Transition Culture

An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent

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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.

Archive for “Energy” category

Showing results 176 - 180 of 360 for the category: Energy.


21 May 2008

It’s Not That Bad, Is It? The Changing Role of the Peak Oil-Aware

windyI enjoyed Sharon Astyk’s recent piece about energy descent “Our Tails Get in the Way”, and its use of Winnie the Pooh as a metaphor. I am similarly reading Winnie the Pooh to my youngest at the moment, and rediscovering what wonderfully written books they are. As I read last night, I found a bit that illustrated something I have been musing on over the past couple of days. Pooh and Piglet are out walking one a very windy day….

“Supposing a tree fell down Pooh, when we were standing underneath it?”

“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh after careful thought.

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20 May 2008

Why Planning for $200 Barrel Oil is so Important, or, Why Government is Failing Us in Times of Transition

signWith the oil price looking pretty settled at $126 a barrel having reached as high in recent days as $128, what does the UK Government estimate the future oil price to be? Clearly one would imagine that as the most responsible body in the land, charged with making long term decisions that affect us all, they would have their fingers on the pulse of this one. Unfortunately the official position is as insulting as it is pathetic.

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19 May 2008

Is Burning Wood Really A Long-Term Energy Descent Strategy?

wood fireOne of the most essential publications to which I subscribe and which I most look forward to the arrival of is Agroforestry News, produced by the Agroforestry Research Trust. It is scholarly, always illuminating and at the same time is brims with the possibilities of an entirely different way of looking at how we could feed, house and heal ourselves. The latest issue features a fascinating article which, as someone about to install a woodstove, caught my attention, and which I thought would be sure to generate some debate here at Transition Culture.  Thanks to ART for permission to reproduce it here…

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15 May 2008

“The Rocky Road to a Real Transition”: A Review.

picThe Rocky Road to a Real Transition: the transition towns movement and what it means for social change. Paul Chatterton & Alice Cutler. The Trapese Collective. A free download available here (warning: it is a huge file): 2008. 41pp.

It is flattering that so early in a movement such as the Transition movement, people take the time to sit down and write such a detailed critique of it. Trapese Popular Education Collective were previously behind the excellent ‘Do It Yourself Manual’. As the first published external examination of the Transition model it is to be welcomed, and the authors raise a number of important questions. From my perspective, “The Rocky Road…” does a very good job of identifying many of the key areas where Transition is distinctly different from other approaches to social activism.

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14 May 2008

You and Yours get the End of the Age of Cheap Oil, Bigtime…

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Things seem to be moving so fast these days. About 6 months ago, BBC Radio 4’s consumer affairs programme ‘You and Yours’ ran a piece about Transition Initiatives and peak oil where Jeremy Leggett debated peak oil with a ridiculous guy from Audacity.org, who basically argued that the free market will solve all ills and there is still loads of oil left. The presenters rather laughed off the peak oil discussion as though it was all rather alarmist and silly. How rapidly things have changed. Yesterday’s ‘Call You and Yours’ was devoted to high oil prices and how they are affecting the consumer, and it was powerful stuff (you can hear the programme for the next 6 days here).

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