An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent
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.
For many people, the highlight of the 2012 Transition Network conference was the ‘Transition Town Anywhere’ activity, where a resilience local economy was built, lived in, celebrated and then taken down again over the space of one morning. Ruth Ben-Tovim, one of the event’s organisers, tells us how the event came about, how it worked, and how you could do a version in your community. She started by asking “how many people does it take to build a town?”
“About 240 in the case of the 2012 Transition Conference. Over five hours, the very large Grand Hall at Battersea Arts Centre was filled with a self–built, living breathing Transition Town Centre Anywhere. Many of you who were there and many who weren’t have asked for more details about this activity, so as promised, here it is. Also in response to several requests, at the end of this post there are details about how you could bring the Transition Town Centre Anywhere group activity to your Town if you would like to.
Today’s guest post is from Fiona Ward of Transition Network’s REconomy Project:
The question in this post’s title was one of the challenging questions asked at the Solace South West Autumn Seminar, held at Dartington, Devon in early November. The event was called “Room to Think” and to that I would add “about the things we don’t really want to think about”. The event organiser for this year was Richard Sheard, CEO of South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council. He said:
“Within these 2 days, I wanted to raise some important questions about the difficulties we face in local government in these increasingly uncertain times. Besides questioning growth, should wellbeing rather than GDP be our measure of success? And what’s the role of communities in leading their own future and delivering local solutions? I wanted to provide some challenges to the status quo, and also look at some of the potential solutions that are emerging.”
… and so 25 CEOs and other senior figures from local government across the South West arrived in the beautiful setting of Dartington, to explore this unchartered territory.
2011 was the first year for over 40 years that more new bicycles were sold than cars in Italy.
Someone once said that things are “getting better and better, and worse and worse, faster and faster, all at the same time” or something like that. For this new book I’m doing I have a short section that lists some of the trends in which we can start to see the seeds of a Transition future already emerging around us. I have gathered some, I wonder if you can think of any more that you’ve come across that I can add to this list? Any you’ve spotted? Any ideas or suggestions very welcome. Thanks. Here are mine:
The rising cost of fuel has meant that sales at out of town stores fell by 12% compared to comparable stores in town (ref) • 2011 was the first year when, in Italy, sales of new bicycles outstripped sales of new cars for over 40 years (ref) • The Scottish government is considering introducing legislation to presume in favour of the use of land owned by public bodies and private landowners for people to grow food • number of bicycles in the UK has increased 18% since 2007, compared with a slight decline for cars/taxis and at 20% fall for motorcycles (ref) • the internet and social media enable the spreading of ideas and information almost instantaneously, with a profound impact on how social change and movements can happen • 40 million more journeys were made by bicycle in the UK in 2012 than in 2010 • A 2011 survey found that a third of UK adults planned to grow the majority of their food that summer (ref)
Any more? You could tweet them too, using the hashtag #transitiontrends.
Fiona Ward of the REconomy Project recently gave a webinar for Transition US about REconomy, and answered questions from participants in the US about how this might be of use to them in the creation of more resilient local economies. Here it is.
In his recent piece on climate change on the network, Jo Confino wrote of the dark place he found himself in after a few weeks immersed in the latest news on sustainability – his climate change “dark night of the soul” if you like. For the past six years I have been part of an experiment known as Transition, which encourages people to do just what Confino suggests: to sit with the pain of this awareness, while also pointing to a path beyond it.
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
Read more»
