It was with some fear and trepidation that Alexis Rowell, a Camden Borough councillor and the author of the upcoming Transition Guide to Local Authorities (LA), and I arrived in a deeply conservative part of the country, Norfolk, to do a day with them on peak oil, climate change and the Transition town model and practice. For those that don’t know it, Norfolk is a stunningly beautiful part of the country which is partly comprised of two areas, the Norfolk Broads, a large inland waterway system and the Fens (see pics below) which is partly wild and very intensively farmed, it being one of the UKs most productive farmland. It is also largely at sea level therefore at the hard edge of climate change policy. As the Helen and Newton Harrison’s work, Green House Britain makes clear, a 5 metre rise in sea levels will mean a significant part of East Anglia would be under water.
A few weeks ago now I mentioned the upcoming Transition South East conference, and showed you their wonderful poster. By all accounts it was a quite wonderful day, you can read a write-up of the event here, and watch a fantastic film of the event (it’s so great when people do this) below. We’re seeing more and more of these regional Transition events now, its a great thing to be happening. Thanks to Ian Lawton of Act on CO2 for creating this record of the day.
Readers of my Twitterfeed thing will have been following the trials and tribulations, as well as the highlights, of my trip to Dublin. Invited by Ashoka Ireland for their Social Entrepreneurship Forum and Awards, it was also an opportunity to catch up with the Transition Ireland folks and to have an incredibly packed day full of meetings which, in spite of ever-present toothache, was very exciting and useful.
I won’t be in Totnes on Monday, so I won’t be able to be part of the send-off for Steph Bradley of Transition Tales, as she sets off on the Transition Tales 2010 Quest, a six month walk around England to collect stories of positive change. Armed with a raincoat, a pair of flipflops, a notepad laptop and, hopefully, a map, she will roam the land, collecting and telling stories. Given that I’m not around, I’ll wish her a safe, dry and inspiring trip here instead. Please donate to support the walk here, you can find out more about her itinerary and whether she might be going anywhere near you here, and also Steph will be blogging from her travels, you’ll be able to follow the blog here. Here is the more detailed press release about the walk.
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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**A Guest Post by Naresh Giangrande**
