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
So George Monbiot, who has been silent on the issue until now, has come out with [his thoughts on 9/11 conspiracy theories and the film ‘Loose Change’]( http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2007519,00.html
Here is a very lightly edited transcript of the talk I gave to the Soil Association conference on Friday 26th February 2007. You can also download the accompanying Powerpoint presentation of the talk here.
“Good morning and thank you very much. I couldn’t wish for four better preceding speakers (Porritt, Campbell, Leggett & Heinberg) to go before me in this morning session and they were in the main the people who very much inspired and influenced me during the work that I do and this first day of the conference was very much designed to take you on a journey through encountering this issue and what we might do about it. So as a response, as my part of that, I want to take you on the pathway, the journey that I’ve gone through since I was where you are all now, where you’ve just heard about peak oil.
I had the pleasure of watching Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack’s new film **’A Crude Awakening’** recently, and was very impressed. The film has had a small number of screenings in various parts of the world, and is due to be shown in a small number of cinemas in the UK in April. It will be shown on April 5th as part of the Transition Town Totnes programme at the Barn Cinema, Dartington. It is the noble successor to ‘The End of Suburbia (EoS)’, whose crown it steals, becoming, for me, the best exposition of the peak oil argument yet committed to film.
Double glazed windows work because they had a vacuum between the two panes of glass (or three if you are fortunate enough to have triple glazed windows) which stops the heat passing between the two. Energy advice books will often tell you to keep an eye on your double glazed units, if condensation starts to appear between the panes, it is an indicator that the vacuum has gone, that the window is doing very little in terms of energy efficiency, and it needs to be replaced (seeing dead flies or childrens’ toys in there indicates the same…).
**Peter Russell** studied mathematics and theoretical physics at Cambridge, and then experimental psychology. He traveled to India to study meditation and eastern philosophy, and on his return took up the first research post ever offered in Britain on the psychology of meditation. His principal interest is the deeper, spiritual significance of the times we are passing through. He has written several books in this area, including *The Consciousness Revolution*, *Waking Up in Time*, and *From Science to God*. He recently spoke to a capacity audience in Totnes, and the next morning I went to Schumacher College to interview him for **Transition Culture**.
