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
5 Sep 2008
Critiques of Transition come in all shapes and sizes, and are often fascinating. In the US, Robin Mills recently described it as “mistaken, appalling and dangerous” (one of my favourites) and Jim O’Neill, Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs, recently said on the Business Daily Show on BBC World Service that he had just read a book by a Californian with no geological or economic background (that’s me apparently…) calling for Transition economies, and stated that he had never read such rubbish! It has been intriguing in recent weeks to follow the various, and largely more coherent debates and discussions that have emerged in the wake of the Climate Camp, and also as the discussions about Transition that the Trapese Collective’s ‘Rocky Road’ document stimulated have rumbled on.
Read more»
4 Sep 2008
Just days away from the second anniversary of the ‘Unleashing’ of Transition Town Totnes, the 100th ‘official’ Transition Initiative, Transition Fujino in Japan achieved its Transition Town status! Fujino is a town of around 10,000 people, which inhabits the ‘edge’ between Tokyo and rural Japan. By all accounts it is a kind of Japanese Totnes/Lewes… a progressive community which was home to the Japanese permaculture movement, and is also home to a Steiner School. It is also home to the team who are translating the Transition Primer into Japanese! A fitting place for it to start….
Read more»
3 Sep 2008
Transition Chat! is a new initiative co-ordinated by the Transition Network, which will provide a forum for people to share successes, failures, ideas, best practice and so on. We are really excited about the potential for this. The idea is that each session takes place on a Monday, between 2 and 3.30pmGMT (it can roll on if the conversation is particularly animated) and it is hosted in a web chat format. Pop them in your diary, the first one is next Monday.
Read more»
1 Sep 2008
A Review (of sorts) of ‘Talk to the Hand: the utterly bloody rudeness of everyday life (or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door)’. Lynne Truss. Profile Books 2005.
It seems to me that the world is growing steadily ruder. As we grow more and more stressed and less connected to those around us, we increasingly, it seems, have less time for civility. A leaked government document reported today suggests that our current lurch into recession will generate crime, disorder and a plumetting of civility on an unprecedented scale. What I want to do here is to put in a word in defense of civility, and why I feel it is so important that we hold onto it in increasingly uncertain times.
Read more»
29 Aug 2008
Transition Gathering Camp
19-21st September 2008, Sussex.
This first transition gathering will provide a space to meet transitioners from other places at an event that welcomes all the family. The timing of the gathering leads up to the autumn equinox which will mark the emergence of transition initiatives.
Read more»
Critiques of Transition come in all shapes and sizes, and are often fascinating. In the US, Robin Mills recently described it as “mistaken, appalling and dangerous” (one of my favourites) and Jim O’Neill, Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs, recently said on the Business Daily Show on BBC World Service that he had just read a book by a Californian with no geological or economic background (that’s me apparently…) calling for Transition economies, and stated that he had never read such rubbish! It has been intriguing in recent weeks to follow the various, and largely more coherent debates and discussions that have emerged in the wake of the Climate Camp, and also as the discussions about Transition that the Trapese Collective’s ‘Rocky Road’ document stimulated have rumbled on. 
