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Archive for “Transport” category
Showing results 16 - 20 of 50 for the category: Transport.
5 May 2010
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)….
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21 Apr 2010
Last week none of us had ever heard of an Icelandic volcano called Eyjafjallajokull, and still even now, very few of us can actually pronounce its name. The volcanic dust spewn forth across Europe as a result of its spectacular eruption has had a remarkable effect, leading to, among other things, the total grounding of the UK’s aviation fleet for several days until this morning. The headline on Metro, the free newspaper the person next to me on the train is reading as I write this, is “Fly, fly again”. It will take days to clear the backlog and to get things back to normal, but let us not pass up this opportunity to meditate on vulnerability and resilience, which led to major disruption to the air freighting of produce from Kenya and other places, thousands of people stuck in their Easter holiday destinations, and Liverpool Football Club having to travel to its Europa League fixture with Athletico Madrid on public transport . But perhaps rather than seeing it as the ‘misery’ most news broadcasts labelled it as, we might see it as good practice for the near future.
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7 Dec 2009
Regular readers will know that I don’t fly, and that if I can’t get somewhere by train, we use other means of communicating. But should the same apply to everyone who works for Transition Network? Should the organisation make a commitment that anyone who represents it similarly seeks alternative ways to get around? This is a very live discussion within the organisation. In order to move it forward, Naresh Giangrande and myself had an email exchange on the subject (see below), and now we’d love to hear your thoughts. Should an organisation committed to modelling Transition also exemplify sustainable transport? As the Copenhagen talks kick off, with many thousands of climate activists flying there, this is a very pertinent question. Have a read of the debate so far, and then have your say too….
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22 Sep 2009
Michael Portillo passed through Totnes yesterday, filming part of his upcoming series of ‘Great British Rail Journeys’, which follows in the footsteps of George Bradshaw, the Victorian travel writer, who visited the town in the late 1800s. Portillo’s trip, which began in Swindon, took him to Dartmouth, then up the River Dart to Totnes, from whence he will head further west, ending up in St. Ives. A taste of Totnes was laid on for him, meeting and interviewing me, initially in Totnes High Street (where the level of interest and fascination was such that another location was quickly chosen), and then in St. Mary’s churchyard. We talked about TTT and the Totnes Pound, and then Michael and the film crew headed off to buy and then spend some Totnes Pounds, and get ferried back to the station by Pete Ryland of the Totnes Rickshaw Company, in one of the town’s biodiesel-powered rickshaws.
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29 Jul 2009
Transformation Moment: low carbon travel.
How, and how far, will we travel if we make the changes we need to in order to thrive in a carbon constrained society? For a range of interlocking reasons, the conclusion of this paper is that we will be happier, healthier and more resilient if we radically change from our current patterns to ones that fit into a relocalised world. In that world we will travel far less far and fast, overwhelmingly walking, cycling and using public transport.
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