Transition Culture

15 Dec 2005

The Lessons from Kinsale – Part Three

**Lesson Three – Creating a Vision of an Abundant Future.**

One of essential things in developing community strategies to peak oil is that of facilitating the community to create a vision of how the future could be. We move from working with peak oil, which is about probabilities (how probable is it that it will be horrendous, how probable is peak in 2007 and so on…) to possibilities. The shift is subtle but illuminating. Through the Open Space event we ran in Kinsale, we gave the community (well those who came at least) permission to dream. It was very powerful to see it happening, people going home excited about

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13 Dec 2005

The Lessons from Kinsale – Part Two

**Lesson 2 – Creating a sense that Something is Happening.**

The KEDAP process arose from the Practical Sustainability course at Kinsale FEC, which began in 2001. Over the last 4 years, it has developed a reputation in the town for being a place where unusual yet fascinating things are occuring. People often commented to me that they loved the ‘buzz’ around the town created by it. The various building projects that have taken place there have particularly been of great interest, indeed sometimes students would spend the morning cob building or clay plastering, and then head down to the town for some lunch, leading to their being fondly referred to in the town as the ‘Mud People’. We also had an annual Open Day where visitors would

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12 Dec 2005

The Lessons from Kinsale – Part One

**Lesson 1 – Avoiding ‘Them and Us”.**

With the successful week that the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan (KEDAP) has just had, this feels like a good time to take a look back over the process and try and identify and draw out any lessons that can be learnt from the process with a wider applicability for those of you planning to develop a similar approach elsewhere. In today’s posting I am going to present the background to the KEDAP process, and outline the first principle. Over the next few days I will add more principles, as well as exploring what perhaps has not worked so well with it, and aim to pull it all together at the end. I am publishing it like this by way of a two way dialogue, please feel free to

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12 Dec 2005

Feeding ourselves or driving our cars? – The Cautionary Tale of the Humble (F)Artichoke.

Part of preparing for oil peak and relocalisation is learning about plants that will grow in the gardens we should be starting to put in place now. One interesting and useful plant is the **Jerusalem Artichoke**. They have no connection to Jerusalem at all, actually originating in North America. The name is a corruption of ‘girasole’, from the Italian ‘sunroot’, due to their resemblance to sunflowers, to which they are related. They can be used to make sugar, and have been considered as a replacement for sugar beet. They are a very easy-to-grow garden vegetable, great for novice gardeners, but are also being researched as a source of biodiesel, to be grown on an industrial scale to fuel the nearly 30 million cars on the UK’s roads. And therein lies a dilemma.

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9 Dec 2005

Kinsale Action Plan Receives Award

Last night in Cork city, the **Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan** was awarded Cork Environmental Forum’s prestigious Roll of Honour Award. The award was presented by the Mayor of Kinsale, Cllr. Tomas O’Brien to the Principal of Kinsale Further Education College, Mr. John Thuillier. The event was attended by many people, including Practical Sustainability students past and present. I will post a more detailed account of the evening when I receive one, but for now here are some photos, taken by Graham Strouts (thanks Graham!) and from the CEF press release.

Mr. John Thuillier recieves the award from Kinsale Mayor, Cllr. Tomas O’Brian at the Firkin Crane Theatre, Cork.

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