Transition Culture

12 Dec 2007

Ted Trainer’s Transition Q&A Part Two.

**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

Cornish Transitioners Take to Their Bikes to Raise Awareness About Climate Change.

**Cornwall Climate Change Bike/Bus/Train Relay for Transition on 8th December 2007. Climate Change Action Day.**

Anyone who was on a bike or waiting for a bus or train on Saturday could not doubt the effects of Climate Change, as a group of dedicated people carried messages from Mayors across Cornwall to Truro supporting Global actions to help the planet, and highlight the work of Transition Towns. On what was called by a Cornish weatherman ‘the worst weekend of the year,’ two cyclists from Penzance started from the Guild Hall at 10:00am and travelled to Helston, where at 12:00pm they passed the message from their Mayor and Mock Mayor to the Mayor of Helston, who adding his letter handed them on to 3 cyclists setting off for Falmouth.

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11 Dec 2007

Ted Trainer’s Transition Q&A Part One.

**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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7 Dec 2007

David Fleming’s New Book Provides Death Knell for Nuclear Power.

David Fleming, creator of the concept of Tradeable Energy Quotas and author of the forthcoming and rather wonderful “Lean Logic”, has just published **The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy**, which is a thorough demolition of the case for nuclear power being a solution to peak oil. and climate change. You can down load the pdf. for free here or you can order printed copies here. Like much of David’s writing, it patiently yet assertively builds its arguments, backed up by exhaustive research, to build a case against nuclear power that looks pretty much bulletproof to me. The report’s key findings are;

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6 Dec 2007

Transition Bristol’s BIG Event.

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).

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