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.
Another piece of high quality research has just been produced, this time by Jonathan Balls of the University of Cambridge, entitled ‘Transition Towns: Local Networking for Global Sustainability?’
It is a very insightful and useful addition to the research literature about Transition. One of his conclusions is: “I argue that it is the structure of Transition that is crucial to grassroots support. As a brand and umbrella organisation, Transition is able to facilitate and foster networking potential and collective resources, which encourages participation in the model. Yet equally important, the self‐organising nature of the model is a key attraction to people and places joining Transition. This dual structure enables the establishment of a diverse discourse coalition, incorporated through a holistic approach to sustainability”.
Every community that organises an Unleashing produces a very different event, a unique reflection of place, culture and people. Last night’s Unleashing of Transition Town Tooting in London was no different. Following hot on the heels of last week’s extraordinary Trashcatchers’ Carnival, the event marked the arrival of Transition Town Tooting, and signalled a collective statement of intent for the future.
Here is a fascinating short film about Transition Heathrow, which has emerged from the proposed (and now scrapped) Third Runway at Heathrow Airport, and is now focused around a community garden project called ‘Grow Heathrow’, a wonderful reclaiming of a derelict market garden site. It will hopefully spark an interesting discussion here about how Transition and activism come together … thanks to the JustDoIt people for making the film…
As the final arrangements are made for this weekend’s Transition Network Conference (the weather forecast is looking good, by the way!), a newly released report from Lloyds Insurance and Chatham House does an amazing job of putting the case for Transition to a business audience (you can download it here). Although given the mad, pre-conference swirl, I haven’t yet read it in detail, its conclusions are striking, indeed quite extraordinary, and I have reproduced them below. Nothing about the role of communities, but then this is a report aimed at business. It does, however, state that any business seeking to be successful in the future will need to be prepared for ‘dramatic changes in the energy sector’, and that energy dependency will become a key vulnerability. It is interesting also that it arrives just after the new UK government announces it is commissioning a review of global resource scarcity and how it will affect the UK. This is, in effect, the Hirsch Report for British business… and provides the perfect case for the work that Transition Training and Consulting are now doing with businesses.
Last year I spoke at the Hay Literary Festival as part of a series of talks that the New Economics Foundation organised. They were very well attended and brought some great speakers together. Now a small book has been produced by nef, edited from transcripts of those talks, and a wonderful little gem it is too. You can order hard copies from nef here, or download it free 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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Another piece of high quality research has just been produced, this time by Jonathan Balls of the University of Cambridge, entitled ‘Transition Towns: Local Networking for Global Sustainability?’
Every community that organises an Unleashing produces a very different event, a unique reflection of place, culture and people. Last night’s Unleashing of
Here is a fascinating short film about
As the final arrangements are made for this weekend’s
Last year I spoke at the Hay Literary Festival as part of a series of talks that the New Economics Foundation organised. They were very well attended and brought some great speakers together. Now a small book has been produced by nef, edited from transcripts of those talks, and a wonderful little gem it is too. You can order hard copies from nef 
