Archive for “Transport” category
21 - 25 of 33 posts
10 Oct 2007
An excellent documentary aired on BBC Wales last night, called **Back to the Land**, which was part of a series called ‘Week In, Week Out’. In featured Patrick Holden, the director of the Soil Association, discussing peak oil and the impact that finding out about it had on his life and on how he farms his farm in Wales, as well as looking at the bigger implications of its ramifications for food and farming. It also included interviews with myself and some peak oil deniers, and sets out a strong argument that the transition to life beyond oil could actually bring many benefits to society. You can watch the film [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/weekinweekout/) for the next week.
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16 Aug 2007
[Transition Town Totnes](http://www.transitiontowns.org/Totnes)’s Autumn calendar of events until Christmas is launched today. Building on the previous year’s highly successful work and programme of talks, events, Open Space days and workshops, the new programme looks like the best yet. Highlights include a talk by David Strahan, an evening called ‘Economics in Transition’, with Richard Douthwaite, Bernard Lietaer and David Boyle, Open Space days on transport, education and one for young people, a performance of the travelling show ‘This Farming Life’ which presents traditional song and archive film of farming on and around Dartmoor since 1920, and it all starts with TTT’s first birthday party, celebrating one year since the Unleashing. You can download the inside of the new flyer here and the outside here. The programme in full appears below, and printed copies will be available by September 1st.
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10 Aug 2007
I didn’t get to many talks at the Big Green Gathering, but I did get to one excellent, and very important one, given by Paul Allen and Richard Hawkins of the Centre for Alternative Technology. The talk was to introduce the wonderful piece of work they have just completed, a report called [Zero Carbon Britain](http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/images/zerocarbonbritain.pdf). I think it is the most important piece of work CAT had ever produced, and is very important for Transition Initiatives too. In essence it is the first draft of an Energy Descent Plan for the UK, although its focus is largely on energy. The two of them presented the report, how it came about, and what its aims are, in a very accessible way. Here, reconstructed from my notes, is the general gist of their presentation.
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20 Jun 2007
This is slightly old hat now, but I haven’t got round to it yet, so here we go. In the light of the recent coverage here of George Monbiot’s [recent assertion in Lampeter](http://transitionculture.org/2007/04/10/george-monbiot-on-peak-oil-and-transition-towns/) that the oil peak is sufficiently far enough away for it not to be a cause for concern, and [Chris Vernon's subsequent response](http://transitionculture.org/2007/04/23/chris-vernon-responds-to-george-monbiot/) which went through each of his points in considerable detail, it was intriguing to read [his column in the Guardian a couple of weeks back now](http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/05/29/what-if-the-oil-runs-out/). In it, he takes as his starting point the Government’s recent Energy Review and its belief that “the majority (66%) of UK oil demand is derived from demand for transport fuels which is expected to increase modestly over the medium term. George’s question is “OK… powered by what exactly?”, and in the piece he goes back to the various departments making the assertions and looks at what that complacency is based on. It turns out not very much.
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20 Dec 2006
[The Soil Association](http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/home/index.html”SA”) is the UK’s organic certification body, and they are making peak oil and the relocalisation of food the focal point of their 60th Anniversary conference in Cardiff in February. I am editing a report that will accompany the conference, which explores this deeper, and to introduce this, I recently wrote an article that appears in [Living Earth Magazine](http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/Living/le_extra.html”LE”), the organisation’s publication. It suggests that the concept of Energy Descent Plans could be applied to food and farming in the UK, an idea that will be explored in more depth in the report. Here is the article followed by some additions from within the Soil Association.
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An excellent documentary aired on BBC Wales last night, called **Back to the Land**, which was part of a series called ‘Week In, Week Out’. In featured Patrick Holden, the director of the Soil Association, discussing peak oil and the impact that finding out about it had on his life and on how he farms his farm in Wales, as well as looking at the bigger implications of its ramifications for food and farming. It also included interviews with myself and some peak oil deniers, and sets out a strong argument that the transition to life beyond oil could actually bring many benefits to society. You can watch the film [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/weekinweekout/) for the next week. 
