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.
Gathering for the Unleashing of Transition Albany in the US. Pic: Dorothy Brown.
Welcome to the May monthly roundup of what’s happening in the world of Transition. We hope this issue will lift your spirits and inspire you to continue working within your communities – wherever they may be! We start with Kinsale in Ireland which was the first ever Transition Town in the world! Kinsale’s plans for a bio-waste project is leading the way for Ireland’s first community run, eco-friendly anaerobic digester (AD). The project has recently been boosted by a grant of €37,500 from the Department of the Environment under its Rethink, Recycle, Remake (Rx3).
Here is a short film from Transition Town Worthing that I thought you might enjoy, giving an overview of what they are up to… . Busy today sorting the final selection of photos for the Transition Companion….
London's Gherkin as a high-density, multi-occupation tower block.
As we have fun here working on some of the photoshopped images from the future for ‘The Transition Companion’, my attention was drawn to an exhibition on at the National Theatre until May 31st (in the Olivier Theatre Exhibition Area on Level 1). It is called ‘Postcards from the Future’ and it uses large, backlit photoshopped images of London in a future world suffering the impacts of climate change. As the artists put it, “even we were surprised by the way the story unfolded as the scene was created. Each picture has become a mini soap-opera, alive with colour, drama, triumph and adversity as our city is transformed and Londoners adapt to meet this change.” Some very Parliament Square rice paddies and the Buckingham Palace shanty are especially eye catching I think. Well worth checking out if you are in London.
TTT's Frances Northrop proudly displaying its new plaque...
Here’s a kind of half-formed thought that might possibly go somewhere if I start writing about it. This September sees the fifth anniversary of the Unleashing of Transition Town Totnes. We were deeply flattered the other day to receive a somewhat premature but very welcome plaque from the Town Council bearing the inscription “Transition Town Totnes: to celebrate their first 5 years of activity within the town”. I’ll probably write a more detailed ‘Totnes: some reflections after 5 years in Transition’ in September, but this post was prompted by an email from a friend in Totnes, who grew up here in the 1960s and is very much a pillar of the community. He had valiantly read my dissertation, ‘Localisation and Resilience‘, cover to cover and wrote with some reflections. In his email he makes a very interesting point:
I thought I would take the opportunity this morning to rave enthusiastically about Transition training. A few years ago Naresh Giangrande and Sophy Banks designed Transition Training as a two-day total immersion in the first stages of this evolving process. Since the first course in Totnes in October 2007, 106 training courses worldwide have been organised by Transition Training, with local organisers, and presented by members of a dedicated team of 16 UK trainers to over 2,500 participants. Courses have been run throughout the UK, as well as in Eire, Sweden, Brazil, Portugal, Italy, Germany and Flanders. Dozens more are being organised and run by local organizing hubs in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, parts of South America, and Asia, led by a team of multilingual trainers. Here is a recently made short film about it, the first of three I want to share with you:
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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