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.
Pete North’s new book ‘Local Money: how to make it happen in your community’ will be formally launched at the 2010 Transition Network conference and will be available to order here at the end of this week. The latest book in the Transition Books series, ‘Local Money’ is a comprehensive overview of local currencies, and how to plan and implement such a scheme. It is written with Transition initiatives in mind, drawing from the experience of Transition currencies such as the Brixton Pound and the Lewes Pound, but it also tells the fascinating stories of other alternative currencies, including the story of how local money was a key element of how communities survived the Argentinian crash. To celebrate the launch of the book, I interviewed Pete about the book, and about local currencies….
A few weeks ago I did an interview, via Skype, for the City of Edmonton in Canada. The conversation was for part of a series called “The Way We Green”. They have now posted it online, and you can find it below (in two parts). I seem to be doing a lot of these Skype things these days, I did one yesterday to the Nova Scotia Planning Directors Conference which went very well.
This post was prompted by an email from Brian Davey on behalf of the Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) Group in Transition Nottingham. The subject under discussion is EDAPs (or Community Resilience Plans… or whatever you want to call them), and how one does them for cities, or even if one does them for cities. Their questions give me an opportunity to reflect on the Totnes EDAP process, and to explore some emergent aspects of Transition, especially in the urban context. The Nottingham group have given me permission to reprint their initial email in full, so I will start with that, and then move on to my reflections on the points they raise. This post is as much an invitation for your comments and thoughts as anything else….
For Transition groups looking to set up viable local food systems, there is a range of models to choose from. There are the better known ones such as CSAs and box schemes, and the more innovative ones, such as Food Hubs. One less well known, but equally exciting model is that being developed at Growing Communities in Hackney, who I have often written about glowingly here. For the uninitiated, here is a short film about their work:
Back in 2007, UEA academic Gill Seyfang wrote that despite the growing interest in the area of Transition initiatives, there is still a “dearth of” research on the topic. Since then, we have Gill’s studies on Transition nationally and on Transition Norwich, Niamh McDonald’s dissertation about Somerset County Council and Transition, and Alp Pir’s thesis about the TT Totnes food group, but little else. I am delighted therefore to introduce you to to a study by Anna Höynälänmaa at Bournemouth University, entitled “Spreading Seeds of Sustainability: factors affecting the development of the Transition movement in Dorset”, which she did for her BSc dissertation. You can download the document here. It offers a very well put together study of how Transition is bedding down in Dorset. Her conclusion? “Although a young movement, the Transition Movement has clearly established a strong network of motivated and enthusiastic Initiatives in Dorset and shows great potential for growth and development”. Many thanks to Anna for allowing me to post her thesis 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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Pete North’s new book ‘Local Money: how to make it happen in your community’ will be formally launched at the 2010 Transition Network conference and will be available to order here at the end of this week. The latest book in the Transition Books series, ‘Local Money’ is a comprehensive overview of local currencies, and how to plan and implement such a scheme. It is written with Transition initiatives in mind, drawing from the experience of Transition currencies such as the Brixton Pound and the Lewes Pound, but it also tells the fascinating stories of other alternative currencies, including the story of how local money was a key element of how communities survived the Argentinian crash. To celebrate the launch of the book, I interviewed Pete about the book, and about local currencies…. 
