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 what I’ve been doing for the last 2 weeks! Everyone who comes to the 2010 Transition Network conference (starting in 8 days) will be given a 108 page booklet containing the programme of events, the complete guide to all the workshops, and the working draft of the ‘seeing Transition as a pattern language’ work I have been doing, and around which the conference, and the second edition of ‘The Transition Handbook’, is based (of which more in coming weeks). You can download the booklet in two parts, the main document here (it is a big file, 8.64MB) and the cover here. For those of you who are coming, here is an opportunity in advance to familiarise yourself with it. For those of you not coming, here’s what you’re missing, there is still time to book. If you find any typos, I don’t want to know, it has gone to the printers!
Now I’ve been to some Unleashings in my time, but last night’s Unleashing of Transition Malvern Hills (TMH) was a stunner. Unleashings are designed to be the launch event which, historically, people look back to as the point when a Transition process arrived, a celebration of a place and its culture, a big push for wider engagement, and a statement of collective intent. I have been to Unleashings before with music, but not one with three choirs, to Unleashings with input from young people, but not one with such inspiring young people speaking, and to Unleashings with input from other local organisations, but not one with the level of affirmation from a wide range of local organisations, including the local MP. In short, it was an extraordinary event.
So the Queen’s Speech has set out the policy priorities for the new government, but were the policies announced a cop-out or do they set out a wartime mobilisation scale of response to climate change and peak oil? These reflections are based on the article about the speech that appeared in yesterday’s Guardian. Plans include setting up a green investment bank, which will make loans available to households for energy efficiency measures and renewable energy installations, the ‘pay-as-you-save’ scheme initially proposed by Ed Miliband. The exact amount of the loans that will be available has not yet been stated, although the Guardian speculates that it could be as much as £15,000. This is a great development, but I wonder if it could yet be taken further? How would DECC respond, for example, if a Transition group were able to get 100 people to take out loans of £15,000 each and club it together as £1.5million in order to finance a community-owned ESCO, an energy company designed to be owned by and financially benefit the community?
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.
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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Here’s what I’ve been doing for the last 2 weeks! Everyone who comes to the 2010 Transition Network conference (starting in 8 days) will be given a 108 page booklet containing the programme of events, the complete guide to all the workshops, and the working draft of the ‘seeing Transition as a pattern language’ work I have been doing, and around which the conference, and the second edition of ‘The Transition Handbook’, is based (of which more in coming weeks). You can download the booklet in two parts, the main document here (it is a big file, 8.64MB) and the cover here. For those of you who are coming, here is an opportunity in advance to familiarise yourself with it. For those of you not coming, here’s what you’re missing, there is still time to book. If you find any typos, I don’t want to know, it has gone to the printers!
