposted with thanks.
