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.
I was honoured last week to be able to interview Michael Shuman, who has long been one of pioneers of thinking on the question of localisation. It was a fascinating conversation…
Can you tell us about your work and what you do, for those unfamiliar with that…
Right now my formal job portfolio is split 50/50 between BALLE, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and another for profit called Cutting Edge Capital. BALLE is a non-profit founded about 10 years ago, which is building networks of local businesses through North America and I do research and economic development activities for them. Cutting Edge Capital is really working with small businesses and communities to help them figure out ways of creating more local investment solutions.
Dave Chapman exploring the Dairy Crest site in Totnes, site of the proposed ATMOS Project.
Dave Chapman works for BASSAC (the British Association of Settlements and Social Action Centres) and lives in Totnes, where he is active within the ATMOS Project. For the Ingredient of Transition being prepared for the forthcoming new Transition book on the Community Ownership of Assets I talked to Dave about community asset development and also about the ATMOS Project.
Why is the community ownership of assets important? Why does it matter that the community is able to own its own assets?
Self-determination, more than anything else. It’s about defining where you’re going to. Land ownership enables you to define where you take a community in the end, so it can come down to supporting energy use, food use, employment, housing – it’s the basis for the right mix within a community.
Localisation and Resilience at the Local Level: The Case of Transition Town Totnes (Devon, UK)
By Rob Hopkins
475 pp. University of Plymouth, Devon, UK – Oct. 2010. £15.00; available only in PDF at Transitionculture.org.
For several years groups of innovative, environmentally conscious people worldwide have been part of a social change movement called Transition. It strives to create relocalized communities that are resilient to the looming climate and energy crises, and in which “the future with less oil could be preferable to the present.”
Here is the first of two interviews I did recently for the new book, on the subject of the community ownership of assets. The second will be published tomorrow. Today’s is with Sara Neuff of Coin Street Community Builders, an amazing project I have written about here before.
So Sara, why is it important that communities own and run their own assets? Why does it matter?
The first response to that is that it in a sense depends upon the kind of asset and what it is you’re trying to achieve.
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
Read more»
