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.
Marc Wegerif is an old school friend of mine from when I grew up in Bristol. After school he moved to South Africa and was very involved in activism there, and he now lives in Tanzania and works for Oxfam. He recently got back in touch and I sent him a copy of The Transition Handbook. Subsequently he sent me a long and thoughtful letter, with his reflections on the book, and on how it might relate to Africa. The whole question of what Transition might look like in a developing world context is something we have rarely explored at Transition Culture, and Marc has given me permission to reprint his letter here by way of initiating that discussion.
Somerset County Council was the first UK local authority to pass a resolution in support of Transition Initiatives across Somerset in July last year. The motion was pushed through by what was largely a LibDem council, since when, a few months ago, following a local election, the Council has gone largely Conservative. Transition Training also ran a training day with Councillors. So what has happened since? Has the resolution been sidelined by the new administration? How deeply does awareness of Transition run? What role has Transition Somerset, a coalition of local initiatives, played? Niamh McDonald, in her MSc dissertation at University College London has set out to answer those questions.
Was in London yesterday for the conference of the Development Trust Association (conference programme here), a fantastic event. I was speaking in the first plenary session, but due to overall time overrun, I had to give a 20 minute talk in 10 minutes! A bit hectic but seemed to go down alright. Highlight for me though was a workshop I attended following my talk. It was chosen from a mouth-watering smorgasbord of great workshops (community food production and distribution, community sector trading, community land trusts, community energy initiatives, setting up community development trusts.. imagine… I felt like a child in a sweetshop…), and was called “Community Bonds and Shares”. It was brilliant, very thought provoking.
Here is a great short film from the Unleashing of Transition Town Langport on April 4th 2009. As many of you will know, an Unleashing is a big public event which launches the Transition initiatives in question. Langport chose a different route to the big-public-event-with-speakers model that most places have used so far. The film provides a very useful document of day. Thanks to Transition Town Langport for making this, and for making it available, we need more like this. Transition Langport also benefit from having the best graphic designer of any Transition initiative that I have yet seen!
Ted Trainer (right, author of, among other things, the utterly indispensible ‘Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain a Consumer Society’ just published a long and detailed piece which offers his thoughts on the Transition movement. He sent me an earlier draft which I, in return, sent him some detailed thoughts on. Given that the final published piece didn’t seem to take on many of the points I sent, the comments I wrote still stand as a response to it, and I offer them below in the hope that they offer a reasonable companion to Trainer’s considered piece.
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»
Marc Wegerif is an old school friend of mine from when I grew up in Bristol. After school he moved to South Africa and was very involved in activism there, and he now lives in Tanzania and works for Oxfam. He recently got back in touch and I sent him a copy of The Transition Handbook. Subsequently he sent me a long and thoughtful letter, with his reflections on the book, and on how it might relate to Africa. The whole question of what Transition might look like in a developing world context is something we have rarely explored at Transition Culture, and Marc has given me permission to reprint his letter here by way of initiating that discussion. 
Here is a great short film from the Unleashing of Transition Town Langport on April 4th 2009. As many of you will know, an Unleashing is a big public event which launches the Transition initiatives in question. Langport chose a different route to the big-public-event-with-speakers model that most places have used so far. The film provides a very useful document of day. Thanks to 
Ted Trainer (right, author of, among other things, the utterly indispensible 
