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 theme for today was work. The first plenary session featured four speakers. The first, Gilbert Rist from Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes in Geneva, was a pretty forthright dismissal of economics as it is practiced today. We need, he said, to free ourselves of the dominance that economics has over peoples’ will. There are two reasons why it is fatally flawed. The first is that it is based upon a mechanistic model which makes it impossible for economists to understand present ecological and environmental problems, especially in the biosphere.
Transition folks from around the world gathered last weekend at Battersea Arts Centre for the 6th annual Transition Network conference. In a week when the Arctic ice reached its smallest ever extent, scientists warned that the world’s weather could be on the verge of running amok and it was suggested that Saudi Arabia, always meant to be the ‘swing producer’ on whom the rest of the world could depend for reliable oil supplies, may become a net importer of oil by 2030, the theme of the conference was, appropriately, ‘Building resilience in extraordinary times’. Unlike previous conferences which had spanned two, perhaps three days, this was, in effect, a 6 day ‘Festival of Transition’, and it turned out to be an extraordinary event which deeply affected those attending.
The Totnes Renewable Energy Society (TRESOC) have just submitted their planning application for two 2.3MW wind turbines on the edge of Totnes. It’s very exciting. TRESOC began life at a Transition Town Totnes Open Space meeting about energy, and now has over 500 members from the local community who have bought shares in it. To support their application, TRESOC are asking for as many people as possible from the local area to write letters of support before the public consultation period closes on September 26th. In the hope that it might encourage others to do so, here is the letter that I just submitted:
One of the workshops in the Saturday morning workshops session is called ‘Should we be reshaping Transition for times of austerity?’, and will feature Filipa Pimental, International Coordinator of the Transition National Hubs, Juan del Rio from the Spanish National Hub, and will be chaired by Transition Network’s Rob Hopkins. The workshop will aim to explore how Transition is emerging differently in places where the economic crisis is impacting severely, and in places where its impacts are yet to be strongly felt. In the former, Transition is emerging more along the Gift Economy kind of model, in the latter the REconomy approach is felt to be most suitable. How do those two sit alongside each other, and what does this mean for the role of Transition Network? Expect discussion, debate and dialogue. The three presenters recently joined by Skype to discuss their plans for the workshop:
This month’s round up covers two months, because this time last month half of the team that lovingly create these round ups was away when they should have been producing this. As a result it’s a bit of a whopper. The latest Transition Bristol newsletter begins “In this issue…. The Bristol Pound is coming, the Bristol Pound is coming, oh, and lots of other stuff too! Read on”. That seemed like a good way for us to start too. The Bristol Pound, the vastly exciting imminent launch of a city-wide currency that is creating a frenzy of media interest, is nearly here. Here is a short film about it:
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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