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.
Two months’ worth of round up in quick succession… normal service will be resumed next month. So, let’s start this roundup in Europe, with an interview with Ellen Bermann of Transition Italia, sat on a terrazza somewhere with a rather nice view (understanding Italian an advantage…).
Transition in Germany is going on well, with another successful training and a further one coming up on 9 October in Bielefeld, so if you’re interested do get in touch with them. There are also lots of new registered users for their German-speaking Transition Network, as well as meetings with key players in German peak oil organisations, and increasing interest from the media as more articles appear in German publications. And congratulations to TT Bielefeld as they celebrate their first year! Thanks to Gerd for this update. Here is a film of him giving a presentation about Transition (understanding German will help considerably.)….
We have a guest post today, from Jules Peck (see left), originally posted at Citizen Renaissance.com. We have had some initial explorations of this here at Transition Culture already, but Jules offers some useful additional insights into what the Big Society agenda might mean for Transition, and vice versa. Our thanks for allowing us to publish his piece here.
Big Society – Small State.
“Countering Margaret Thatcher’s famous declaration, David Cameron has asserted that “there is such a thing as society”. His vision for this society is based on his Big Society programme of “social action, public service reform and community empowerment… a shift from state action to social action”. His concept of the Big Society makes a distinct break, at least rhetorically, with the individualist neo-liberal model of the Thatcher era. And its success rests, to a large degree, on the abilities and energy of citizens, communities and the third sector. Citizen Renaissance Movements like Transition Towns (of which I am a great fan) would argue that they have been active in building a Big Society for years.
Open Eco-Home days are a great way of promoting the idea of green building in all its many manifestations. I have no idea whether the two events were planned to coincide, but two Transition initiatives, Totnes and Stroud, are holding Open Eco-Homes weekends at the same time, the weekend of the 11th-12th September. The Totnes weekend (see poster left) provides access to 13 houses which have taken steps to reduce their energy use, ranging from a new cob house with a thatched roof (absolutely gorgeous) to some of the houses that have participated in Transition Streets and have made a range of energy efficiency improvements. You can download the flyer for the weekend in 2 parts, here and here. The Stroud event visits over 20 homes, and has become an established part of the local calendar. They also produce an excellent leaflet for the event, which you can download here. You can find out more about the Stroud events here. Transition Town Lewes also did one last year, but I haven’t been able to find any links to their doing it this year. Perhaps they, or any other Transition initiative doing one, might let us know in the comments thread below? Do try and get along to support one of these excellent events…
The rather cheeky new logo for newly formed Transition Derwent Valley (Australia)
Here is July’s round up, August’s will be along shortly, we are still catching up after the break. We’ll start this with a plea to all you Transition initiatives who have wonderful projects that you’re not telling us about! The plea is to add them to theTransition Network Projects Directory here so everyone else can see them too, and get new ideas for what they can do… So, for July we start in New Zealand, where TT Kapiti is putting on a series of skills workshops to see you through the dark winter months and prepare you for the summer, so if you’re around that way, why not join in and learn a new skill. Here’s New Zealand’s James Samuel commenting on Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), with a couple of little movies to help explain why carbon trading isn’t an answer for reducing carbon emissions… if you’re interested in knowing more about TEQs, then have a look at Shaun Chamberlin’s talk and slides on the subject to help you make sense of it all.
Transition Culture is back! After a month of Cornish beaches, hemp lime plastering, wood store-building, cinema visits, catching up with friends, storytelling festivals, campfires and wrestling with cabbage white caterpillars, normal service is resumed. Nice to see you again, you’re looking well. I’m kicking off again with some reflections on John Michael Greer’s ‘green wizardry’ concept, which he calls “the current Archdruid Report project”, which will no doubt generate some interesting debate. Greer, for those who don’t know, is a blogger and author whose work I usually admire greatly, whose excellent blog can be found here.
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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