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.
As part of the PhD that I am still pretending to be doing, I have done a survey of around 215 households in Totnes and Dartington. I have just, through my rudimentary knowledge of SPSS ( a statistical analysis package), done an initial analysis of the data, and the findings are very interesting. They answer, among other questions, the one about ‘what percentage of people in Totnes know about TTT, what percentage are involved, and do people think it is relevant to them?’ The findings from this survey, and the more detailed analysis of it still to follow, will feed into the Totnes & District EDAP. I am also looking for someone more competent with SPSS than myself to help me analyse it further (see below).
Regular readers will know that I am fascinated by the potential role of story as a way of enabling people to imagine themselves in a successfully transitioned world. There has been less discussion about this in the context of songs. It was my birthday the other day, so I treated myself to the new Super Furry Animals album, and on it is a song called ‘Inaugural Trams’, which, by my interpretation anyway, does just that. Here it is….
A WHILE AGO, I heard an American scientist address an audience in Oxford, England, about his work on the climate crisis. He was precise, unemotional, rigorous, and impersonal: all strengths of a scientist. The next day, talking informally to a small group, he pulled out of his wallet a much-loved photo of his thirteen-year-old son. He spoke as carefully as he had before, but this time his voice was sad, worried, and fatherly. His son, he said, had become so frightened about climate change that he was debilitated, depressed, and disturbed. Some might have suggested therapy, Prozac, or baseball for the child. But in this group one voice said gently, “What about the Transition Initiative?”
There will be a stall at theGlastonbury Festival sharing information and experiences about Transition Towns. So far we have people from Glastonbury and Leamington. If you are also going to the festival, would you like to help out on the stall too? Please come and find us in the Big Tin Shack in the Green Future Field. You could bring along fliers or posters about what you are doing and add them to our display. If you have suggestions you want to share in advance you can get in touch with Kath on 07814 605245 or Linda on 07772655035.
A couple of months ago I attended the IDEA conference in Liverpool. The delegates came from local authorities across England, and the first morning of the event was designed to look at Transition. I spoke first, and gave a general overview of it, and then Simon Allen of Transition Stroud and Cllr. Fi Macmillan of Stroud District Council (see left) spoke. They told the story, as a scripted dialogue, of how Transition Stroud and the Council forged a very productive working relationship. It was a fascinating 20 minutes, and I asked Simon if I could post their script here, so here it is, with thanks to them both.
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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As part of the PhD that I am still pretending to be doing, I have done a survey of around 215 households in Totnes and Dartington. I have just, through my rudimentary knowledge of SPSS ( a statistical analysis package), done an initial analysis of the data, and the findings are very interesting. They answer, among other questions, the one about ‘what percentage of people in Totnes know about TTT, what percentage are involved, and do people think it is relevant to them?’ The findings from this survey, and the more detailed analysis of it still to follow, will feed into the Totnes & District EDAP. I am also looking for someone more competent with SPSS than myself to help me analyse it further (see below). 
