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.
Here’s a short interview I just came across of an interview with Bart Anderson, editor of the wonderful EnergyBulletin, speaking about Transition and his involvement in it… something nice and gentle for a Friday morning….
This post is a response to Charlotte DuCann’s beautiful and heartfelt post over on the Transition Norwich blog arguing that Transition needs to more explicitly embrace activism. It is wonderful to see, whether through that blog, through Transition Voice, or through the emerging social reporting project, new voices coming through in the Transition blogosphere. Charlotte speaks powerfully to the split that some of those engaged in Transition feel, that they almost need to keep their activism ‘in the closet’ in order to remain engaged. She states that she sees her post as a ‘working document’, and invites reflections, so here are a few of mine.
Gathering for the Unleashing of Transition Albany in the US. Pic: Dorothy Brown.
Welcome to the May monthly roundup of what’s happening in the world of Transition. We hope this issue will lift your spirits and inspire you to continue working within your communities – wherever they may be! We start with Kinsale in Ireland which was the first ever Transition Town in the world! Kinsale’s plans for a bio-waste project is leading the way for Ireland’s first community run, eco-friendly anaerobic digester (AD). The project has recently been boosted by a grant of €37,500 from the Department of the Environment under its Rethink, Recycle, Remake (Rx3).
I am currently reading Carl Sagan’s excellent book ‘The Demon-haunted World: science as a candle in the dark’, which I picked up for a song in a second hand bookshop when I was last in London. Although published in 1996, it is as relevant to today as when it was published. Its focus is on the need for critical thinking and for a grounding in science, and it contains a great chapter called ‘The Fine Art of Baloney Detection’. Here he sets out what not to do when trying to assess the validity of an argument, and common ways that people make flawed arguments. One of those is creating a straw man, which he defines as “caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack “. Having spent Monday morning debating on ABC Radio in Australia with someone who has done just this, I wanted to offer a few thoughts on being a straw man.
Here is a short film from Transition Town Worthing that I thought you might enjoy, giving an overview of what they are up to… . Busy today sorting the final selection of photos for the Transition Companion….
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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