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.
Transition West Kirby want new allotments. When do they want them? Now! Whadda we want... etc. etc.
April brought lots more lovely projects for you to enjoy and share… From Australia, the West Hobart Environment Network (or WHEN), a member of Transition Tasmania, enjoyed a relaxed ‘produce swap’ under the shade of a very large tree, and they’ve also kindly shared with us Annie’s recipe for no-knead bread…perfect for the lazy ones like me! TT Blackwood had a busy day giving out seeds and sharing knowledge on how to grow them in a forest setting, finding new skills to share, and raising awareness about Transition. And some ideas from Sonya on taking small steps to big lifestyle changes that will help us live more lightly on the Earth.
Ladies and Gentlemen. It gives me the greatest pleasure this morning to launch the Totnes Energy Descent Action Plan website. The site makes the full version of the UK’s first EDAP freely available, invites comments and discussion, and will act as a dynamic portal for people to discuss the Plan and reshape subsequent revisions. It is the creation of the good folks at LumpyLemon, to whom we are greatly indebted. Highlights include the oral history section, Liv Torc’s poem in the section on stories, the Totnes Energy Budget, the photoshopped visions of the future and, if one might suggest a sample chapter, the food section. Copies of the printed EDAP are available here, and will be formally launched on Friday (do come). God Bless Her and All Who Sail in Her (sound of tinkling glass as champagne bottle is smashed against the side of the website)….
I spent yesterday afternoon in the village of Tuckenhay, a few miles from Totnes and on the Bow Creek, a spur that comes off the River Dart. Beautiful place, now largely a mix of very expensive houses, second homes and holiday cottages. There was a time when it was a vibrant working village, home to a papermill that made bank note quality paper, and a range of trades. Walking past ‘The Old Bakehouse’, ‘The Maltings’ and several other housenames indicating the former role of the houses, I was reminded of an amazing programme on Radio 4 yesterday morning that suggested that the reskilling required to support a more localised world on a meaningful scale may already have started.
As regular readers will know, I get very excited about good compost. It is one of the most exquisite things on earth. Words like ‘crumbly’, ‘friable’, ‘rich’, ‘humus’ and ‘moist’ verge on the erotic for me, and from comments posted here previously, I know many of your share my enthusiasm for the ‘brown stuff’. Therefore, the pictures I am about to show you verge on being ‘compost porn’, an entirely wholesome way to set the collective pulse racing. A bit late in the season, I finally tracked down a local farmer with well rotted muck for my raised beds. Often such a request results in a load of barely rotted, nettle-filled stuff you have to leave to compost for a couple of years. However, I had little idea what exquisite compost fate had in store.
Vandana Shiva was in Totnes recently, and gave a talk as part of an evening co-presented by TTT and Schumacher College. Those darlings from nu-project were there, and documented the evening for posterity. Vandana was on fine form, and these two short films below are a great record of her talk.
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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