So Shaun, you’ve just got copies of the first book you’ve ever published in your hand. What does that feel like?
Wow, what a question! Relief I think! It’s been a long process, and it feels so good to finally see the fruits of everyone’s labours that have gone into this book, and to feel that it can now go out and be a help to people. And I can’t get over how much I love the cover design – we spent ages getting it right, and I’m totally in love! I think it’ll be a while before it all sinks in. (Below is a short promotional film for the book produced by Green Books).
One of the most appalling betrayals in recent history slipped by unseen by most people in last week’s media. The UK Government stated that Tibet has actually always been a part of China, and that it has no claim whatsoever to be viewed in anyway differently from the rest of China. For the Tibetan people, who have suffered genocide, the suppression and erosion of their cultural and religious identity, huge population transfer, famine and police brutality, this is the final kick in the teeth, the final glimmer of hope snuffed out. The fact that that the Olympics are over, and China can stop pretending again that it gives a toss what the rest of the world thinks about anything, coupled with Western governments’ decision that the way out of crippling recession is to spend, spend, spend in order to encourage us to spend, spend, spend, means that no-one needs Tibet. It is dispensible and can now officially crawl away and die slowly. This is a disgusting betrayal.
How’s about this? Anthony Steen is the Conservative MP for Totnes, and isn’t the first person you would necessarily think of when looking for a green leaning thinker. He has recently undergone what one might call a climate change conversion, and now, seems to have also really grasped the Transition Town thing in a big way. He helped with the launch of the Totnes Pound, and last Saturday, in his monthly column in the local paper, the Herald Express, wrote a piece which was staggering in its enthusiasm for the work that TTT is doing (see below). How this translates into other areas of policy and so on remains to be seen, but credit where it is due for openeness to new ideas.
**Q7. We haven’t touched on personal carbon credits, and I’m wondering – because Jeremy’s been moving in the inner circles of government, and David Milliband’s been talking about them – is this realistic, and what change can they make? I just think that if you could get everybody in to this kind of war spirit, like we all could get involved in doing this, it could actually be really encouraging. It’s a mind set and it’s a PR job.**
**Plant trees, disband the army, work together: the Tuscan way of surviving collapse by Ugo Bardi.**
**Ugo Bardi** is a Professor at the Dipartimento di Chimica at Università di Firenze in Italy, and is also President of [ASPO Italy](www.aspoitalia.net”ASPOIT”), who so ably hosted ASPO5 in Pisa earlier this year. In this article, Ugo delves back into the history of his region of Italy, Tuscany, and identifies strategies and lessons of relevance to societies in their attempts to respond to peak oil. Having lived in Tuscany myself for a couple of years, it is a part of the world I am very fond of, so here is an article which mixes post-peak solutions and Tuscan history, and offers some very useful points in so doing.
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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