Transition Culture

31 Aug 2006

“Life After Oil” course at Schumacher College – updated and reposted.

**Life After Oil: Breaking the Habit. A Residential Course at Schumacher College, Devon, UK. November 12-24, 2006**
**Teachers:** David Fleming, Ron Oxburgh, Michael Meacher, Richard Heinberg & Rob Hopkins.

*I am reposting the information about this upcoming course because I thought that you might be interested to know that I’ve been asked to do a bit of teaching on it. I’ll be teaching a day on Energy Descent Planning at the beginning of the second week. For those who wrote in suggesting the H2 tour could become the H3 tour were I to head down to Australia too, this is an opportunity to see a different H2 combination!*

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31 Aug 2006

Natural Building as Community Repair.

Young people hanging out on street corners and in bus shelters has been a regular part of British life since street corners and bus shelters were invented. Sometimes they can get a bit too bouncy, and sometimes can get up to all kinds of mischief. For the most part though, they just want to ‘chill with their homies’ and talk about teenager stuff to other teenagers (which usually, sadly, tends to revolve around ringtones…). Naturally sometimes this can be threatening to other people who use bus shelters and street corners. Responses up to now have ranged from the police chasing them off the streets to ASBOs (not ASPOs) and trying to herd them into youth clubs. But natural building? How might cob, strawbale and clay plaster have a role to play?

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30 Aug 2006

Engaging Magic and Wonder in Energy Descent preparation.

“Magic” and “wonder”. Not words we read too often in the peak oil literature. I contend, however, that if we are actually to engage people in energy descent as a positive transition on the necessary scale, we need to work magic and wonder into what we do. My mum recently passed on to me a video of an amazing thifrom BBC4 of a thing that happened a few months ago in London, called “The Sultan’s Elephant”, a huge piece of street theatre by the French theatrical magicians Royal de Luxe that took place in the capital in early May. The whole thing was prepared in the greatest secrecy, and took people by surprise, and the event that unfolded over the next 4 days brought magic and wonder to millions of people, and the film about it, I confess, brought tears to my eyes.

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29 Aug 2006

Powerdown Ireland’s Amazing Flying Flyer.

Finding imaginative and creative ways to communicate ideas about energy descent is a big challenge. Just piling depressing information onto people is ultimately self-defeating, and feeds a sense of powerlessness. The Cultivate Centre in Dublin has always been exceptionally good at communicating sustainability, through its written materials, its programme of events, and also through its graphics materials. Now, as part of its new Powerdown Community Project, they have produced a rather cool flyer (in an interesting twist on the term) to promote the concept of powerdown, which they will distribute at various events around the country.

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28 Aug 2006

ASPO 5. Skrebowski tells us there’s 1,500 days until the Peak, & closing thoughts on ASPO 5.

**Chris Skrebowski. Peak Oil and the Emerging Reality.**

*Chris is the editor or Petroleum Review and is a well known speaker on peak oil. He also uses very detailed Powerpoint presentations which he zips through so fast that comprehensive note taking is nigh on impossible! You can find his powerpoint here, which is well worth a read, as he is a challenge to even the most dedicated note taker! Here’s what I got down from his talk, for which I make no claims of completeness (it was very hot in that tent!)*

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