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 folks from around the world gathered last weekend at Battersea Arts Centre for the 6th annual Transition Network conference. In a week when the Arctic ice reached its smallest ever extent, scientists warned that the world’s weather could be on the verge of running amok and it was suggested that Saudi Arabia, always meant to be the ‘swing producer’ on whom the rest of the world could depend for reliable oil supplies, may become a net importer of oil by 2030, the theme of the conference was, appropriately, ‘Building resilience in extraordinary times’. Unlike previous conferences which had spanned two, perhaps three days, this was, in effect, a 6 day ‘Festival of Transition’, and it turned out to be an extraordinary event which deeply affected those attending.
At the World Student Environmental Summit at Université de Lausanne on Sep. 6th, 2012, a whole session was dedicated to Transition, and I beamed in for a Skype Q&A near the end. It’s a great overview and introduction to Transition:
One of the workshops in the Saturday morning workshops session is called ‘Should we be reshaping Transition for times of austerity?’, and will feature Filipa Pimental, International Coordinator of the Transition National Hubs, Juan del Rio from the Spanish National Hub, and will be chaired by Transition Network’s Rob Hopkins. The workshop will aim to explore how Transition is emerging differently in places where the economic crisis is impacting severely, and in places where its impacts are yet to be strongly felt. In the former, Transition is emerging more along the Gift Economy kind of model, in the latter the REconomy approach is felt to be most suitable. How do those two sit alongside each other, and what does this mean for the role of Transition Network? Expect discussion, debate and dialogue. The three presenters recently joined by Skype to discuss their plans for the workshop:
One of the key workshops at the conference will be ‘The Potential of Localism to Unlock Transition’, which will explore the new tools now available to communities due to the localism agenda and what could be done with them. It will be chaired by Transition Network’s Rob Hopkins and will include Frances Northrop from Transition Town Totnes and Philip Revell from Sustaining Dunbar. It will begin with a crash course in localism, everything you could want to know about it and how it works, from Dave Chapman, Head of Social Action at Locality (formerly the Development Trust Association and BASSAC), and will include plenty of time for discussion and questions. We asked Dave to tell us more about what he’s planning to say at the workshop:
Fiona Ward (far right) with members of Transition Town Lewes’ Enterprise group and a few visitors from Brighton.
Fiona Ward of the REconomy Project recently visited a number of Transition initiatives to find out how their work creating a new economy for their community is going. As the REconomy Day (on the Friday before the Transition Network conference) continues to fill up (over 100 people at last count), I spoke to her, and asked her about her trip:
She has also written a fantastic blog about the key learnings from the trip, as well as reports from each place she visited, which are essential reading in terms of the current state of play of emerging Transition social enterprises. She introduces her blog thus:
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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