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
3 Apr 2006
The terrible case of Charles Martin, the Ohio man who shot a neighbour’s son to death for walking on his lawn has shown us the flipside of our cultural neurotic obsession with lawns, those neat, tidy, manicured, and ultimately useless landscapes. This man was so enraged that someone would walk on his grass that he reached for his shotgun. Lawns are a classic example of our dysfunctional society. Here is a form of land use, described by Stephen Morris as ” the Marine haircut of the plant world”, that uses more energy, pesticides and herbicides (and in some places, water) than agriculture, yet is entirely useless. Where our oil-poor ancestors would have had potatoes and chard, we have lawn. I am delighted to be able to announce to you though, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the Days of the Lawn are numbered.
Read more»
31 Mar 2006
The response to Wednesday’s post has been amazing, a wealth of intelligent and insightful comments. Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts. I had just two things I wanted to briefly add, which have come to me since on the subject. The first was a quote a found last night when I opened my copy of David C. Korten’s book “The Post-Corporate World”, it comes from Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers and sums up beautifully what some people have been saying;
>”We encourage others to change only if we honour who they are now. We ourselves engage in change only as we discover that we might be more of who we are by becoming something different”.
It is worth reading a few times. It yields more insight each time I read it…
Read more»
30 Mar 2006
“Vote for Me – I’ll guarantee you less every year”. Not something you are likely to hear from your local politician. Even though some MPs, like Michael Meacher, talk about the reality of peak oil, they still cling to the concept of business as usual, not really taking on board the depth of its implications and the inevitable need for relocalisation and for economic contraction. At what stage will MPs start to acknowledge the inevitable fact that we have to start rethinking some very basic assumptions and start working out how to make relocalisation and contraction electable?
Read more»
29 Mar 2006
I gave a talk in Kingsbridge in Devon on Sunday, the sequel to a screening of The End of Suburbia that my friend Naresh presented last week. I began my talk by asking how many people there had seen the film. 90% of hands went up. “How was it?” I asked. A long silence. “Shocking” said one man. People had had a fairly sleepless week between the film and my talk. I’m sure those of you who have shown the film will be familiar with this reaction. It raises the very important question, which I want to explore in this piece, to what extent should we use fear as a tool to motivate change in people?
Read more»
28 Mar 2006
We all love James Howard Kunstler. Even if we might not always agree with him, his dry and ascerbic take on the world is one of peak oil’s more entertaining voices. He has single-handedly elevated peak oil cynicism to an art form. I just spent a side-splitting and eye-moistening half an hour going through the”Eyesore of the Month” feature on his website. As one who shares his revulsion with most modern architecture, I really enjoyed his sharp wit and ‘take-no-prisoners’ assault on all that is worst about 21st century architecture. One of the things we will be able to celebrate about a post peak society
Read more»
The terrible case of Charles Martin, the Ohio man who shot a neighbour’s son to death for walking on his lawn has shown us the flipside of our cultural neurotic obsession with lawns, those neat, tidy, manicured, and ultimately useless landscapes. This man was so enraged that someone would walk on his grass that he reached for his shotgun. Lawns are a classic example of our dysfunctional society. Here is a form of land use, described by Stephen Morris as ” the Marine haircut of the plant world”, that uses more energy, pesticides and herbicides (and in some places, water) than agriculture, yet is entirely useless. Where our oil-poor ancestors would have had potatoes and chard, we have lawn. I am delighted to be able to announce to you though, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the Days of the Lawn are numbered.
