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 a great article from the latest edition (‘The Green Issue’) of Norwich magazine, to whom I am very grateful for permission to republish in full. You can also download the pdf of the article here with more of Tony Buckingham’s excellent photos here.
Close to home
In November, Transition Norwich celebrated its third birthday. Sabine Virani investigates a green initiative that is part of a global movement yet focuses on local need, local interest and local resources.
Welcome back to Transition Culture, and a Happy New Year to you. We’ll kick off with our round-up of Transition for December. We’ll start with a few stories of Transition groups working on energy efficiency and fuel poverty which, even though this has been the UK’s mildest winter for many many years, is still a big concern for many people, especially as energy prices continue to rise. TT High Wycombe have created a Warm Homes Team (see right) who have taken to the streets with their council loaned thermal imaging equipment to address winter fuel poverty.
Surely in our present and unfolding predicament, to recalibrate our economy as a Steady State economy requires an enormous amount of infrastructure, investment and maybe we don’t have that kind of resource any more. Might the kind of more localised world that Transition is talking about be what we get by default rather than by design?
There are many possible futures out there. I think that what I see is a huge amount of resources in our economy, both in terms of capital equipment, intellectual effort, finance, being directed towards the growth agenda. A different agenda, a different ambition for our society and our economy away from the pursuit of growth, would automatically free up, at least in principle, a lot of these resources.
I had the privilege recently of speaking with Peter Victor, Professor in Environmental Studies at York University and author of ‘Managing without growth’ (you can see his full bio here). At a time when the obsession with making our economies grow again is close to hysteria, Peter’s work asks the question as to whether economic growth is the best way to achieve what we want from a society; employment, happiness, good public services, increased equality and so on, and concludes we could have an economy that isn’t growing, but which is actually better at those things. Having read his fascinating book, it felt like a good time to give him a call (I will break this into 2 posts, one today and one tomorrow).
It’s time for the second monthly Transition podcast, in which we return to November’s ‘Round-up of What’s Happening out in the World of Transition‘ and go into more depth on three of the stories it contained. Do let us know of any stories you think should feature in the next one. This month we look at:
Transition Norwich’s Farmshare CSA project, interviewing one of its founders standing in the very field where the CSA is based and hearing the joys and the realities of running such a scheme
Bath and West Community Energy‘s recent share launch which raised £721, 350! Find out their plans, the story so far and their very ambitious plans for energy generation in their area
Transition Llambed (Lampeter) who have just taken on a 20 year lease from their local council for their local hall, and have great plans to turn it into a Transition resource centre and farmers’ market.
At just over 15 minutes in length it’s rich with stories, inspiration and the voices of people out there doing Transition on the ground. You can play it here, or download it to listen to on the train, while you’re cooking, or out running. We do advise against listening to it whilst swimming though, on health and safety grounds. Do let us know what you think….
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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