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.
I read with interest John Michael Greer’s recent post, The Costs of Community, and then Sharon Astyk’s response, On the Problem of Community and I wanted to add some thoughts to the flow. Here is a very quick summary of the debate thus far… Greer’s basic argument is that the way politics used to work was that citizens formed themselves into groups and those groups into movements and that was what brought the pressure to bear to make things happen. Today, we are so atomised and isolated that this doesn’t happen, due, in part, to our preciously-guarded sense of autonomy, our lack of time, and our lack of enthusiasm for putting in the work that actually building communities entails. Rebuilding community, he argues, “requires “sacrificing some of the autonomy so many Americans guard jealously”.
Naresh Giangrande recently sent a second epistle from Copenhagen, this time in the form of an interview with Tim Jackson. Tim is the Economic Commissioner for the Sustainable Development Commission, and is author of ‘Prosperity Without Growth‘, which is brilliant, and which I am currently half-way through. You can hear the interview by clicking this link here. A fascinating look at what Transition Economics might look like…
Transition Network is delighted to be able to present the first in an occasional series of pdf. only ‘How to’ guides, focusing on the experience of the Lewes Pound, and how to set up a similar scheme. Written by Oliver Oliver Dudok van Heel, one of the scheme’s founders, it is a clear and concise guide, a delicious taster for Pete North’s ‘Local Money’, (the second in the ‘Transition Books’ series, after ‘Local Food’) due out in March. To help us cover the costs of its production, we’d really appreciate donations along the lines of what you think it is worth to you and how helpful you found it. You can download the guide here, and make donations via the button below. We hope you find it useful.
So what might it look like when a local authority really gets Transition? Earlier this week I received a very excitable email from Cristiano Bottone, one of the movers behind Transition Italia, and the Transition of his own town, Monteveglio, near Bologna. “Monteveglio‘s local authority signs a strategic partnership with “Monteveglio Città di Transizione”….This is a revolution for this country, believe me. Thank you for all your help. I love you ;-)”. So what did the Monteveglio authorities actually sign up to, why is Cristiano so excited about it, and what does it mean?
I spent the earlier part of this week in Austria at a meeting of European Ashoka Fellows and a fascinating couple of days it proved to be. I travelled there by train, with an overnight sleeper from Paris to Munich on the way out, and a stop-over in Cologne on the way home, which was very enjoyable (albeit somewhat knackering). So, in a nutshell, Ashoka is an international organisation that promotes the idea of social entrepreneurship, finding and supporting people around the world (there are over 2000 fellows internationally, the large majority in the developing world) with ideas that lead to change which is a new idea that can be scaled up (I became a Fellow in March). The idea of the 2 days was to be an orientation for this year’s intake of Fellows.
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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I read with interest John Michael Greer’s recent post, The Costs of Community, and then Sharon Astyk’s response, On the Problem of Community and I wanted to add some thoughts to the flow. Here is a very quick summary of the debate thus far… Greer’s basic argument is that the way politics used to work was that citizens formed themselves into groups and those groups into movements and that was what brought the pressure to bear to make things happen. Today, we are so atomised and isolated that this doesn’t happen, due, in part, to our preciously-guarded sense of autonomy, our lack of time, and our lack of enthusiasm for putting in the work that actually building communities entails. Rebuilding community, he argues, “requires “sacrificing some of the autonomy so many Americans guard jealously”.
