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.
The Ministry of Food: thrifty wartime ways to feed your family today. Jane Fearnley Whittingstall. (2010) Hodder & Stoughton and the Imperial War Museum.
I hadn’t heard of this until a couple of weeks ago, when a group of folks visiting from the US dropped by, en route from London, where they had visited an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum called ‘The Ministry of Food’ (which runs until January 3rd 2011), gave me their copy of this book. Having read this book, I will definitely make a point of going to see the exhibition next time I am in London. The book is the exhibition catalogue, but it is also a superb stand-alone publication, offering many useful insights on how the British people managed during the war, how the Ministry of Food successfully promoted the Dig for Victory/Kitchen Front campaigns which kept the country from starvation, and, ironically, led to the healthiest population in the country’s recent history.
Ian and Margaret Campbell of Transition Town West Kirby recently researched and published, together with the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG), a report called ‘Allotment Waiting Lists in England 2010’. The report, which you can download in full here, is an up-to-date detailed look at what is happening in terms of allotment provision. They found that waiting lists have grown 20% just in the last year, and that in some parts of the UK, some people will need to wait as much as 40 years for an allotment, but the average wait is 3 years. They estimate that nationally, 180,000 people are waiting for allotments, and that while Councils have a statutory duty to provide allotments, most are failing to do so. Publication of the report generated a lot of press coverage, including this piece in the Telegraph, and pieces in the Sun, Mirror (see top left) and the Express. A fantastic piece of work, and great to see Transition initiatives getting this kind of coverage.
Pete North’s new book ‘Local Money: how to make it happen in your community’ will be formally launched at the 2010 Transition Network conference and will be available to order here at the end of this week. The latest book in the Transition Books series, ‘Local Money’ is a comprehensive overview of local currencies, and how to plan and implement such a scheme. It is written with Transition initiatives in mind, drawing from the experience of Transition currencies such as the Brixton Pound and the Lewes Pound, but it also tells the fascinating stories of other alternative currencies, including the story of how local money was a key element of how communities survived the Argentinian crash. To celebrate the launch of the book, I interviewed Pete about the book, and about local currencies….
A few weeks ago I did an interview, via Skype, for the City of Edmonton in Canada. The conversation was for part of a series called “The Way We Green”. They have now posted it online, and you can find it below (in two parts). I seem to be doing a lot of these Skype things these days, I did one yesterday to the Nova Scotia Planning Directors Conference which went very well.
This post was prompted by an email from Brian Davey on behalf of the Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) Group in Transition Nottingham. The subject under discussion is EDAPs (or Community Resilience Plans… or whatever you want to call them), and how one does them for cities, or even if one does them for cities. Their questions give me an opportunity to reflect on the Totnes EDAP process, and to explore some emergent aspects of Transition, especially in the urban context. The Nottingham group have given me permission to reprint their initial email in full, so I will start with that, and then move on to my reflections on the points they raise. This post is as much an invitation for your comments and thoughts as anything else….
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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The Ministry of Food: thrifty wartime ways to feed your family today. Jane Fearnley Whittingstall. (2010) Hodder & Stoughton and the Imperial War Museum. 
