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.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
26 Jan 2009
California Dreaming
We are about to leave the States, having done our last training in Los Angeles. It felt like a different thing to SF and the other American trainings. There feels like there is an added degree of difficulty to Transition in LA. But maybe this is not real maybe the scale of things in the US is hitting me, I don’t know. Having been built with the car as an integral part of the system, car and freeways and wide boulevards scream out at me, and seem to have a life of their own.
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23 Jan 2009
After a late night session in a smoke filled room, fuelled by chocolate and gallons of coffee, finally a wording has emerged from Transition Towers for the question to go forward to the great and the good at DAVOS. It is a kind of compilation of some of those you (collectively) submitted. We hope you like it, and that it gets put in front of the panel.
“On a finite planet, it is not impossible for most of us to acheive fulfillment and happiness through material consumption, and will many of our children and grandchildren even have the opportunity to make that choice if we go on with our current ways of being? Is it not time to leave the very concept of ‘economic growth’ behind?”
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23 Jan 2009
The Local Government Association recently published a paper called ‘Volatile Times: transport, climate change and the price of oil”, which you can download here. It looks at the challenges faced by local authorities through the lens of peak oil and climate change, and is a very useful document for any Transition groups working with their local authorities. It starts with a clear setting out of the peak oil concept, and then looks at what Councils can do to respond. Transition initiatives, and Nottingham in particular are cited as case studies, the ‘Oil Independence in Oakland’ report is cited, including the great quote “quite simply, if Oakland is to reduce its dependence on oil, its residents must drive less”. A very useful document.
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22 Jan 2009
Matt Harvey’s great piece about Transition was screened last night on BBC South West’s ‘Inside Out’ programme, and it was very entertaining. The direct link to it is here, which will save you the 20 minutes it took me to track it down on the main site! Well done Matt, and also to Andrew who filmed it and edited it. The piece starts about 10 minutes and 15 seconds into the programme.
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22 Jan 2009
The discussions that followed the publication here of the Transition Declaration of Independence, the story emerged of the list of 200 skills needed in Victorian times that appeared in the last 2 pages of appendices from “Victorian Oamaru : A vision For The Future” by Michael O’Brien, which was printed by hand and not available electronically. Thanks to Corinne for typing this up and to Ted for finding it. I’ve got my name down for pie-maker. Insurance salesmen take note. It is interesting to read this in the context of Richard Morrison’s comment in his column in today’s Times: “I think we may be on the cusp of the most surprising social change in our lifetimes: a rediscovery of the pleasures to be had in thrift, in simplicity and in parochialism…I wouldn’t wish the return of Spam on anyone. But the rest? A New Age of Austerity might be quite refreshing.”
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We are about to leave the States, having done our last training in Los Angeles. It felt like a different thing to SF and the other American trainings. There feels like there is an added degree of difficulty to Transition in LA. But maybe this is not real maybe the scale of things in the US is hitting me, I don’t know. Having been built with the car as an integral part of the system, car and freeways and wide boulevards scream out at me, and seem to have a life of their own. 
