Transition Culture

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.

Archive for “General” category

Showing results 361 - 365 of 506 for the category: General.


11 Nov 2008

A Call for Input for the Transition Guide to Money

(A message from Peter North at Liverpool University)… Green Books in the UK will be publishing a guide to alternative currencies as part of their “Transition Guides” series called: “Money: how to unleash a money revolution where you live”.  I am writing it, and it will be published in September next year. It won’t be an inaccessible academic tome, but an affordable accessible ‘how to’ guide.  I have to deliver the manuscript in February.

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Discussion: 4 Comments

Categories: Economics, General


7 Nov 2008

Has the great urban agriculture revolution already begun?

One of my favourite Transition Tales in the Transition Handbook was the one about Celebrity Love Allotment, in which aspiring starlet Letitia Lloyd emerged victorious from an allotment in Crouch End, having become a more proficient gardener than the other competitors. The article spoke of a planned followup series called ‘Pimp my Patio’. At the time it seemed absurd, but rapidly it is looking entirely plausable. Things are moving so quickly with regards to the demand for space to grow food and the whole idea of urban food growing that it sometimes defies belief.

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Discussion: 6 Comments

Categories: Food, General


6 Nov 2008

Why, for today at least, I’m celebrating Obama’s victory

I feel I just lived through a seminal moment in history.  Yes, I know all the reasons why we ought not be excited about Obama’s election as President of the US (it will inevitably go sour at some point, his Afghanistan policies, he is still an economic growth man etc. etc. etc.), but just for now, for a few days, I want to bask in the glow of something really quite extraordinary having happened.  In Naomi Klein’s seminal ‘Shock Doctrine’ (a must-read) she explores how neo-conservatism has pounced on (and actively engineered) moments of shock and social disorientation in order to intervene with drastic and self-serving measures that would have been otherwise unimaginable.  The reverse of this is that times of disturbance also offer the potential to do positive things.  Sharon Astyk put it beautifully when she wrote;

I think it is true that had Americans been told after 9/11, “We want you to go out and grow a victory garden and cut back on energy usage” the response would have been tremendous – it would absolutely have been possible to harness the anger and pain and frustration of those moments, and a people who desperately wanted something to do.

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Discussion: 23 Comments

Categories: General


4 Nov 2008

A Blast from the Past No.2: Natural Building in Ireland in 2002

The second film that emerged from my dusty archives is a programme called Leargas, an Irish language programme from RTE television.  This programme is from 2002, and is called ‘A Gra for Straw’ (Gra is Irish for ‘love’).  It offers a fascinating snapshot of the young and emerging green/natural building movement in Ireland then.  It also features a somewhat younger and more windswept me co-ordinating a strawbale building project on a windswept hillside in West Cork.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYPKKd4R3_k

Part Two | Part Three

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Categories: General


3 Nov 2008

Today’s Transition Chat postponed

Unfortunately I just heard from Jeremy Leggett that due to urgent commitments, he is unable to participate in today’s Transition Chat…. we will reschedule and let you know.  Sorry about that.  If you want to meet there and have a chat anyway, do feel free.  Next week’s will look at structure and organisation for Transition initiatives.

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Categories: General