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.
One of Saturday’s workshops at the 2012 Transition Network conference is called ‘Bringing power to the people’, and it looks at community energy companies and their potential. It will feature four presenters, Allan Shepherd, author of the recently published ‘Home Energy Handbook’ (who we interviewed recently here), Mark Shorrock of Inazin, Chris Rowland of OVESCO, and Peter Capener of Bath and West Community Energy. I asked Peter what he was planning to talk about, how BWCE is going, and what it is that he looks forward to at Transition Network conferences.
Jorgen Randers is professor of climate strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School, and among many other things, was coauthor of The Limits to Growth in 1972, Beyond the Limits in 1992, and Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update in 2004 (you can read his full biog here). He has recently published ‘2052: a global forecast for the next forty years‘. You can see a film of him discussing the book at its launch here. I had the great honour of interviewing Jorgen recently, via Skype from his study at his home in Norway. You can hear the audio of our interview below, or read the transcript. ‘2052’ is available here if you’re in the US, or here in the UK.
The first question I wanted to ask you is what your aim was when you sat down to write ‘2052’?
I’m 67 years old, I’ve spent 40 years of my life working in vain for sustainability and I finally decided that it would be interesting to find out whether I really needed to be continually worrying about the future as I have over the last 40 years because I have now only 20 to 25 years left to live. I thought it would be interesting to try to find out what will actually happen over those 40 years.
Let’s start this month’s round-up in the UK, in Cheltenham. Transition Town Cheltenham have been making some gorgeous short films recently. In the last roundup we shared the one about Ken and his allotment. This month, firstly, Ivor, Remi and Leon talk us through the chickens in their garden, and their 8-person cargo bike:
… and secondly, a short film about In Stitches, who held their The Big Knit event at the Global Footsteps Cafe. A beautiful film about the power of knitting to build community:
George Monbiot announced in the Guardian on Monday “We were wrong on peak oil. There’s enough to fry us all“, an article which concluded “peak oil hasn’t happened, and it’s unlikely to happen for a very long time”. Several people have written, and even stopped me while I’ve been out shopping, to ask for my take on his piece, so here it is. It has been a tricky thing to write, as in the time it took me to compose it, so many other interesting analyses of it have been posted, many of which I have tried to reference here. In a nutshell, I think Monbiot’s piece swallows an over-optimistic take on peak oil, and there are things in his piece that I disagree with and things that I agree with, although I don’t for a moment consider myself a peak oil expert. What he does prompt is a rethink in terms of how we present peak oil. Let’s start with the things I disagree with.
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
Read more»