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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.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Localisation” category
Showing results 466 - 470 of 684 for the category: Localisation.
20 Dec 2007
Clearly, in the context of energy descent, this is a question we should all be asking, yet amazingly no one has really asked it in any depth since Kenneth Mellanby’s book ‘Can Britain Feed Itself’ published in 1975. In the most recent issue of the excellent publication The Land, editor and planning reform campaigner Simon Fairlie returns to Mellanby’s report and attempts what he admits is a “back of an A4 envelope” update, and the results are fascinating. You can download the pdf. of his report here, it may be the most fascinating and important piece of reading you take away with you for the Christmas break. His conclusion is similar to Mellanby; yes Britain can feed itself, but the key is the amount of meat we consume.
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12 Dec 2007
**3. Are people in Transition Initiatives forming “public” institutions like town banks, business incubators, workshops, working bees, getting-rid-of-homelessness etc committees?**
In Transition Town Totnes at the moment, some of these are being addressed. Forming new banks is very very difficult in the UK given the regulations, but the town already has a Credit Union, and we are looking into the creation of new investment models that can allow people to invest their money in such a way as to support the relocalisation process. The Totnes Pound is, I suppose, a kind of ‘public institution’, and is currently setting up as a Community Interest Company (CIC). One of the most exciting developments is that TTT,
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11 Dec 2007
**Ted Trainer** is author of the essential Renewable Energy Cannot Power a Consumer Society, which is one of the best arguments for the inevitability of energy descent yet to appear. He has spent many years arguing for localisation, reduced consumption and the end of affluence. He recently received the Transition Primer, and was highly enthused by the whole concept. He sent me a list of 17 questions about it all, which my crap typing has thus far prevented me from launching into. Given the assumption (which I have observed repeatedly as a teacher) that if one person has a question, it is usually the case that it is also a question that lots of other people would like to ask too, and given also that they are great questions, I am going to work my way through them, 2 a day, here at **Transition Culture**. It is also an opportunity for readers who are involved in Transition Initiatives elsewhere to chip in their thoughts, and perhaps how they might have answered the questions, thereby offering a snapshot of the Transition movement in relation to these questions. So, here we go, Question One…
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10 Dec 2007
Many of you will be familiar with the **Totnes, the Nut Tree Capital of Britain** project that has been running for a while now, with the aim of planting as many productive trees within the town as possible, as a food security project as well as an awareness raising one. The first plantings were done with the Mayor earlier this year, and a second round of plantings has just taken place which was sponsored by the Tree Council. A big tree planting day is planned for Sunday 17th February, and we’d like to make it a really impressive scale of tree planting. We are also training people up in the community as Tree Guardians to look after them.
We’d like to invite your help. Are you struggling to think of a Christmas gift for a friend or loved one? Do consider making a donation to Nut Tree Capital of Britain project. We’ll send a card to the recipient, with whatever message you want, and a thank you from TTT. Please help out in whatever way you can to enable the creation of a veritable nut grove next February. You can make your donation easily via PayPal here, or to use other lower-tech means, contact Teresa on 01803 863 110 or teresatotnes(at)yahoo.com. Thanks!
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6 Dec 2007
In Wayne’s World 2 (“you’ll laugh again, you’ll cry again, you’ll hurl again”), the two hapless heroes Wayne and Garth, decide they want to run a rock festival. They book Aerosmith to come and play, but are aware that they don’t have any money to pay them. They are constantly reassured by a series of Castaneda-like visions of Jim Morrison in a desert not to worry; “book them and they will come”, he tells them. In the run up to Transition Bristol’s BIG Event it was an analogy I told the organisers a few times as the scale of what they had planned dawned on them. This was indeed a big event. Hosted in Bristol City Council’s City Hall, this was a big leap of faith for the Transition group which only began less than a year ago. As it turned out, people came, and the event was a huge success (lucky I hadn’t told them that as far as I remember, in Wayne’s World 2, nobody actually does turn up).
Read more»
Clearly, in the context of energy descent, this is a question we should all be asking, yet amazingly no one has really asked it in any depth since Kenneth Mellanby’s book ‘Can Britain Feed Itself’ published in 1975. In the most recent issue of the excellent publication The Land, editor and planning reform campaigner Simon Fairlie returns to Mellanby’s report and attempts what he admits is a “back of an A4 envelope” update, and the results are fascinating. You can download the pdf. of his report here, it may be the most fascinating and important piece of reading you take away with you for the Christmas break. His conclusion is similar to Mellanby; yes Britain can feed itself, but the key is the amount of meat we consume.
