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
27 Mar 2006
Some things in life need to be acknowledged and celebrated. My dear friends Thomas and Ulrike who are now running The Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability have, after a 3 year building process which I’m sure at times must have felt like 10, finally moved into their cob home. It has been the most extraordinary adventure, and the end result is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and one which is an amazing demonstration of natural building materials and their potential.
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24 Mar 2006
One of the things that strikes me as an essential part of researching energy descent plans is the question of when different things become viable as energy availability decreases (and thereby price rises). For example, at the moment it is not viable to start a market garden in the middle of Totnes, as it could never produce food at a price competitive with the supermarkets. However, at some point,
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23 Mar 2006
Those good folks at Cultivate in Dublin have been busy organising what promises to be an excellent permaculture course. I am teaching the first weekend, and the rest is taught by an assortment of excellent teachers. It promises to give a very rounded immersion in permaculture, yet being designed as a series of well-spread out weekends will make it available to people unable to take the more usual 2 weeks off. Teachers include Andy Langford and Liora Adler of Gaia University, Richard Webb, Gus Legge and Graham Strouts, as well as myself. The course will be built on the foundations of permaculture as a response to peak oil, and if you really want to start assembling your post-peak tool kit, this is the number 1 place to start. Full details below…
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22 Mar 2006
The Cultivate Centre in Dublin is one of the most innovative, cutting edge and inspiring sustainability centres in the world. Every year they organise the Convergence Festival, which attracts amazing speakers from around the world, and is widely seen as being at the forefront of sustainability thinking. This year is no exception. April’s Convergence is called ‘Learning To Live With Less Fossil Fuel’, and includes some excellent speakers and events. I would like to highly recommend the day on April 20th called **‘Skilling Up for Powerdown’**,
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22 Mar 2006
Being able to admit that we made a mistake is a rare gift these days. Politicians cling on to decisions that everyone else knew to be a disastrous mistake months ago (Tony Blair’s recent restating that he was right to invade Iraq being a timely example). There is something rare and somehow wonderful about someone who held one position very strongly taking a fresh stock of the situation and deciding that actually, in all honesty, that position is untenable, and that despite the stick they’re going to get for changing their mind, they feel they have to do it.
I was very touched to read an excellent article in Monday’s Independent by Johann Hari
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Some things in life need to be acknowledged and celebrated. My dear friends Thomas and Ulrike who are now running The Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability have, after a 3 year building process which I’m sure at times must have felt like 10, finally moved into their cob home. It has been the most extraordinary adventure, and the end result is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and one which is an amazing demonstration of natural building materials and their potential.
