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.
I was honoured last week to be able to interview Michael Shuman, who has long been one of pioneers of thinking on the question of localisation. It was a fascinating conversation…
Can you tell us about your work and what you do, for those unfamiliar with that…
Right now my formal job portfolio is split 50/50 between BALLE, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and another for profit called Cutting Edge Capital. BALLE is a non-profit founded about 10 years ago, which is building networks of local businesses through North America and I do research and economic development activities for them. Cutting Edge Capital is really working with small businesses and communities to help them figure out ways of creating more local investment solutions.
Here is a clip from a programme made for Rai 3 in Italy which looked at the future (or not) of economic growth and which included a trip to see Transition in Totnes, in Berlin and also in Monteveglio. Great stuff, although understanding Italian is definitely an advantage….
Last week saw the Parlimentary launch of Tradeable Energy Quotas (TEQs), the brilliantly simple carbon rationing approach developed by the late Dr. David Fleming with the support of ‘Transition Timeline’ author Shaun Chamberlin. The excellent new report (which you can download here) was launched at an event featuring Caroline Lucas MP, John Hemming MP, Jeremy Leggett and Shaun. Each gave a presentation, you can see Shaun’s very clear overview of what TEQ’s is and how it works below…
Well now, here’s an idea. At last week’s ‘Confronting Change’ event in London (see left), a question was asked about politics, and how Transition might be accelerated in terms of mainstream politics. Polly Higgins, who is a barrister, and who is promoting the idea of international legislation to outlaw ‘ecocide’, suggested that, in the same way that certain key pieces of enabling legislation have led to great advances in the past, perhaps the time is right for a Transition Enabling Act, designed not to ban lots of things, but positive legislation that enables all that needs to happen in order for Transition to scale up rapidly over the next 5 years. This was met with much excitement, with Michael Meacher MP saying that were such legislation to exist, he would be happy to help drive it through the House of Commons. So, how about it? What we need now is your input, debate and discussion…. (read on…)
A fantastic evening last night at the South Bank Centre in London, organised by Transition Finsbury Park. The event was a sell-out, and proved to be an inspirational coming together of London Transition initiatives, under the title “Confronting Change”. Polly Higgins, a barrister and author of ‘Eradicating Ecocide’ was the host and got the evening underway. She had recently returned from the COP16 negotiations at Cancun, and talked about what had happened there.
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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