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.
In 2004, Steve Pacala and Robert Socolow published a paper in Science about climate mitigation which introduced the concept of ‘stabilisation wedges’. This proposed that rather than waiting for some ‘magic bullet’, one amazing technology that would bring climate change under control, what was needed was the immediate and much expanded application of a combination of existing and proven technologies which, combined, would have the desired effect. “Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century” they wrote. It was a timely and seminal approach. But it strikes me that, given that their underpinning assumptions neglect a wider perspective in term of the ‘perfect storm’ of other challenges that increasingly keep climate change company in the “reasons-to-lie-awake-at-night” charts (powerfully described by Jeremy Rifkin recently), that it is in desperate need of a profound overhaul, rather than having been ‘reaffirmed’ by the intervening 7 years.
From West Yorkshire here’s an exciting story to start with. At the Colne Valley Local Food Festival, Marsden & Slaithwaite TT have joined forces with other local groups (Handmade Bakery, Edibles and Green Valley Grocer) to form a Declaration of Independence from the global network of food! Go Colne Valley! Here’s a short film about the Green Valley Grocer:
Part of this process has been developing a Colne-U-Copia brand for locally produced food. A bold initiative we’ll keep an eye on in future round-ups.
Evening sun lights up the cathedral in the old quarter of Deventer, Holland.
How’s this for an interesting sign of the times? I travel to Brussels on Eurostar, I arrive and write a tweet saying “just travelled to Brussels on Eurostar, very nice it was too”, and almost immediately get a tweet back from them saying “glad you enjoyed the journey”! Didn’t expect that one. That’s either really great or a bit scary, I haven’t decided yet. Anyway, I am just back from a mad-dash tour of Belgium and Holland. It was fascinating to see the level of interest in Transition in those places and to meet some of the people involved.
Here is the third film in the ‘Story of Transition in 10 objects’ series, this time looking at a part from an old Victorian gas lamp from Malvern. You will be able to read more about this, and many other Transition stories, in the forthcoming ‘The Transition Companion’.
Here, thanks to those good people over at PermanentCultureNow, is a film of the talk I gave at this summer’s Sunrise Off Grid Festival in Somerset. Part 3 also includes the ‘milling’ exercise with the ingredients cards which will be available to download and use on October 27th, the official launch date of The Transition Companion.
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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In 2004, Steve Pacala and Robert Socolow published a paper in Science about climate mitigation which introduced the concept of ‘stabilisation wedges’. This proposed that rather than waiting for some ‘magic bullet’, one amazing technology that would bring climate change under control, what was needed was the immediate and much expanded application of a combination of existing and proven technologies which, combined, would have the desired effect. “Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century” they wrote. It was a timely and seminal approach. But it strikes me that, given that their underpinning assumptions neglect a wider perspective in term of the ‘perfect storm’ of other challenges that increasingly keep climate change company in the “reasons-to-lie-awake-at-night” charts (powerfully described by Jeremy Rifkin recently), that it is in desperate need of a profound overhaul, rather than having been ‘reaffirmed’ by the intervening 7 years. 
