Archive for “Transport” category
26 - 30 of 36 posts
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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19 Dec 2006
George Monbiot’s book ‘Heat’ has the feel of a landmark book to me. It is one of those books that people will look back to as somehow defining a particular moment in history, as a real line drawn in the sand. Here at **Transition Culture**, what with it being Christmas and everything, you don’t just get one review but two. We did contact the publishers to see if they would give us a couple of copies to give away in a competition, but they never got back to us. Humph. Oh well. Tomorrow you will get my review, but for today, here is Robert Morgan of Green College’s excellent review.
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29 Nov 2006
**Oil Vulnerability Auditing – a Workshop Organised by Envision and Transition Town Totnes, Follaton House, Totnes.
Presented by Simon Snowden of University of Liverpool.**
How does a project like [Transition Town Totnes](http://www.transitiontowns.org/Totnes”TTT”) engage with the business community in the surrounding area? This is a question which is key to the success of the process, and something grassroots environmental projects have always struggled with. We were delighted then that Simon Snowden from the University of Liverpool came down a couple of weeks ago to run a workshop with representatives of 10 local businesses to explore this.
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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.
