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.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
29 May 2008
At a time when it is entirely self-evident to anyone who takes an interest in these things that the Age of Cheap Oil is over, that the world is about to enter an unprecedented energy transition and that we are led by people with no idea what to do about it, I was intrigued to be given a clipping from the Daily Star which somehow embodies the depths of denial at work out there in the world. Accompanied by a wonderful, Viz-like image of a spaceman taking a stroll outside a Premier Inn on the lunar surface with the Earth in the background (see left), the article runs as follows. You’re going to enjoy this…
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28 May 2008
Quite suddenly and almost by accident, a wholly new political movement has exploded upon the scene. It erupted in Totnes, an ancient town on Devon’s River Dart of only 7,500 inhabitants. Scarcely two years ago, a small group of its citizens took note of the announcement that the global supply of oil had ‘peaked’, (meaning that against a rapidly expanding demand for a resource which has been the basis of industrial development and economic expansion for at least 150 years, the supply would sooner or not much later run out or become unaffordable). So did a lot of other people of course, but the Totnes group were unique in deciding to do something about it. They realised that what was at stake was an urgent need to change an entire lifestyle, currently based on the availability of oil, to one based on local resources.
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27 May 2008
Graham Strouts over at Zone5.org recently posted a piece about the end of term at Kinsale FEC, and the graduation of another year’s permaculture graduates. It was particularly poignant this year because John Thuillier, the college’s Principal who initially got the permaculture course going, and his wife Margaret who handled much of the college’s admin, are retiring. To commemorate, Graham sent me a list of questions exploring the early days of the Permaculture course out of which what is now a 2 year full time course, the Kinsale EDAP and, ultimately, the Transition movement, grew. You can read the original here, and although it won’t be of interest to everyone, some of you might find a taste of the course’s history to be of interest.
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26 May 2008
I had the enormous misfortune on Saturday to visit a garden centre. You might think that an avid gardener like myself would feel as home in a garden centre as I do in a record shop. However, modern warehouse-like garden centres have as little to do with gardening as Virgin megastores have to do with music. They are crammed with the most pointless unnecessary clutter, very little of it of any use to anyone who actually wants to garden, to grow anything useful. They are temples to a lost generation so removed from the land and from seeing gardens as something essential and as something productive that it beggars belief.
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22 May 2008
On Wednesday night, on the same night as the rather wonderful Champions League Final (which some idiot timetabled for the same night.. oops it was me… doh) and on the evening oil began touching $135 a barrel, Transition Town Totnes held an evening called “How Are We Doing?”, an opportunity for TTT to update the community on how it is doing, and on all the range of activities and projects underway, as well as getting feedback. In the event over 100 people came, and the evening was very positive and constructive.
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