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.
Ladies and Gentlemen. It gives me the greatest pleasure this morning to launch the Totnes Energy Descent Action Plan website. The site makes the full version of the UK’s first EDAP freely available, invites comments and discussion, and will act as a dynamic portal for people to discuss the Plan and reshape subsequent revisions. It is the creation of the good folks at LumpyLemon, to whom we are greatly indebted. Highlights include the oral history section, Liv Torc’s poem in the section on stories, the Totnes Energy Budget, the photoshopped visions of the future and, if one might suggest a sample chapter, the food section. Copies of the printed EDAP are available here, and will be formally launched on Friday (do come). God Bless Her and All Who Sail in Her (sound of tinkling glass as champagne bottle is smashed against the side of the website)….
You may have seen this before, but if not, here is an excellent 3 minute film from TED about leadership, which offers a wealth of insight, many of relevance to Transition…
The long awaited launch of the Totnes and District Energy Descent Action Plan will take place on Friday 7th May 2010 in the centre of town. Over the next few days I will be posting more about the Plan, a labour of love for the last year and a half, which has emerged as a quite extraordinary piece of work. You can now pre-order copies here. The official launch of the Plan will be on Friday May 7th, the day after the Election. Shoppers at the Friday market will be given some tasters of energy descent in colourful and musical spectacle as a parade of enthusiasts carrying pledges weave their way from TTT’s office in Fore Street up to the market and through the stalls at noon. The book will be on sale and a film loop of how the EDAP was created will be on show in adjoining venues during the afternoon. At 5pm there will be a formal launch with local advocates, book signing and cutting the cake in Totnes Civic Hall. All are welcome. Keep up with developments here.
I spent yesterday afternoon in the village of Tuckenhay, a few miles from Totnes and on the Bow Creek, a spur that comes off the River Dart. Beautiful place, now largely a mix of very expensive houses, second homes and holiday cottages. There was a time when it was a vibrant working village, home to a papermill that made bank note quality paper, and a range of trades. Walking past ‘The Old Bakehouse’, ‘The Maltings’ and several other housenames indicating the former role of the houses, I was reminded of an amazing programme on Radio 4 yesterday morning that suggested that the reskilling required to support a more localised world on a meaningful scale may already have started.
I am writing this as I travel back from a great trip to the beautiful city of Lancaster. The reason for the trip was two-fold, firstly to co-present a workshop to the City Council, and secondly for that evening’s Unleashing of Transition City Lancaster (TCL). I arrived off the train in Lancaster at about 2pm, and met Alexis Rowell, Camden’s eco-councillor and author of the forthcoming Transition Books tome on how to work with your local Council, as well as Steve and Rob of TCL. We headed over to the Council offices to set up the workshop we were doing there for Council officers and members.
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
Read more»