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.
On Richard Heinberg’s recent visit to Totnes, which included a talk on ‘The End of Growth‘, myself, Ben Brangwyn of Transition Network (BB) and Frances Northrop of Transition Town Totnes (FN) did an interview with Richard. Part 2 will appear here tomorrow….
Welcome to Totnes, lovely to have you here again! The first question is: your new book is about economics and the book before was looking at coal….but in terms of the peak oil question that underpinned your previous books, what’s your assessment of where we are now? Is it still as much a part of your overall analysis as it was….?
Oh yes, very much so. The new book, The End of Growth makes the case that world economic growth is effectively at an end, both for reasons internal to the world financial monetary system and also for reasons external to the world financial monetary system and the primary factor outside the monetary system is oil.
A week ago today, Richard Heinberg gave a stunning talk in Totnes on ‘The End of Growth’. Thanks to our dear friends at nuproject, I can now unveil the film of his talk. Enjoy… .
You win some, you lose some. In July 2008, Somerset County Council, then a Liberal Democrat-controlled council, passed a resolution supporting its local Transition initiatives. It was much lauded as a visionary piece of policy-making, a council noting the vibrant activity of Transition groups within the county and deciding to honour that and to begin seriously to explore with them the potential overlaps and interfaces between those two ‘tiers’ in the community. However, it has become clear that what started so boldly and with such great promise has since fallen away. In the spirit of learning from such reversals, this piece explores what we can learn from recent developments in Somerset, and also what we might draw from them in relation to the government’s current ‘localism’ agenda.
I was honoured last week to be able to interview Michael Shuman, who has long been one of pioneers of thinking on the question of localisation. It was a fascinating conversation…
Can you tell us about your work and what you do, for those unfamiliar with that…
Right now my formal job portfolio is split 50/50 between BALLE, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and another for profit called Cutting Edge Capital. BALLE is a non-profit founded about 10 years ago, which is building networks of local businesses through North America and I do research and economic development activities for them. Cutting Edge Capital is really working with small businesses and communities to help them figure out ways of creating more local investment solutions.
Dave Chapman exploring the Dairy Crest site in Totnes, site of the proposed ATMOS Project.
Dave Chapman works for BASSAC (the British Association of Settlements and Social Action Centres) and lives in Totnes, where he is active within the ATMOS Project. For the Ingredient of Transition being prepared for the forthcoming new Transition book on the Community Ownership of Assets I talked to Dave about community asset development and also about the ATMOS Project.
Why is the community ownership of assets important? Why does it matter that the community is able to own its own assets?
Self-determination, more than anything else. It’s about defining where you’re going to. Land ownership enables you to define where you take a community in the end, so it can come down to supporting energy use, food use, employment, housing – it’s the basis for the right mix within a community.
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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Welcome to Totnes, lovely to have you here again! The first question is: your new book is about economics and the book before was looking at coal….but in terms of the peak oil question that underpinned your previous books, what’s your assessment of where we are now? Is it still as much a part of your overall analysis as it was….? 
