An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent
Transition Culture has moved
I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Here is a guest post by Judy Phillips and Joan Stoia from Transition Northfield in the US:
A year and a half ago, inspired and guided by Transition US and Northeast Regional Trainer, Tina Clarke, twelve adventurous and committed Northfielders embarked on a project designed to re-localize Northfield. They were armed with the following mission:
“Transition Northfield is a creative community-based response to economic instability, resource depletion (peak oil), and climate change. Its aim is to engage residents from all aspects of our community to work together in a positive practical process that increases local resilience and economic vitality. It is flexible and fun, encourages local creativity, and results in a stronger, more cohesive community.”
Last Saturday was the final day of the River Cottage/British Gas Energyshare vote, an innovative approach to raising awareness for, and supporting, community renewables. When voting closed, at 5pm, the winners were, in the large category, Hexham River Hydro, in the medium category, the Portobello and Leith community wind energy project, and in the small category, the North Devon Hospice and the Shrewsbury Hydro. Three of the four are Transition initiatives. There were also Transition groups who didn’t win, and also quite a few who didn’t make it through to the final vote (the many fantastic projects in the vote gave a sense of the huge hunger out there for community renewables). I talked to each of the 3 Transition winners, Portobello (here‘s a piece from their local paper), Shrewsbury and Tynedale about the Energyshare process, how they rustled up enough votes, how the last hours before the vote closed were spent, and how being winners makes a difference to their project. This short podcast captures their stories:
And here is the moment where Portobello and Hexham found out they had won:
Transition Training has developed a new 2-day course for Transition initiatives who have been going for some time, called ‘Transition: Thrive’. It had its first pilot a couple of weeks ago, and in this guest post, trainer Naresh Giangrande reflects on how it went, and what learnings are helping to shape its further evolution.
How well is Transition going in the UK? Is it succeeding, failing or something in between? Is there anything we can do about it when it isn’t going well? How can we help functional Transition initiatives take their next steps in a training? Last weekend, twenty six dedicated pioneers took the plunge, confronted their inner daemons and came along for a roller coaster ride of a weekend in Totnes, UK.
Last week, on a rather soggy, windswept London evening, members of Transitions Belsize, Bethnal Green, Brentford, Brixton, Crouch End, Crystal Palace, Finsbury Park, Hackney, Highbury, Kensal to Kilburn, Kentish Town, Lewisham, Peckham, Stoke Newington, Tooting, Tufnell Park, Walthamstow, Wandsworth, Wanstead, Westcombe, Willesden and Wimbledon (and probably a few more besides), as well as members of the public, gathered at the GLA building in London, to help celebrate Transition in London, and the launch of ‘The Transition Companion’.
In the UK, the main Transition-related story to make the national news over the past month was the suggestion by Ian Jones, CEO of Volunteer Cornwall, that Cornwall should set up its own currency, the ‘Cornwall Pound’. The story made the national news and many references were made to the local currencies already in existence via Transition Towns Totnes (Devon), Lewes (Sussex) and Brixton (London). Jones told the Daily Telegraph “It’s no good if we endlessly talk about our problems, we need to start doing something positive now if we are to avoid being at the mercy of the global storm which is currently raging.”
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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