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.
It feels appropriate that I should mark the day when the UK government makes it law that all petrol and diesel must contain at least 2.5% of biofuel in some way. In his usual frank and thorough way, George Monbiot tells it like it is in today’s Guardian; “In the midst of a global humanitarian crisis, we have just become legally obliged to use food as fuel. It is a crime against humanity, in which every driver in this country has been forced to participate”. The most appropriate way I can mark this day of momentous stupidity is with the above powerful and to the point cartoon which Richard Heinberg used in his presentation at Findhorn recently.
We rely on oil for everything from transport to aspirins. By 2006 we were using 86 million barrels of oil a day: that’s an Olympic swimming pool of oil every 15 seconds. But one day soon supplies are going to run dry and, according to Rob Hopkins, we need to prepare for that crisis now. His “Transition movement” is about building communities that can stand on their own feet in a post-oil world. To do that you need to increase “resilience”, eco-speak for a system’s ability to cope with external shocks.
Last Thursday in Bristol saw the formal launch of The Transition Handbook, at an event that was also Green Books‘ 21st birthday party. Before I spoke, a DVD was shown of a presentation that Caroline Lucas MEP had sent as she was unable to make it in person. In it she describes the Transition movement as “the most exciting, most hopeful, most inspirational movement happening in Britain today”.
The Transition Handbook is available to order here.
Last week saw the first unveiling of The Transition Handbook, at the Civic Hall in Totnes. Around 150 people came along to the Celebration, and were greeted on arrival by music from local band the Jawa Trio, who played both at the beginning and at the end of the evening. Most of the Transition Town Totnes groups were there, with tables and displays highlighting the work they have been doing over the last 18 months. The evening began with John Elford of Green Books calling the Handbook “the most important book we have yet published”, and telling the story of how they ended up being the book’s publishers.
Something historic happened the other day, and it went pretty much unreported. The price of oil reached $102.59 (and has since gone on to pass $103.95). Although the passing of $100 in early January and then again over the last couple of weeks has a psychological importance and generated a good bit of media attention, it is the passing of $102 that actually means something. It means that we have reached the point that I have for months now in talks referred to as the point beyond which we are into unexplored, unknown territory. We are there, we have arrived, bewildered and blinking into a new world. We have broken through the ceiling; the Age of Cheap Oil can well and truly said to be a thing of the past, and our idea that we can grow our way out of this will now prove itself to be the nonsense it always was.
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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