Powerdown Toolkit #10: Communicating Transition May 29, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Powerdown, Transition Towns, community , add a commentWhere do we go from here? Communicating Transition
by Graham Strouts and Davie Philip
This is the introduction to the 10th and final episode of the Powerdown Toolkit 10-week community learning course created by the Cultivate Center in Dublin. It has an accompanying TV show with a 30-minute episode accompanying each week of the course, soon to be aired on Dublin Community TV.
On sale Now! The Powerdown TV show featuring the 10 TV shows to accompany the introductions serialized here on zone5 over the past few weeks, with interviews with Rob Hopkins, Richard Douthwaite, Megan Quinn, Peader Kirby and many others.
A free preview of Episode 8: Energy Descent Pathways can be viewed here.
When we try to communicate the ideas being explored in the Powerdown Toolkit we run into what might be called “the environmentalists dilemma”- we are trying to get over a message few people want to hear- if they did, the world would be a very different place- it would already be in transition!
In thinking about this issue let us consider the spectrum of responses, from the “cornucopians” who believe the markets will resolve everything as price spikes send a signal to put more investment into renewables; to the “doomers” who see Peak oil as heralding in a collapse of civilisation.
Somehow we need to bridge the gap between the two: the “cornucopians” need to be challenged because the evidence we have looked at does not support their case: the flow of cheap energy will surely decline and with it the “business as usual” scenarios we have become accustomed to over the past couple of generations, with its implicit faith in technological progress and ever-increasing prosperity.
The “doomer” stance on the other hand, while providing a valuable balance to the complacency of doing nothing, may lead to paralysis and fear that “there is nothing we can do”.
Somewhere in between we have Transition: (more…)
Powerdown Toolkit #9: Global Citizenship May 11, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , 1 comment so farGlobal Citizenship- Opportunities for Change
by Peadar Kirby, Professor of International Politics and Public Policy, University of Limerick.
This is the introduction to week 9 of the Powerdown Toolkit 10-week community learning course created by the Cultivate Center in Dublin. It has an accompanying TV show with a 30-minute episode accompanying each week of the course, soon to be aired on Dublin Community TV.
On sale Now! The Powerdown TV show featuring the 10 TV shows to accompany the introductions serialized here on zone5 over the past few weeks, with interviews with Rob Hopkins, Richard Douthwaite, Megan Quinn, Peader Kirby and many others.
The twin challenges of climate change and peak oil also pose a fundamental question mark over the sorts of societies we have created, firstly in Europe and now worldwide. Since the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago, our economic system and our ways of living have come to depend on the ever more intensive use of fossil fuels to drive the machines on which our societies depended.
Firstly it was the combination of coal with the steam engine and for over 100 years it has been the application of oil to the internal combustion engine. This combination of energy and technology has powered our production of goods, our mobility and much of our lifestyle.
It was based on two assumptions:
1) There was a limitless availability of the fossil fuels;
2) The ever more intense use of these fuels caused no damage to our environment.
Our societies have lived in denial of these two issues despite the fact that since the 1950s warning bells have been sounded by scientists that oil was going to peak within decades and, more recently, growing concern at the damage greenhouse gases, released by the fossil fuels we use, were having on our environment.
