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I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blog, and details of my books, on my new website.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Monthly archive for October 2008
Showing results 6 - 10 of 29 for the month of October, 2008.
27 Oct 2008
Ben Brangwyn and Duncan Law cutting the cake at the Brixton Unleashing.
Although this post comes a bit late, I was waiting for all of its ingredients to fall into place, which they now have, so here it is. A couple of weeks ago, two big Unleashings took place, which offered inspiring examples to other places planning theirs. I was booked to speak at both of them, but I was unfortunately unwell with some unknown horrible lurgy which meant Ben Brangwyn ably stepped in at the last minute and went in my place. Reports soon started filtering back from both events which communicated how each event uniquely embodied the concept of an Unleashing being a dynamic evening which marks the start of an historic process.
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23 Oct 2008
I was struck by a story I read in the Metro newspaper the other day, about a couple in Ashton-under-Lyne who had discovered that a snake was on the loose in their house. Neither of them have actually seen the offending reptile, but they have found two shed skins 1 metre long each in their attic (personally, I think having found the first one the chances of my ever setting foot in the loft again would be virtually zero).
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22 Oct 2008
Richard O’Rourke has recently had the unenviable task of writing about peak oil and potential solutions to it as part of a Masters at the London School of Economics, that great bastion of Flat Earth economists. His dissertation, entitled “Transition Towns: Ecotopia Emerging? The role of Civil Society in escaping Carbon Lock-In” examines the Transition model in the context of the concept of Ecotopia, and of previous green movements. You can download this excellent piece of work here. It also features in the introduction his story of his ‘peak oil moment’ and his subsequent attempts to communicate that awareness within LSE. The dissertation itself is a fascinating take on where Transition has got to.
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21 Oct 2008
I was deeply honoured last week to be the recipient of the 2008 Schumacher Award. It is, as much as anything, a huge recognition of the amazing work you are all doing across the world trying out this simple set of principles and tools. When it was presented at the Schumacher Lectures in Bristol, I dedicated it to everyone active in Transition, without whom it would all just be a collection of ideas. So although this beautiful wooden award will reside at Transition Towers (and no, it’s not like the FA Cup as some have asked, I don’t have to give it back next year) it partly belongs to all of you, so well done. At least they spelt my name right, unlike the Independent’s Top 100 Environmentalists, where I was very flattered to come 77th, but they spelt my name wrong (Hoskins indeed….!). It is great to see this work starting to appear on peoples’ radars.
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20 Oct 2008
For many years I have taught permaculture courses, and like many who do so, I start my courses with the Tale of Two Chickens. This is a very useful way of looking at inputs, outputs, and the science of maximising beneficial relationships, and it concludes with describing one of permaculture’s Holy Grails, The Chicken/Greenhouse. However, now, as I stand on the verge of actually trying to make a chicken greenhouse, I am finding it very difficult to find actual working examples of chicken/greenhouses. Might I have spent years unwittingly promoting a permaculture urban myth?
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