Transition Culture

Great list!

I’d add to it your own “200 Artisan Skills Required to Make a Victorian Town Functional”, see:
https://www.transitionculture.org/2009/01/22/the-200-artisan-skills-required-to-make-a-victorian-town-functional/

It includes things the Buenaventurans missed out, like furniture makers, potters, …

And probably local news/media services will become more important again, because what is happening 1,000 miles away (because we can’t get there) will be less important than the price of eggs in the surrounding towns.

Apologies to the people who couldn’t see the table above… all sorted now. Apparently it was those who use Microsoft Explorer who couldn’t see it, but Mozilla Firefox users could. The problem was my posting a table from Microsoft Word into WordPress, which then Microsoft Explorer couldn’t see!

Yet another reason to dispense with Explorer altogether and use the far superior Firefox! Anyway I hope you enjoy the piece….

If anyone still can’t see the table, or it looks a bit squashed, press ‘Refresh’ on your internet browser and you should see it.

Hi Rob,
Over the last couple of days you’ve posted a couple of really important blogs. Each one helping to articulate piece of a vision of a post carbon world. There’s probably others but IMO they include this post about employment, the one on music that offers a lyrical insight and the one on EDAP’s (or peak oil preparation plans as you’ve put it).

I watched with fascination eager to see lots of suggest sources that offer new angles or layers of understanding about the new world we attempting to transition to. I felt that these threads didn’t get the response level they deserved and was hoping you’d post them out as part of the transition network newsletter and perhaps report back. I’d also be interested in other films that capture a glimpse of our possible future, such as Farm for the Future and Power of Community.

Just a little item to add to your empty schedule.

thanks
Shane

Another important profession you don’t mention Rob is herbalist.

There are hundreds of professionally trained (to degree level) medical herbaists in the UK who work holistically with huge respect for the plants they use, the environment the plants come from and the people they treat.

Their knowledge and experience, often built up over decades, of the intricacies and synergies that plant medicines can bring to maintaining and improving human health will be of vital importance to their communities in transition.

They will be also be vital in teaching people to use and value the plants that grow in their neighbourhoods and gardens, and as holders of the expertise needed to use herbal medicine in more serious conditions.

Rainwater harvesting techniques will be vital after the age of cheap oil. In a world where we won’t be using heaps of cheap energy to purify water to drinking standards and then use it in the loo, we will need to learn ways of using less, by using rainwater. People who can install water saving systems for homes/community buildings etc will be really important, and will hopefully be as abundant as plumbers and electricians are today. We don’t know how climate change will affect water availability but having grown veg in my small front and back garden for the first time this year, I am stunned at the amount of water I am using…about 60 litres a day when it doesn’t rain.

Re RICKSHAWS – I hope no-one will need to import Rickshaws they can be made locally by small engineering companies like ours. See Hereford’s wonderful local pedicabs at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-461950/Police-rush-crime-scene–rickshaw.html

http://www.herefordpedicabs.com/

Great list, really useful.

Not sure where it fits in but there is a lot of work to do around creating entrepreneurs, ie people able to translate and, crucially, apply in practice, ideas from other walks of life to Transition (everything including international development and social entrepreneurship – eg Ashoka or the School for Social Entrepreneurs – to timebanking and skillsharing).

Also related to this would be greater professionalisation of those attempting to work across private, public and citizen/voluntary sectors, see eg the work of the partnership brokers accreditation scheme: http://www.partnershipbrokers.org/

I agree strongly with the point above about local media, I would also add local radio to your list above, this is a low-energy technology that will certainly be around if/when the internet starts going down

Not sure ‘scavenging’ is a job – or if it is, maybe find another word for it! From the list it sounds a bit like salvage/ remanufacturing?

‘Sustainable industry’ is a massive area and a bit vague as currently presented in your list. ‘Cradle-to-cradle design’ might capture this idea with rather more precision.

The language challenge is absolutely enormous with this stuff…

Mandy mentioned herbalist. There is a whole range of health care providers who don’t fit under the allopathic definition of “doctor”. They provide health care in a power down fashion (here in Los Angeles we’ll be having a mini-conference of these types of modalities on Oct31/Nov1). These include accupuncture, accupressure, herbalism, homeopathy, chiropractics, craniosacral, energy medicine, and much more. These modalities include vast stores of healing practices that don’t involve “things” that would need to be imported, etc.

The “fabric” heading seems to be shortcut, but would include spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing, education in fiber arts.

Under food production I don’t see preservation of food including canning, drying, etc. and education of homemakers in same. We’ll have cooking, and education in power-down cooking techniques (solar cooking, rocket stoves, hay boxes, woodstove cooking, raw foods, etc).

Not exactly a “new employment opportunity” but rather a new focus: we’ll need lawyers who can think creatively to develop the new forms and systems based on the new ethics.

Same with schoolteachers. Traditional schooling (reading/writing/arithmetic) will likely continue for quite some time, although likely in smaller more localized locales (no more massive school systems). We’ll need a whole new portfolio of subjects and focus to prepare young people for the new lifestyle, teaching the entire list you’ve outlined.

Jane’s comment about water harvesting is huge for those of us in places that don’t have abundant oil-independent water supplies. Don’t leave out retrofitting of plumbing to greywater, installation of composting toilets and post-peak sewer solutions.

We’ll see a whole range of professions that deal with the deconstruction and collapse of the old ways of business, including bankruptcy lawyers, mediators, forensic accountants, etc.

Another area that isn’t mentioned: local “inner work” professionals (mental health professionals, counselors, spiritual and religious leaders, etc.) who are prepared to work with the issues that arise as people cope with a radically new direction for the future.

[…] Here is the original:  What Employment Opportunities Arise from Embracing Transition … […]

mmmm….’scavenging’,’low income families’all in the same breath.God Bless market economies!Mind you the councillors might be kept busy when we start squatting there over inflated income spare rooms and growing stuff in there gardens!

Mmmmmm Squatting
Is that a profession?
I can definitiely see that being somethinmg that might happen a lot in certain future scenarios.

Not so much as a profession as a mini industry with all its own specialist occupations. Image the workload involved in re-appropriating and managing disused buildings for community benefit. Back in 2003/4 i remember in London there was an increasing number of buildings (142 Project, Area10, Unity Works, 491 Gallery etc) being “legally” occupied through varying kinds of agreement with the landlords. An increasing trend i hope.
Shane

I see it this way, from the immediate needs to the long-term requirements.

→ Water
→ Food
→ Energy (fuel, power, heat, light)
→ Hygiene (disease control)
→ Administration (organising for now)
→ Repairs (with spares, handmade if necessary)
→ Adaptation (without spares, or new uses for old things)
→ Manufacture (making new things)
→ Trade (export surplus, import shortfall. e.g. bikes for glass)
→ Planning (organising for the future)
→ Health (maintaining physical and mental strength)
→ Education (passing on practical life skills)
→ Entertainment (relaxing)

Common themes here are practical engineering skills, teaching/learning skills and a knowledge of earth, life and physical sciences.

Manufacture and trade are interesting ones. Not every area will have everything locally (fuel, ores, wood, etc) to make everything required. How else then can what can’t be produced locally be obtained except by trading surpluses (food and/or goods) for them?

Mark, I like the structure of that list, but you forgot air. 350.org and all that 🙂

[…] for increased employment in a Transitioned world. You (and your children) can see the full list here, and take your […]

Irrespective of whether this list is complete or not, I think that breaking what we might visualise a powered-down community to look like into its component jobs or trades is a very useful way of thinking. It allows people to properly see and focus on what their contribution might be and avoid trying to do everything and end up burning out.

P.S
When I grow up I want to be a hedgerow drinks consultant!

Don’t go past this excellent description of multiple Peak Oil survival streams… http://peakoilentrepreneur.com/multiple-peak-oil-survival-streams

In this post Paula offers another excellent table with columns broken down into three modes of the economy everyone in preparation or pre-preparation needs to consider:

— Overt — Taxable, monetary income
— Barter — Taxable non-monetary trade
— Underground — Things to sell or trade that are unclaimable as income because they are illegal, controlled, subject to licensures and permitting, or would threaten an individual’s ability to survive if their full value were claimed as income.