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.
It’s October already, so it’s time to share September’s Transition activities from across the world… we have lots of news from Transition groups in the Netherlands. Their Renewable Energy Project has 75 households involved in it, which between them will have about 800 solar panels on their roofs in the coming spring. Also their first Local and Interest Free money project was launched at the end of September, and they also recently held a Post-fossil Festival, with lots of interesting activities going on. Their ‘Share your stuff – with people you trust’ social website, launched in August, has seen 688 people share 832 goods…wow! They’ve also been making ‘eatable façade gardens’ in the heart of the old city of Deventer, and there’s a great video too:
Two months’ worth of round up in quick succession… normal service will be resumed next month. So, let’s start this roundup in Europe, with an interview with Ellen Bermann of Transition Italia, sat on a terrazza somewhere with a rather nice view (understanding Italian an advantage…).
Transition in Germany is going on well, with another successful training and a further one coming up on 9 October in Bielefeld, so if you’re interested do get in touch with them. There are also lots of new registered users for their German-speaking Transition Network, as well as meetings with key players in German peak oil organisations, and increasing interest from the media as more articles appear in German publications. And congratulations to TT Bielefeld as they celebrate their first year! Thanks to Gerd for this update. Here is a film of him giving a presentation about Transition (understanding German will help considerably.)….
The Totnes Energy Descent Action Plan received a fittingly rousing welcome into the world on Friday night in Totnes Civic Hall, following on from the earlier parade through town and its announcement by the Town Crier. Over a hundred people were treated to local Sharpham wine and nibbles in advance of the main event, buying copies of the EDAP and meeting friends. The audience had been promised, in the event’s poster, ‘fine speeches’, which put those speaking under considerable pressure! It turned out to be a fantastic and memorable event, one that welcomed the long-awaited EDAP into this community.
Ladies and Gentlemen. It gives me the greatest pleasure this morning to launch the Totnes Energy Descent Action Plan website. The site makes the full version of the UK’s first EDAP freely available, invites comments and discussion, and will act as a dynamic portal for people to discuss the Plan and reshape subsequent revisions. It is the creation of the good folks at LumpyLemon, to whom we are greatly indebted. Highlights include the oral history section, Liv Torc’s poem in the section on stories, the Totnes Energy Budget, the photoshopped visions of the future and, if one might suggest a sample chapter, the food section. Copies of the printed EDAP are available here, and will be formally launched on Friday (do come). God Bless Her and All Who Sail in Her (sound of tinkling glass as champagne bottle is smashed against the side of the website)….
As we sit, expecting 1.5 tonnes of Energy Descent Plan to arrive at the TTT office next week, and are nervously wondering if the floor joists of our listed hundreds-of-years-old office (once described in the Sunday Telegraph as a ‘rickety set of rooms) will take the weight, or whether the opticians below will find themselves flattened by lath, plaster and EDAPs, it feels as though we are reaching the finishing line of a marathon. This is a process that began in September 2008 with a launch event, and now, 19 months later, we are done. Tomorrow I’ll reflect on the process, but for today, here is how it came to be.
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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