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.
Well no not really, but I was very surprised to find when visiting St Ives Museum in Cornwall a couple of weeks back that the beginning of the fossil fuel era was so close to home. Although peak oilers like to trace the beginning of our current woes back to the drilling of the first oil wells in Pennsylvania in the 1850s, the real beginnings go back earlier, to 1712, and a man called Thomas Newcomen. It was that year that he finally got his steam engine working properly, which burnt coal to make steam, and then used that steam to drive a pump which drained water from the mines to enable vastly increased rates of coal mining. According to Bill McKibben’s recent book ‘Deep Economy’ (review gestating), his machine replaced a team of 500 horses walking in a circle, an astonishing breakthrough.
It was quite a week for Transition stuff in the sunday papers this week. There was a mention of Totnes Pounds in the Observer, another in a piece in the Sunday Times called Love Thy Neighbour, which was in the Style magazine, and opened with the observation that “community spirit is back in fashion”. The main appearance was a piece by John-Paul Flintoff called “Home grown apples can save the planet”. Unfortunately what appeared was a hugely pared-down version of his original piece, and he has kindly given Transition Culture permission to reproduce the article in full below.
A while ago I wrote a product review of my EcoKettle, for which I got quite a lot of flack from those who don’t think there is any such thing as an eco gadget. Actually I subsequently read in Chris Goodall’s excellent book How to Live a Low-Carbon Life a pretty thorough demolition of the EcoKettle, arguing that they will take 4 years to pay back and are not built to last anything like that long. So, anyway, we’ll move on from the EcoKettle to a gadget I recently bought which I think is rather wonderful, and which I would recommend to anyone, the Electrisave.
You might be interested to see this great short film, called **Another End of the World is Possible** ( a curious and ultimately illogical statement, surely if there had been an original End of the World there wouldn’t still be a world for Another End to be possible in… if you get my drift…). Anyway, it was made as part of the promotion of the recent Climate Camp, and in it Duncan Law discusses climate change, peak oil and Transition initiatives, in particular the Transition Brixton project he is involved in. It is a rather nicely made and engaging film, and features Duncan sitting in what I assume is his back garden.
Just back from a few glorious days on the Scilly Isles, somewhere I have never been before, but will certainly go back to. What a beautiful place. For those who don’t know, they are a small collection of islands off the south west coast of Cornwall, about 45km west of Land’s End. They were formed as part of a collision between continental plates 200 to 300 million years ago, which forced up granite intrusions, which over time have eroded, leaving the landscapes which run from Dartmoor, down through Cornwall and then out under the sea, rising to put in a last appearance at the Scillies. As well as being a stunningly clean and beautiful place, being there also focused my mind on sea level rise, as the rising and falling of the sea has been central to the evolution of culture and ecology there over time.
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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Well no not really, but I was very surprised to find when visiting St Ives Museum in Cornwall a couple of weeks back that the beginning of the fossil fuel era was so close to home. Although peak oilers like to trace the beginning of our current woes back to the drilling of the first oil wells in Pennsylvania in the 1850s, the real beginnings go back earlier, to 1712, and a man called Thomas Newcomen. It was that year that he finally got his steam engine working properly, which burnt coal to make steam, and then used that steam to drive a pump which drained water from the mines to enable vastly increased rates of coal mining. According to Bill McKibben’s recent book ‘Deep Economy’ (review gestating), his machine replaced a team of 500 horses walking in a circle, an astonishing breakthrough.
