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 is an excellent piece from the Mid-Wales Permaculture Network site, an interview which looks at how Transition initiatives build relationships with other organisations. It is very insightful, and so, with gratitude to Roz Brown and the MWPN, here it is.
Roz Brown in conversation with Dave Prescott of Transition Hay-on-Wye
The need for broad community involvement is frequently recognised by TT groups, and is certainly advocated by the fonder of the movement. But many TTs struggle to identify and work with existing community organisations to forward the process of meeting the global challenges of climate change and peak oil. One TT group in Mid Wales proceeded from the outset to foster this collaboration and work with and through other organistions. In this interview, Dave Prescott tells the story of Transition Hay on Wye.
Paul from Transition Town Deventer in the Netherlands just sent me the link to this. Paul describes it as “a slide show of announcements, programs, photos etcetera of our activities in the first year of TT Deventer. Even though most of the visitors of Transitionculture.org won’t be able to understand Dutch, it still might be a nice illustration of what a starting Transition initiative can do”. During 2009, they held over 60 different events and activities, engaging over 2300 people. Impressive stuff….
A small group of us have spent the last few weeks working on what will become a booklet for Transition initiatives, which will help with the setting up of community grillings of our political candidates, allowing constituents to assess the degree of resilience thinking in their policies. It could provide the basis for an event, co-run with a range of other similar local organisations. It sets out how to do hustings, a guide to what resilience means, and also 10 Frequently Asked Questions that might arise. We are now throwing the draft over to you for your thoughts and consideration. We hope you find this useful, and look forward to your thoughts.
The Western Morning News is a daily paper that covers the South West of England. Often its editorials denounce the idea of windfarms, and its letter pages are often full of climate sceptics. All the more heartening that the following editorial appeared in today’s paper, alongside a very good news piece about TTT’s DECC award. An editorial like this would have been unimaginable a couple of years ago, it is fascinating how fast things are moving. I must say though that I have lived in Totnes for nearly 5 years now, and have yet to see a carved bar of soap (see below)!
“The South Devon town of Totnes has come in for a fair bit of criticism over the years as the South West capital of the ‘alternative culture’. Listen to the jeers of its critics and you would think the average resident of the TQ9 postcode was a sandal-wearing, crystal-gazing soap carver subsisting entirely on brown rice and organic parsnips.
Regular readers will know that I don’t fly, and that if I can’t get somewhere by train, we use other means of communicating. But should the same apply to everyone who works for Transition Network? Should the organisation make a commitment that anyone who represents it similarly seeks alternative ways to get around? This is a very live discussion within the organisation. In order to move it forward, Naresh Giangrande and myself had an email exchange on the subject (see below), and now we’d love to hear your thoughts. Should an organisation committed to modelling Transition also exemplify sustainable transport? As the Copenhagen talks kick off, with many thousands of climate activists flying there, this is a very pertinent question. Have a read of the debate so far, and then have your say too….
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 is an excellent piece from the Mid-Wales Permaculture Network site, an interview which looks at how Transition initiatives build relationships with other organisations. It is very insightful, and so, with gratitude to Roz Brown and the MWPN, here it is.
