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.
I am very grateful to Pete North at the University of Liverpool for his permission to publish here the latest draft of a very important paper he has written for an upcoming edition of the journal Geoforum, which will focus on responses to peak oil. Pete’s paper is a fascinating overview of the arguments for and against localisation, which gives a deep view of the debates and of how Transition fits into that. I am involved in writing one for the same publication, which looks deeper into Transition itself, I’ll let you see that nearer the time. Pete asks for any feedback or comments you might have, do post them as comments below.
The Transition Timeline. Establishing the assumptions underpinning our Energy Descent Planning. Hosted by Shaun Chamberlin, author of the Transition Timeline. Today at 2pm over at Transition Chat!
The Transition Timeline is a tool for the Transition communities starting to grapple with preparing their local Energy Descent Plans. The first version is nearing completion, and should be made available next month, and it is intended as an ongoing interactive project.
We knew it was time to do something to address the energy inefficiency of our kitchen when energy-in-buildings expert Rob Scott McLeod was doing an energy efficiency makeover plan for our house in January, and he put his hand on our kitchen floor and said “touch the floor… now put your hand in the fridge” – the floor was colder. It used to be a garage, so the roof is uninsulated, and the floor is clay tiles laid onto an uninsulated concrete slab. The cavity in the walls is uninsulated. So, all in all, a freezing kitchen, impossible to raise to any tolerable temperature. With winter looming once again, it was time to sort it out. Over the next few days I will tell you about what we did, but having just spent a couple of days hemp and lime plastering, I want to wax lyrical about that.
During April and May, the Transition Tales team from Transition Town Totnes worked with all the Year 7 students at King Edward VI Community College in Totnes. The workshops comprised 3 sessions, the first about peak oil, climate change, and how oil dependent their lives are, the second was about story-telling and role play, and in the third, the students became the newsreaders on Totnes TV in 2030, broadcasting to a successfully powered-down Totnes. The actual process has already been documented here at Transition Culture, but we are delighted to finally be able to show you the final films.
They were premiered on Thursday night at a big event at the school, attended by students, teachers, parents and governors, and are no doubt currently being pasted onto Bebo sites across South Devon. This first film is a compilation of some of the best bits (the first bit gets climate change a bit confused though!)
Below is a rather wonderful short animated YouTube slideshow thingy which gives a flavour of the energy that is gathering in New Zealand around Transition Initiatives. A very inspiring and heartening way to pass 4 minutes and 10 seconds.
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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I am very grateful to Pete North at the University of Liverpool for his permission to publish here the latest draft of a very important paper he has written for an upcoming edition of the journal Geoforum, which will focus on responses to peak oil. Pete’s paper is a fascinating overview of the arguments for and against localisation, which gives a deep view of the debates and of how Transition fits into that. I am involved in writing one for the same publication, which looks deeper into Transition itself, I’ll let you see that nearer the time. Pete asks for any feedback or comments you might have, do post them as comments below. 
