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.
(Naresh Giangrande recently returned from a Transition Training tour of Sweden, here is a short report about his trip).
I spent a intensely satisfying afternoon with the students of a Folks school in Gotenberg exploring how to tell positive stories of the future especially around climate change. We explored topics like how to tell stories that changed peoples heart and mind, how to tell stories about systems, resilience, and my favourite ‘how do you tell stories about the future’. They invited me to join them because the course tutor had heard of my visit and she thought that having someone from a positive movement about climate action would stimulate and inspire students. It certainly inspired me to work with switched on and passionate teenagers!
Here is a rather good film from the good people at Transition Whidbey in the US, letting the world know what they’ve been up to. Fantastic to see places making films like this, do film what you’re doing in this way, document your Transition work for ‘In Transition 2.0’. Thanks to the Whidbey folks for this….
I have been following with interest the discussions surrounding Alex Steffen’s piece at WorldChanging in which he critiques Transition. I am honoured that someone so widely respected as a writer on sustainability issues saw fit to engage in discussions around Transition , but, as a critique of Transition, it leaves a lot to be desired. It is a confusing piece in which, in spite of Alex’s protestations in the comments thread to have read everything about Transition that is out there, seems to have somewhat missed the point. I’ll go through some of Alex’s main points, but an overall reflection is that it appears to me that what Alex does is to describe Transition as something it isn’t, criticise it for being that, and then propose something to replace Transition which is actually what Transition was all along. An odd approach. Carolyn Baker has already posted an articulate response to Alex’s piece, but here’s mine.
The Prince meeting some of the Transition Llandeilo team
(Here is a press release from Transition Town Llandeilo in Wales…). The Transition Town Llandeilo project was very pleased to receive a visit from HRH The Prince of Wales at the Civic Hall on October 23rd. The Prince was introduced to members of Cymdeithas y Dalar, the allotments project on National Trust land at Dinefwr Home Farm, and to some of the people who saved the Dryslwyn post office from closure by turning it into a community shop. He also heard about “Carbon Conversations”, a practical 10-week evening course to help participants reduce their carbon footprint, and about Llandeilo’s first full Permaculture design course, which is just getting underway.
Spent the half term weekend in West Cork in Ireland, revisiting people and places that made up my life between 1996 and 2005. It was like visiting a parallel world, a ‘Sliding Doors’-like glimpse at what could have been, offering reflections on where I am now and where I have come from. I will write in more detail about a few aspects of things I saw there over the next few days, but today’s post is about The Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability, the eco-hamlet cum sustainability training centre we were involved in setting up from about 1998 onwards. Here, in a nutshell, is the story of where it came from, and what has happened there since we upped and moved to Totnes.
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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