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.
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.
The past couple of Saturdays I have spent happily in the garden in the worryingly unseasonal weather, beginning the process of turning my not very useful garden into something more useful, building my family’s resilience, food security and gardening ability. The garden is a south-facing slope, with about 4 inches of topsoil on top of what is gravelly clay. I have long been a devotee of no-dig raised bed gardens, but have never had to construct one onto a slope before. In my previous garden I made un-edged raised beds on the level, but in these sloped surroundings, something more substantial was called for.
Last night’s **The One Show** on BBC One included a great piece about Transition Town Totnes, which you can watch online for the next 6 days which concluded with the surreal site of Westlife passing Totnes Pounds around and chatting about them! Its not everyday that one sees that kind of thing… . The piece itself crammed a lot into a short time, giving a concise overview of what TTT is all about, and how it is working. I just spent half an hour trying to do screen grabs of images from the piece, but the programme I have they just all go black. Anyone able to do screen grabs for us of Westlife with Totnes Pounds?! (**Update** Thanks to Mark Donaldson who just sent in the pic below..)
The debate has raged recently among the online peak oil/localization community about whether peak oil will result in the relocalisation of food, or whether it will in fact lead to a shoring up and revalidation of industrial agriculture. Stuart Staniford questioned the assumption that peak oil will inevitably lead to the relocalisation of food supply, an argument which was, I think, pretty thoroughly savaged by the astonishingly productive Sharon Astyk (does this woman sleep?). I want to offer a new angle on this which I hope might add to the ongoing discussion, triggered by a document produced by the British Cabinet Office recently. It raises the possibility that the discussion so far has rather missed the point, and that the key driver for relocalisation, of food at least, will not be peak oil or climate change, but could in fact be the obesity crisis.
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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