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.
Today’s guest post is from Naresh Giangrande, and explores the story of the Totnes Community Wind Farm, which is reaching a crucial stage in its planning application for two wind turbines near Totnes. He explores how sometimes, it appears, even unprecedented levels of community support just aren’t enough, and how it appears local planners have decided the view from one church and a listed building outweigh the economic and community benefits, not to mention the benefits to future generations:
Yes the small sleepy town of Totnes in South Devon is again in the latest, the hottest front line of cultural dissonance, this time over wind turbines. The Totnes Renewable Energy Society (TRESOC) is seeking planning permission to erect two 2.3 megawatt wind turbines in the best location for wind energy generation in South Devon, itself one of the windiest part of England. Some people love ’em some hate ’em (wind turbines that is), and we are well endowed with many in both camps.
I am very honoured to be able to present to you an interview I conducted recently with climate scientist Michael Mann. Michael is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC). He is author of recently published ‘The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars’ which I can highly recommend. In our interview we discussed the Hockey Stick, the state of play of climate science, and how it was being in the eye of the ‘Climategate’ storm of a couple of years ago. Here is the interview as a podcast, or below is the transcript, lightly edited for brevity.
Today we have a guest post from Kate de Selincourt of the AECB, the Sustainable Building Association:
Are you keen on encouraging sustainable and resilient building in your community – and would you like to have some good chats about it? If you have an AECB group nearby you have an untapped resource. Transition members who are involved with building and energy initiatives are being invited to come along to a local meeting of the AECB (Sustainable Building Association) and take advantage of the common ground between the two organisations.
December is one of the quieter times for Transition initiatives, but even so, we’ve quite a packed December round-up for you. We start, seasonally, with two Winterfests, a seasonal opportunity to celebrate and reflect on what a Transition group is up to. We’ll start in Stroud, with this short film of the Transition Stroud Winterfest:
Welcome back to Transition Culture for 2013. It is a year fraught with dangers yet also rich with possibilities. I hope that Transition Network, and this blog, and all the other resources out there for people wanting to embrace these possibilities will continue to support and inspire you through 2013. Let’s kick this year off with a talk I gave last October at Communicate 2012: Breaking Boundaries, hosted by the Bristol Natural History Consortium. I was asked to speak about what was my vision for 10 years in the future. May 2013 bring more, and firmer, steps towards its realisation:
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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