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.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Politics” category
Showing results 21 - 25 of 154 for the category: Politics.
10 Nov 2011
I spent most of the day yesterday around St. Pauls’ Cathedral visiting the Occupy London Stock Exchange camp there. With hindsight I probably didn’t pick the best day. November 9th was also the day of the student protests and the police presence in the city was the biggest I think I have ever seen in my life. From the moment I left St. Pauls’ tube station, there were ranks of police, policevans, dogs, horses, all kinds of different police units all over the place. During the day I was often reminded of ‘Apocalypse Now’ or ‘Boyz in the Hood’, given the constant noise of helicopters overhead, which at times, even made conversation difficult.
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2 Nov 2011
Here is a guest post from Michaela, Rob & Dinky of Transition Cowbridge, telling the story of their Transition initiative’s role in fighting a proposed gas fracking site.
Thursday 20 October 2011 was a landmark day in the Vale of Glamorgan and one that will have a knock-on effect around the country and hopefully beyond. It was a day where community power helped to bring about a unanimous decision by the local county council to deny Coastal Oil & Gas the right to test for shale gas at an industrial estate on the outskirts of the village of Llandow.
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11 Oct 2011
Last week Bill McKibben was in town, and I was lucky enough to get to interview him for half an hour before his talk to a packed St. John’s Church in Totnes (which Jay Tompt reflected on here). I had asked for some questions for Bill on Twitter, and apart from the frankly bizarre “will I ever play the piano again?”, tried to weave most of the questions people sent into the interview. My thanks to Bill for finding time in his hectic schedule:
Hi Bill… great to see you… what brings you to Totnes?
The two things that bring me to Totnes are wanting to get back to Schumacher College for a little while, which is a remarkable place, especially on this 100th year of Schumacher, and wanting to get back to Totnes and see the ‘Mother Church of Transition’! (laughs).
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6 Oct 2011
In 2004, Steve Pacala and Robert Socolow published a paper in Science about climate mitigation which introduced the concept of ‘stabilisation wedges’. This proposed that rather than waiting for some ‘magic bullet’, one amazing technology that would bring climate change under control, what was needed was the immediate and much expanded application of a combination of existing and proven technologies which, combined, would have the desired effect. “Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century” they wrote. It was a timely and seminal approach. But it strikes me that, given that their underpinning assumptions neglect a wider perspective in term of the ‘perfect storm’ of other challenges that increasingly keep climate change company in the “reasons-to-lie-awake-at-night” charts (powerfully described by Jeremy Rifkin recently), that it is in desperate need of a profound overhaul, rather than having been ‘reaffirmed’ by the intervening 7 years.
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16 Jun 2011
I wrote the other week about a debate I had been on on ABC Radio in Australia with writer, artist and psychotherapist Dr Chris James about Transition. The discussion was chaired by host Michael Cathcart and it explored her idea that Transition “a way of opting out while consumer society carries on business as usual” and, quite bizarrely, seems to blame Transition for the increase in attacks on refugees in Australia! You can listen to the piece, or download it as a podcast for your listening pleasure, here.
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I spent most of the day yesterday around St. Pauls’ Cathedral visiting the Occupy London Stock Exchange camp there. With hindsight I probably didn’t pick the best day. November 9th was also the day of the student protests and the police presence in the city was the biggest I think I have ever seen in my life. From the moment I left St. Pauls’ tube station, there were ranks of police, policevans, dogs, horses, all kinds of different police units all over the place. During the day I was often reminded of ‘Apocalypse Now’ or ‘Boyz in the Hood’, given the constant noise of helicopters overhead, which at times, even made conversation difficult.
