Quite a good article in the Telegraph on Saturday, High Street, High Noon, comparing how the recession is affecting Totnes and Chester, and how they are both responding. The reporter, Mick Brown, seemed to find his finding out about Transition rather fascinating, and following his trip to Totnes and his interviews here, he subsequently made a point of coming to the ‘Transition Everywhere’ event run as part of the 2009 Transition Network conference. A very thoughtful piece, avoiding (mostly) the temptation to write loads of stuff about Totnes being full of hippies, crystal shops and ‘gong showers’, and introducing, with care and respect, Transition thinking to the readers of the Telegraph. Quite an impressive achievement, introducing Telegraph readers to the idea that the end of economic growth might actually be quite a good thing!
For those of you who have been following the spread of Transition in New Zealand, you might find this interesting. Last week I took part in a discussion about Transition on Radio New Zealand, along with James Samuel (who has done so much to catalyse Transition there) and Gabrielle Young (of Transition Waiheke). The discussion looked at Transition in the NZ context and was, I think, rather interesting. You can listen to the piece by clicking here.
At the Transition Network conference, Richard Heinberg gave an online presentation looking at the concept of Emergency Planning for Communities, something he initially unveiled at Findhorn last year. You can see his presentation here. For a while now, Richard and I have been discussing the tension between longer term planning for resilience and the more immediate and pressing responses demanded by sudden and rapid change. It is still an ongoing discussion, but we thought now, with Richard’s presentation, it would be a good time to open up the conversation for your thoughts. What follows is the series of email exchanges we have had since late last year.
Had a fascinating afternoon recently at Schumacher College (you can read Simon Berry from DEFRA’s account of the day here). Schumacher is part of the Dartington Estate, and I was asked to speak about the future of Schumacher as part of the wider Dartington Estate. At present Dartington’s land is let for conventional dairy farming, and the lease comes up for renewal in 2014, so the process is starting of thinking what to do with the Estate’s 1000 acres. Here is the talk I gave, filmed on Simon’s phone…
Sometimes there are particular films that really capture the essence of what Transition is all about. Here is one, a beautiful 6 minute piece about the 400 Fruit Trees project in Kilkenny in Ireland. It is so great when people document what they are doing in this way. It is a beautifully relaxed and inspiring start to your day.
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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Quite a good article in the Telegraph on Saturday, High Street, High Noon, comparing how the recession is affecting Totnes and Chester, and how they are both responding. The reporter, Mick Brown, seemed to find his finding out about Transition rather fascinating, and following his trip to Totnes and his interviews here, he subsequently made a point of coming to the ‘Transition Everywhere’ event run as part of the 2009 Transition Network conference. A very thoughtful piece, avoiding (mostly) the temptation to write loads of stuff about Totnes being full of hippies, crystal shops and ‘gong showers’, and introducing, with care and respect, Transition thinking to the readers of the Telegraph. Quite an impressive achievement, introducing Telegraph readers to the idea that the end of economic growth might actually be quite a good thing!
