Transition Culture

14 Feb 2007

An Outbreak of Post Petroleum Stress Disorder on the Archers.

This post might be a bit lost on our overseas readers, but it appears that a case of Post-Petroleum Stress Disorder (or something rather like it…) has broken out in Ambridge. Ambridge is the fictitious village which is the home of BBC Radio 4’s long-running soap opera The Archers, an unfortunate addiction passed on to me by my parents many years ago. While the storylines are usually focused on fairly mundane tales of everyday rural lives, (escaping sheep, droopy wheat and bell ringing practice) sometimes it rises above that to embrace topical issues of the day. It did after all originate during World War 2 as a vehicle for getting ideas and information to the farming community. On last night’s programme, however, one of it’s main characters, Nigel Pargeter (played by Graham Seed, below), ‘got’ climate change, and underwent his dark night of the soul, in what was quite a powerful piece of radio.

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8 Feb 2007

My Talk to the Soil Association Conference.

Here is a very lightly edited transcript of the talk I gave to the Soil Association conference on Friday 26th February 2007. You can also download the accompanying Powerpoint presentation of the talk here.

“Good morning and thank you very much. I couldn’t wish for four better preceding speakers (Porritt, Campbell, Leggett & Heinberg) to go before me in this morning session and they were in the main the people who very much inspired and influenced me during the work that I do and this first day of the conference was very much designed to take you on a journey through encountering this issue and what we might do about it. So as a response, as my part of that, I want to take you on the pathway, the journey that I’ve gone through since I was where you are all now, where you’ve just heard about peak oil.

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6 Feb 2007

When Double Glazing Goes Horribly Wrong…

Double glazed windows work because they had a vacuum between the two panes of glass (or three if you are fortunate enough to have triple glazed windows) which stops the heat passing between the two. Energy advice books will often tell you to keep an eye on your double glazed units, if condensation starts to appear between the panes, it is an indicator that the vacuum has gone, that the window is doing very little in terms of energy efficiency, and it needs to be replaced (seeing dead flies or childrens’ toys in there indicates the same…).

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5 Feb 2007

Exclusive to Transition Culture! Peter Russell on life after oil, change and consciousness.

**Peter Russell** studied mathematics and theoretical physics at Cambridge, and then experimental psychology. He traveled to India to study meditation and eastern philosophy, and on his return took up the first research post ever offered in Britain on the psychology of meditation. His principal interest is the deeper, spiritual significance of the times we are passing through. He has written several books in this area, including *The Consciousness Revolution*, *Waking Up in Time*, and *From Science to God*. He recently spoke to a capacity audience in Totnes, and the next morning I went to Schumacher College to interview him for **Transition Culture**.

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30 Jan 2007

Why Life After Oil Will Be Better – from the Western Mail.

The Soil Association conference generated a lot of interest around the subject of peak oil and relocalisation. Some very good pieces appeared in various media, one of the better ones in the Welsh paper, the Western Mail. It is reproduced below….

**Why life after oil will be better – by Molly Watson.**
Experts are predicting that in as little as 12 months’ time our global supplies of oil will start to diminish. Demand will exceed supply, prices will rise, and suddenly all of the things we take for granted like commuting from Swansea to Cardiff, buying roses in February and holidaying abroad will be out of the question.

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