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.
Here is a great short film from the Unleashing of Transition Town Langport on April 4th 2009. As many of you will know, an Unleashing is a big public event which launches the Transition initiatives in question. Langport chose a different route to the big-public-event-with-speakers model that most places have used so far. The film provides a very useful document of day. Thanks to Transition Town Langport for making this, and for making it available, we need more like this. Transition Langport also benefit from having the best graphic designer of any Transition initiative that I have yet seen!
As more of this year’s Oxford TED talks go up online, I will be sharing with you the ones that made the strongest impression on me. James Balog‘s talk was in an extra evening session, which I expected to be lighter than the rest of it, but James’s presentation was stunning. Ever imagined ice sheets as living, breathing systems? This is a talk to sit climate deniers down in front of, not to win over with arguments, just to experience at a gut level what is happening in the Arctic, and what is revealed by Balog’s extraordinary time-lapse photography. The irony of this video being sponsored by BMW is palpable. I couldn’t get to sleep that night.
Sally Lever just nominated Transition Culture for the Kreativ Blogger award. I am honoured to accept. This is a kind of ‘chain letter’ award, where people who are nominated then nominate 7 other blogs they admire. Having received it, I am now obliged to do 4 very specific things:
Not long to go now before the launch of the Brixton Pound. This is the first time, to the best of my knowledge, that an urban district has launched its own currency. It is a bold experiment, and like all the best bold experiments, it starts with a party; September 17th, 7.30pm, Lambeth Town Hall. There is expected to be huge demand for this historic event, so you need to book in advance. Personally speaking, I wouldn’t miss it for the world! I’ll be speaking at the launch, along with David Boyle of nef, and Derrick Anderson (Chief Executive of Lambeth Council). As a taster, here is an excellent article about the Brixton Pound by Josh Ryan-Collins, from the latest edition of Fourth World Review.
Ted Trainer (right, author of, among other things, the utterly indispensible ‘Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain a Consumer Society’ just published a long and detailed piece which offers his thoughts on the Transition movement. He sent me an earlier draft which I, in return, sent him some detailed thoughts on. Given that the final published piece didn’t seem to take on many of the points I sent, the comments I wrote still stand as a response to it, and I offer them below in the hope that they offer a reasonable companion to Trainer’s considered piece.
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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Here is a great short film from the Unleashing of Transition Town Langport on April 4th 2009. As many of you will know, an Unleashing is a big public event which launches the Transition initiatives in question. Langport chose a different route to the big-public-event-with-speakers model that most places have used so far. The film provides a very useful document of day. Thanks to Transition Town Langport for making this, and for making it available, we need more like this. Transition Langport also benefit from having the best graphic designer of any Transition initiative that I have yet seen!
Sally Lever
Not long to go now before the launch of the 
Ted Trainer (right, author of, among other things, the utterly indispensible 
