Was fascinated to hear an interview with Dr. Colin Campbell over at www.lifeinfo.de in which he announced his retirement from the speaking circuit. Can’t say I blame him, he has been such an extraordinary ambassador for the peak oil concept that, nearing 80, you really have to admire the fact that he is still out there giving talks at all. I feel I have such a huge debt of thanks to Colin, that I can’t let such an historic event pass without reflection.
For those of you who have been following the spread of Transition in New Zealand, you might find this interesting. Last week I took part in a discussion about Transition on Radio New Zealand, along with James Samuel (who has done so much to catalyse Transition there) and Gabrielle Young (of Transition Waiheke). The discussion looked at Transition in the NZ context and was, I think, rather interesting. You can listen to the piece by clicking here.
At the Transition Network conference, Richard Heinberg gave an online presentation looking at the concept of Emergency Planning for Communities, something he initially unveiled at Findhorn last year. You can see his presentation here. For a while now, Richard and I have been discussing the tension between longer term planning for resilience and the more immediate and pressing responses demanded by sudden and rapid change. It is still an ongoing discussion, but we thought now, with Richard’s presentation, it would be a good time to open up the conversation for your thoughts. What follows is the series of email exchanges we have had since late last year.
Had a fascinating afternoon recently at Schumacher College (you can read Simon Berry from DEFRA’s account of the day here). Schumacher is part of the Dartington Estate, and I was asked to speak about the future of Schumacher as part of the wider Dartington Estate. At present Dartington’s land is let for conventional dairy farming, and the lease comes up for renewal in 2014, so the process is starting of thinking what to do with the Estate’s 1000 acres. Here is the talk I gave, filmed on Simon’s phone…
The Dutch edition of the Transition Handbook has now been published, you can download pdfs of the chapters here. The story of how it was translated is great, 50 people across the region who wanted a Dutch version came together and collaboratively translated it. At the last minute, they wondered if it might be possible to include a short new section about economics, so as to make it more up to date. With the considerable help of Peter Lipman, Jules Peck, Ciaran Mundy and Steph Bradley, here it is. Feel free to print it out and stick it in page 36 of your Transition Handbook.
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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The Dutch edition of the Transition Handbook has now been published, you can download pdfs of the chapters 
