Archive for “Waste/Recycling” category
1 - 5 of 30 posts
6 Mar 2009
I never would have thought, until I had spent some time immersed in the world of permaculture and growing my own, that a large pile of rotting manure could be a source of such pleasure. There is something utterly magical about the biological processes that go on in a pile of decomposing organic matter, as the microfauna and bacteria alchemically transform it from one thing into an almost entirely different thing. It really is something worth getting very, very excited about.
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23 Sep 2008
I wrote last week about the submission that Transition Leicester made about eco-towns, today I want to celebrate the excellent piece of work done by Transition Glastonbury in pulling together their response to a report prepared by their local Council setting out plans for the development of the area over the next 20 years. As with most Council plans, it starts with assuming a graph with a line that rises as it moves towards the right, increased growth, increased investment, increased energy availability. Transition Glastonbury’s submission asks, what if it doesn’t? How might this area thrive in uncertain times? This is a timely post, as tomorrow night in Totnes sees the formal launch of our Energy Descent Pathways process, the creation, in effect, of the town’s Plan B. Congratulations to Transition Glastonbury for blazing a trail with this so brilliantly.
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18 Sep 2008
In Totnes, one sometimes hears the term ‘old hippy’ used as a term of abuse. Last week in Totnes, Albert Bates, an old hippy of the highest order, thrilled a full house at the Methodist Hall with the story of the Farm Ecovillage in Tennessee. It was a delight for me, as I first heard Albert speaking in 1995, when I was a fresh-faced, just qualified permaculturist who was lucky enough to get a bursary to attend the ‘Eco-Villages and Sustainable Communities’ conference at Findhorn. The speech Albert gave there, one long evening, was a life changing moment.
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25 Jul 2008
I spent a couple of days last week attending the Green New Deal think-tank type event in London, and at one point we were asked to speak about what we thought we would see in the world in 50 months from now (late 2012). One of the things I came up with was “the first World Cup Finals to be cancelled because no-one could get to them”. While football isn’t a subject often touched on here at Transition Culture, I have to confess I love it, and am fascinated by what we might come to call ‘peak football’. Football is not immune to the credit crunch nor to rising fuel prices, and in this age of ridiculous salaries being given to top players and insane transfer fees, something, at some point, has to give, and it looks like it might be starting to happen as we speak.
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3 Jul 2008
Yesterday morning, while chivvying my kids along to eat their breakfast and clean their teeth (not simultaneously), I had one ear on a piece on Radio 4’s Today programme about the economy and recession, prompted by Marks and Spencer’s dismal drop in share price, and its CEO talking of “stormy times ahead” for the UK economy. One of the guests was Sir Martin Sorrell (right), a businessman, who attempted to offer an upbeat picture of the future for the UK economy that left me scratching my head.
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I never would have thought, until I had spent some time immersed in the world of permaculture and growing my own, that a large pile of rotting manure could be a source of such pleasure. There is something utterly magical about the biological processes that go on in a pile of decomposing organic matter, as the microfauna and bacteria alchemically transform it from one thing into an almost entirely different thing. It really is something worth getting very, very excited about. 
