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.
Since the visit of Richard Heinberg to New Zealand, the place appears to have gone into a Transition-frenzy. James Samuel ran two workshops on the Transition approach after Heinberg’s talk at the EcoShow in Taupo, which apparently went very well. Also, Jo Duff of the Hawkes Bay Trust recently posted an excellent presentation she gave on the Transition model at an event there, which is a really heartening example of how people are taking the model and just starting to put it out there. The first part is below, the other 3 parts link from this.
In the Transition Network we are presently working on how best to support these nascent initiatives from lil’ole Devon, and given that we don’t fly. We are developing Transition Training materials, a presentation people can be trained to deliver and soon, of course, The Transition Handbook (the name has changed from ‘Small is Inevitable’) which will be out in March ’08. Who needs aeroplanes?!
The Big Melt report that caused me sleepless nights last week showed that climate change is happening far faster than anyone, the IPCC included, had predicted. Over the last week the peak oil argument has similarly sped up, exceeding predictions almost on a daily basis. It crashed through the $80 a barrel ceiling, which set experts talking about $90 a barrel sometime next year, but before the end of the week, there it was. Now the mythical $100 a barrel level could be as little as days away. It is worth remembering that when prices are adjusted for inflation, the highest oil prices we have ever had were during the last oil crisis in the 70s, and were around $102 a barrel, and that caused a major recession. Beyond $102 we are into new terrain; all bets, as they say, are off, with regards to what we might find when we get there.
Regular readers of **Transition Culture** will know that I try not to make a habit of presenting depressing or distressing information, but today I will make an exception. Yesterday morning I read Carbon Equity’s The Big Melt report which is basically a review of all the literature and studies looking at what happened to the Arctic ice this summer. It does not make for comfortable reading, and indeed it adds enormous urgency to to need to reduce emissions. It argues that to speak of 2 degrees being a safe threshold is nonsense, that we haven’t yet reached 1 degree, but already the Arctic ice is melting 100 years ahead of when the IPCC predicted it would.
An excellent documentary aired on BBC Wales last night, called **Back to the Land**, which was part of a series called ‘Week In, Week Out’. In featured Patrick Holden, the director of the Soil Association, discussing peak oil and the impact that finding out about it had on his life and on how he farms his farm in Wales, as well as looking at the bigger implications of its ramifications for food and farming. It also included interviews with myself and some peak oil deniers, and sets out a strong argument that the transition to life beyond oil could actually bring many benefits to society. You can watch the film here for the next week.
**Global Public Media** just posted a great interview with Klaus Harvey of Transition Town Kinsale which looks at what has happened in Kinsale since the Kinsale Energy Descent Plan (KEDAP) was produced two years ago. Global Public Media has followed the Kinsale story since the beginning. The first mention of interesting things afoot in Kinsale came in an interview with Richard Heinberg when he was in Kinsale in June 2005 at the Fuelling the Future conference, the event where the KEDAP was first released. In it he mentions the KEDAP (which he calls “an extraordinary document”) and gives a sense of what a powerful event it was.
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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