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 have been following with interest the discussions surrounding Alex Steffen’s piece at WorldChanging in which he critiques Transition. I am honoured that someone so widely respected as a writer on sustainability issues saw fit to engage in discussions around Transition , but, as a critique of Transition, it leaves a lot to be desired. It is a confusing piece in which, in spite of Alex’s protestations in the comments thread to have read everything about Transition that is out there, seems to have somewhat missed the point. I’ll go through some of Alex’s main points, but an overall reflection is that it appears to me that what Alex does is to describe Transition as something it isn’t, criticise it for being that, and then propose something to replace Transition which is actually what Transition was all along. An odd approach. Carolyn Baker has already posted an articulate response to Alex’s piece, but here’s mine.
Spent the half term weekend in West Cork in Ireland, revisiting people and places that made up my life between 1996 and 2005. It was like visiting a parallel world, a ‘Sliding Doors’-like glimpse at what could have been, offering reflections on where I am now and where I have come from. I will write in more detail about a few aspects of things I saw there over the next few days, but today’s post is about The Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability, the eco-hamlet cum sustainability training centre we were involved in setting up from about 1998 onwards. Here, in a nutshell, is the story of where it came from, and what has happened there since we upped and moved to Totnes.
Popped the radio on on Sunday afternoon, and heard an amazing 15 minute programme called ‘The Runaway Train’. It tells the storyof an event in northern Canada in 1987, when railwayman Wesley MacDonald loaded up a train of 50 cars of iron ore, but the brakes failed and before he knew it, he was the only person aboard a runaway train. The discussions between himself and the rail traffic controller about whether to stay on the train or to jump were recorded on tape. The programme is made up of interviews with many of those involved and you can listen to it here for the next 6 days. In some ways it has no relation to usual Transition Culture-related issues, but there is something about how people come together in times of adversity, and the depth of emotion this programme captures, that suggests that as we inhabit our own collective runaway train, the notion that it will inevitably bring out the worst in each of us is at least debatable.
Regular readers will be familiar with James Samuel by now, a founder of Transition in New Zealand, and publisher of the blog Yesterday’s Future. If you have seen ‘In Transition’, James is the guy discussing Oooby with the outrageous shirt. He was recently asked to give a talk to a local CSA project, giving them some ideas for how to manage their project. He developed a 6 stage process which looks like a good way of looking at creating successful projects. You can see his presentation below, and read a transcript of it here.
The Transition Together project forms small, social groups of friends, neighbours and colleagues and then supports them in taking a number of effective, practical, money-saving and carbon-reducing steps. A workbook helps each person to build their own Practical Action Plan that improves household energy efficiency, minimises water use, reduces waste (and consumption), explores local transport options and promotes the great value, healthy food available locally. It also helps everyone to understand what’s behind the rising energy prices and climate change, and what this means for them, their family and their local community.
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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I have been following with interest the discussions surrounding Alex Steffen’s piece at WorldChanging in which he critiques Transition. I am honoured that someone so widely respected as a writer on sustainability issues saw fit to engage in discussions around Transition , but, as a critique of Transition, it leaves a lot to be desired. It is a confusing piece in which, in spite of Alex’s protestations in the comments thread to have read everything about Transition that is out there, seems to have somewhat missed the point. I’ll go through some of Alex’s main points, but an overall reflection is that it appears to me that what Alex does is to describe Transition as something it isn’t, criticise it for being that, and then propose something to replace Transition which is actually what Transition was all along. An odd approach. Carolyn Baker has already posted an articulate response to Alex’s piece, but here’s mine.
