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.
A couple of weeks ago we presented an interview with Kevin Anderson of the UK Tyndall Centre and mentioned that he was soon to give a lecture at the Cabot Institute’s annual lecture in Bristol. The film of Kevin’s talk is now available, and I would suggest that it could turn out to be one of the most important 58 minutes you ever spend sat in front of your computer. This is powerful, and essential stuff and makes a nonsense of the idea that the most sensible thing to do at this point is to throw everything at trying to rekindle economic growth.
Today’s guest post is from Fiona Ward of Transition Network’s REconomy Project:
The question in this post’s title was one of the challenging questions asked at the Solace South West Autumn Seminar, held at Dartington, Devon in early November. The event was called “Room to Think” and to that I would add “about the things we don’t really want to think about”. The event organiser for this year was Richard Sheard, CEO of South Hams District Council and West Devon Borough Council. He said:
“Within these 2 days, I wanted to raise some important questions about the difficulties we face in local government in these increasingly uncertain times. Besides questioning growth, should wellbeing rather than GDP be our measure of success? And what’s the role of communities in leading their own future and delivering local solutions? I wanted to provide some challenges to the status quo, and also look at some of the potential solutions that are emerging.”
… and so 25 CEOs and other senior figures from local government across the South West arrived in the beautiful setting of Dartington, to explore this unchartered territory.
Totnes’s victory over Costa Coffee and the true meaning of choice. ‘Choice’ is an overused word in business. The people of Totnes rightly opted for community resilience over predatory markets
[Original here] Last week, Costa Coffee announced that, in the face of huge opposition from the community and traders of the Devon town of Totnes, the UK’s first transition town, and in spite of being granted planning permission,they would not be opening after all. It was a much-celebrated decision, one for which they deserve real credit. The campaign in Totnes focused around arguments that the town has a unique high street economy, characterised by the absence of the “Clone Town Britain” phenomenon seen in so many other places, and a prevalence of independent businesses which, for many other parts of the UK, is but a distant memory. It was argued that the community’s economic resilience lies in diversity and local markets, not in long supply chains and distant, remote ownership.
Kevin Anderson is the Deputy Director of the UK Tyndall Centre and is an expert on greenhouse-gas emissions trajectories. He will be giving the annual Cabot Institute lecture, ‘Real Clothes for the Emperor’ on 6th November in Bristol, which has already sold out. I was hoping to be able to go and report on it for you here, but no longer can, so instead, I spoke to Kevin last week, by Skype. I am very grateful for his time, and for a powerful, honest and thought-provoking interview.
Could you share with us your analysis of where you think we find ourselves in terms of climate change and what’s our current trajectory if we carry on as we are?
In terms of the language around climate change, I get the impression that there’s still a widely held view that we can probably hold to avoiding dangerous climate change characterised by this almost magical 2°C rise in global mean surface temperature. This is the target that we have established in Copenhagen and then re-iterated in Cancun and to which most nations of the world have now signed up to; I think the rhetoric that we should not exceed this 2°C rise is still there.
In the context of the fascinating week of posts looking discussing Transition Network over at the Social Reporters’ blog, it was fascinating to read an important new study by Gill Seyfang, Jung Jin Park and Adrian Smith from University of East Anglia about community energy. ‘Community Energy in the UK’ is the first independent UK-wide survey of community energy projects (you can download it here). One of the most interesting things to emerge from the paper is the role Transition Network plays in the field, in spite of being a very small organisation, and it offers some insights into why that might be.
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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