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
9 Mar 2006
An energy descent culture will need to entertain itself of an evening, as plasma screen televisions, home cinema units, indeed most electricity based entertainment will be out. We will need to rediscover the art of making music rather than consuming it through electronic media. Oil drums will come in very handy, we can make them into steel drums. Steel drum music originated in Trinidad, and is now a world wide phenomenon. It has evolved into doing some very innovative modern interesting stuff too. On DJ Shadow’s Diminishing Returns CD (hard to get, but usually available on EBay) he has a version of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ played by a steel band, which is rather wonderful.
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8 Mar 2006
Comfrey is the superhero of plants. It is truly wonderful, so multifunctional as to almost be outrageous. Comfrey is what is known as a dynamic accumulator, that is it is incredibly good at mining nutrients from deep in the soil and bringing them to the surface. The combination of comfrey and oil drum can be a win/win for any gardener.
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7 Mar 2006
Over this week I will be taking a look at five things we could do with oil barrels when we are no longer able to put oil in them. The idea came from the cover of Peter Tertzakian’s new book A Thousand Barrels a Second : The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World (you can hear an interview with the author here) which I just started reading, which has a great picture which shows a huge collection of such barrels. Struck me that we’re going to have an awful lot of them left lying about the place, and perhaps they might become rather useful things.
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6 Mar 2006
*This article on Energy Descent Planning and the Kinsale experience has appeared in various places now, but Permaculture Activist recently, in its Peak Oil edition, published this expanded and updated version. Several people have emailed and asked where they can get a copy of it, so here it is, by popular demand (I always wanted to be able to say that…). It was edited by PC Activist editor Scott Horton into US-speak, with ‘gosh’ and ‘crikey’ removed and replaced with ‘gotten’ and ‘eggplant’. Go tell your friends…*
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6 Mar 2006
Last Friday I went to see James Lovelock speaking to a packed Barn Cinema in Dartington as a promotion for his new book “The Revenge of Gaia”. The evening was, as I expected, one of mixed emotions, although ultimately I found it deeply frustrating. Lovelock is of course best known as creator of the Gaia theory, that of the Earth as a self-regulating organism. The original book on this theory had a profound effect on me. Seeing him last night, telling us that we are all doomed, and nothing we can think or do will have the slightest effect, felt a bit like seeing a band whose first album completely changed your life and became the soundtrack of a part of your history playing, ten years later, in Butlins, all flabby and sweaty and directionless.
Read more»
An energy descent culture will need to entertain itself of an evening, as plasma screen televisions, home cinema units, indeed most electricity based entertainment will be out. We will need to rediscover the art of making music rather than consuming it through electronic media. Oil drums will come in very handy, we can make them into steel drums. Steel drum music originated in Trinidad, and is now a world wide phenomenon. It has evolved into doing some very innovative modern interesting stuff too. On DJ Shadow’s Diminishing Returns CD (hard to get, but usually available on EBay) he has a version of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ played by a steel band, which is rather wonderful.
