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.
Sometimes the simplest ideas carry with them, when thought through, such a powerful taste of how the future could be that they are quite irresistible. One such idea has led me to spend the last couple of days immersed in trying to find out as much as I could about it, and it has been time well spent, which I want to share with you here. The idea came in a post on the City Farmers website, entitled ‘Brixton Beer’. The idea is a simple one: rather than breweries in London buying their hops from wherever they can source them (sometimes as far afield as New Zealand), people across London grow hops in their back gardens, on their patios and balconies, allotments and community gardens, which are then used by local brewers.
Just thought you might be interested to hear that Transition Network was announced this morning by NESTA and The Observer as one of ‘Britain’s 50 New Radicals’. We’re honoured, and are in some great company. You can see more about the process here, the full list of finalists here (although there seem to only be 44 in the list, you can also see them all here, but have to scroll through one-by-one), and the page about why Transition Network was chosen here. Thanks to whoever it was that nominated us and to the judges …
Here are the notes of the talk I gave that went out just now on Radio 4’s ‘Four Thought’ programme. You can download the podcast of the programme here (which also includes the Q&A that followed as a bonus feature). I hope you enjoy(ed) it.
“It’s generally considered unwise to use props when speaking on radio, especially on your first appearance on Radio 4. However, this talk will contain two props, and here’s the first. It’s a £10 note from Brixton in London, but it’s a Brixton Pound. Rather than the Queen’s head, it features David Bowie’s. I’ll tell you more about it later, but it matters because it leads us into what I want to discuss this evening, the question of resilience.
Tonight, on BBC Radio 4 at 8.45pm, you can hear the talk I gave for their ‘Four Thought’ series. Here’s how the BBC website describes it:
“Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Culture movement, believes that “engaged optimism” is the best way to face the global challenges of the future, be it climate change, oil supplies running out or the economic downturn. He believes initiatives enabling people to produce their own goods and services locally – from solar powered bottled beer to micro currencies like the Brixton pound – are the best way to build community resilience. Four Thought is a series of talks in which speakers give a personal viewpoint recorded in front of an audience at the RSA in London”.
I hope you enjoy it. I’ll post the text of it tomorrow…
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
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