Book Review:
The Transition Timeline
for a local, resilient future
Shaun Chamberlin
Forward by Rob Hopkins
190 pp pbk
Chelsea Green 2009
The follow-up to Rob Hopkins’ seminal The Transition Handbook uses the method of “backcasting” from an envisioned future from which we create a timeline of how the transition to a more local, resilient world unfolded.
The first part goes through four different scenarios presented as “cultural stories” roughly along the same lines as the scenarios we are familiar with from Holmgren’s Future Scenarios, this time under the headings:
-Denial
-Hitting the Wall
-The Impossible Dream
-The Transition Vision
The transition approach is to look at these possible futures in terms of the cultural stories that we tell ourselves, the idea being that we have the power to make our own cultural stories and thereby empower ouselves to guide the future to a more desirable outcome:
Human Nature is the ability to choose our own path
The second part of the book takes a deeper look at the Transition Vision in the five areas of population and demographics; Food and Water; Electricity and Energy; travel and transport; Health and Medicine.
Each of these sections presents a thorough and well-researched overview of the current situation, ending with a Timeline of how we reached a more desirable situation by 2027.
At the back of the book Chamberlin states that “This book has not attempted to quantify the energy/emissions footprint of each aspect of the Transition Vision, but this represents a critical avenue for further work.”
Unfortunatley, this lack of analysis seriously compromises the usefulness of the book, as the projected scenarios may be widely implausible or purely aspirational.
Many other authors have put work into this already, which could have been drawn from, a recent example being the Mayo Energy Audit, which also uses a scenario format, but successfully puts values and figures on the scenarios.
The population chapter, is to be lauded for highlighting an issue often neglected in the environmental movement; however, the author falls into the same trap that others tend to by visiting the “population or consumption” debate over which is the bigger issues:
…population is not (as some claim) the single most crucial environmental issue. It is clearly has a significant effect as a multiplier, but our chosen way of life and ecological footprint are bigger contributors to climate change, energy resource depletion and the other challenges facing us today and in the near future
this is really a straw dog issue because as Ehrlich (whom he refers to) pointed out in The Population Bomb population and consumption are two sides of the same coin. It is in my opinion quite meaningless to speak about which is the greater issue, like we are dealing with some kind of Top of the Apocalyptic Pops.Ehrlich’s famous formula- which should be on every high-school curriculum- is: I (Impact) = P (population) x A (Affluence) x T (Technology) The issues of consumption and population are quite simply inseparable. If the population increases, there will be less resources to go around, so in theory we can increase the population so long as we reduce per capita consumption- and vice-a-verse.
The difficulty I have with making population/consumption an either/or issue is that it simplifies the challenges we have have as a species; I believe we are disposed by our evolution to increase both our population AND our consumption- see the recent discussion by Nate Hagens on environmental psychology.
It is the interplay between demographics and the natural impulse to increase our standard of living that needs to be explored here.
What would be essential to make this section work would be some kind of analysis of what a reasonable standard of living might be- it is not much use talking vaguely of reducing population without some assessment of what a sustainable level would be, which must be gauged against an acceptable level of consumption (I suggested Cuba, at about half the per capita energy use of Europe as a starting point in the above post.)
The food section gives an excellent analysis of the predicament, importantly drawing our attention to issues such as the huge “water footprint” of our food, particularly in meat and dairy- Fred Pierce in “When the Rivers Run Dry” calculates that the equivalent of 20 Nile rivers move from developing to developed countries each year- a stunning image of the sustainability of our food production at present.
The transport section proposes a lift-Hiker system using GPS and mobile phone technology, similar to that of “the Smart Jitney” proposed by Pat Murphy in Plan C.
I particularly like the notion of “hypermiling” which by 2018 has become a fashionable trend as it becomes socially unacceptable to waste resources.
The Health and Medicine section begins well by highlighting the oil dependency of the NHS, and presents the astonishing fact that while by far the largest cost of treating injuries is road accident related, the NHS itself generates as much as 5% of all UK transport!
Issues such as the challenge new diseases being brought by climate change, the inefficiency of big scale health services, and even euthanasia are mentioned; as well as a comparison with Cuba, which appears to have at least as healthy a population as the UK’s but with far less energy dependence.
But then, in the Timeline section, we read:
What used to be known as ‘alternative’ medicines were embraced, as practices like herbalism, acupuncture, massage and osteopathy became core pillars [my emphases] of public healthcare, with a big investment in teaching these skills leading to a blossoming of independent regulated practitioners in most communities.
Oh nooooo! Quackery! This paragraph is deeply concerning, betraying the New Age and pseudoscientific influences in the transition movement.
What is known as “alternative” medicine is simply medicine for which there is no good evidence of effectiveness; certainly, not all “conventional” medicine is evidence-based either, but new-Agers tend to use this as an excuse for throwing out the need for evidence altogether. Often these therapies are based on dubious or discredited “ancient wisdom” which simply has not been born out by the discoveries of modern science. It is modern medical research and science which has lead to an increase in life expectancy, a decline in infant mortality etc..
Now, certainly the problems with modern medicine are manifold, in particular the over-dependence on oil, horrific levels of waste and a level of corruption amongst Big Pharma. None of this is evidence that alternatives like acupuncture work, while many repeated, verifiable blind trials indicate they do no better than placebo.
All these issues and their many nuances are discussed brilliantly in Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science and I urge you to read it if you are of an alternative disposition when it comes to health care.
The fact is, some remedies work, some don’t; some herbs work, some dont; there is absolutely no way of knowing for sure without large scale clinical trials of the sort the medical establishment does routinely, and which the alternative sector has apparently no knowledge nor interest in.
The curious thing here is that the whole basis of the Transition Movement is based on the verifiable science of Climate Change and Peak Oil; but when it comes to quack medicine, the evidence offered is as useless as that offered by climate change deniers- personal anecdotes along the “it worked for me” kind and pseudoscience.
Transition founder Rob Hopkins provides some startling examples of this on recent comments to Zone5.
In the discussion after this post for example, he comments:
“I have had a great deal of acupuncture in my life, I think it is extraordinary. Had some on a painful back the other week, worked a treat. Acupuncture is based on many centuries of the observation of subtle phenomena.”
Many will say the same or similar, but anecdotes do not constitute evidence; if they did we would have to accept that global warming is not happening on the basis of it being rather cool today for the time of year. I’m only slightly exaggerating – climate change deniers do routinely use the same kind of reasoning to dismiss the science of anthropogenic climate change; and even more so, they point out the failings of Big Science in general terms as a way of discrediting evidence- it is corrupt, in the pockets of the government and corporations etc. “therefore we can dismiss the evidence.”
Even more worrying, Rob goes on to say:
“None of my children have ever been vaccinated, nor have they ever had any antibiotics. They are strong and healthy (touch wood).”
The irresponsibility and naivete of this statement is shocking- the reason his kids have not got measles is likely to be either just luck, or because everyone else’s kids have been vaccinated. (Unvaccinated children may also put at risk certain categories of children who cannot safely be vaccinated for medical reasons, or who may be more susceptible in the event of catching measles.)
Let’s be clear here: the evidence for the safety and effectiveness of the MMR vaccine is just as clear as the evidence for man-made climate change; the kind of thinking that refutes one is pretty much the same as that which is used to discredit the other. By throwing in “alternative medicine” in such an uncritical way Chamberlin panders to the reactionary and retarded element of the New Age meme which believes mainstream medicine is all a con designed to make money and poison us, and alternatives can be uncritically accepted as “safe, holistic alternatives”.
In fact, they are expensive lifestyle products which can in no way replace modern medicine other than as being different forms of TLC- Tender Loving Care. Nothing wrong with that, but they need to be seen as such and drop the false claims of being able to cure specific diseases.
And God help us if they are to become a “core pillar” of public healthcare.
Partly as a result of the kind of delusional thinking expressed by Rob in the above comment, the UK is now facing the worst measles epidemic in decades. It is about time the Transition Movement took a stand on this and put out good information on the subject.
Not only that, but by promoting alternative medicine in this way, Chamberlin is actually undermining his arguments for understanding climate change and Peak Oil. This is all the more ironic since the book covers the need for evidence on these two issues very thoroughly, plenty of graphs and stats and quotes such as that of Daniel Moynihan who said “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts” – a thought that proponents of alternative therapies would do well to meditate on for some time.
The Cuban example is really useful but although their state health service has embraced complimentary therapies including Homeopathy, there is little indication that this has become anything like a core pillar, the success of the Cuban situation being more likely a result of following evidence-based medicine to a high standard, putting in sufficient resources, and focussing on community care and prevention.
Energy Descent Planning
Rob Hopkins writes the next section, Timelines and Energy Descent Plans which is an account of community planning tools and “visioning” processes for changing the communities’ cultural story to the more agreeable Transtion Vision.
An EDAP (Energy Descent Action Plan) is, he says “as much as anything, a new story for the community…
We often stress in Transition that we need to create visions of a post-carbon world so enticing, so compelling and attractive that people leap out of bed in the morning determined to dedicate their lives to its implementation. An EDAP is an embodiment of this.
“Determined to dedicate their lives” does sound a bit cultish and scary to me, and not a little evangelical; however, this chapter concerns itself only with the visioning processes, again with barely a mention of the need to actually count and quantify energy demand and supply; I understand that the movement is working on a more detailed follow-up to the Timeline on how to write an Energy Descent Plan, but it is a little disappointing that after two publications and several years, Transition has not even produced a few pages on basic energy literacy or how to do a simple domestic energy audit, all of which would make this book much more useful.
Rob writes as if this is all that is involved in writing an EDAP, while these visioning processes, useful and inspirational as they are, surely do not provide the meat of a true EDAP, which would start with an audit, and then assess local available resources and then assess how best to use them.
The last section of the book gives more detailed explanation of Peak Oil and then Climate Change; the Peak Oil section is fine, but adds little to existing literature; but the Climate Change section I found really excellent, surprisingly learning plenty of new things, for example about how different measures of greenhouse gas concentrations are used in public discourse which are little understood and distort the picture.
In conclusion, the Transition Timeline has plenty of useful information and some great ideas, but fails to really move the work of transition on in a way we might expect at this stage; and, perhaps inevitably, tends to paint a rather rosy picture of how the transition will play out. Personally, I would hope to see a more realistic view, which includes more on emergency planning and a future which may not be able to deliver the kind of smart technology envisioned for some of the areas explored.
(Andy Wilson of the Sustainability Institute has suggested to me that Peak Car use has probably already passed, while the Timeline puts it as not happening until 2016- a very pessimistic (sic) view!)
Predictably(!), I am highly critical- and will continue to be- of the New Age influence in the Health section,which will feed the suspicion in some quarters that transition is adopting some cultish attributes, and insist on the promotion of evidence-based medicine; and I feel, the lack of detailed energy auditing just means that the Transition Vision will tend to move further away from the observed reality.
Graham
Thanks for the review. I will let Shaun respond to the issues around population and medicine. I did want to respond your points about energy budgets and so on. You wrote;
…”it is a little disappointing that after two publications and several years, Transition has not even produced a few pages on basic energy literacy or how to do a simple domestic energy audit, all of which would make this book much more useful”
We haven’t done that, principally because there are so many other people out there who are doing that, or who have developed those tools. We point people towards them, but there is no sense in our dedicating our scarce resources to wheel reinvention… in the same way we don’t offer advice about setting up CSAs (the Soil Association does it), loft insulation (loads of people do that ) or carbon footprinting (there are loads of these around).
However Transition Together, the group study programme developed here in Totnes, which we hope to soon made available to the wider Transition world, takes people through basic energy literacy and measuring their own consumption in a very accessible way. In terms of the kind of energy budgeting that Andy did in Mayo, the Totnes EDAP when it comes out will have a very detailed energy budget that we have worked on for months. I’m sure you will approve (complete absence of free energy machines).
It is important to remember though that it is easy to sit and say that communities ought to do their own energy budgets, but it is a huge piece of work, a huge task, requiring quite specialist knowledge, as we have found in doing the Totnes one. It may well be the case that most communities need support with that, something Transition Network might be able to provide.
You say that the book suffers for not having a detailed energy audit underpinning it, but that was never the intention of the book, and a complete energy audit for the UK is a huge task. The aim of the book was to suggest what the landscape communities designing their EDAPs might look like over the next 20 years on the basis on an assumed proactive response to peak oil and climate change. But Shaun will, I’m sure, respond to that, it is, after all, his book.
One final point, one I have made to Graham by email, and which might be good to make to the wider Zone 5 readership, my comment about how my children have been healthy thus far “touch wood” (a comment Graham relishes as a somehow being an affirmation of my cultish New Age tree worshipping lunatic woowoo approach to healthcare) was offered as a humorous aside, not a medical prescription.
With best wishes Rob
Thanks for your points Rob Re the process of EDAP, point taken, audits etc were not the aim for this book, I appreciate but was making a wider point about the usefulness of an EDAP that is purely visionary. Re the “touch wood”- you really don’t seem to understand what i’m trying to say- it seems more an ironic aside than humorous, because not vaccinating children is indeed leaving their health to chance. Likewise using placebos like acupuncture or homeopathy is little more than saying “touch wood”. I’m asking you to take responsibility for giving good, evidence-based information on vaccination, not complacently just saying, “My kids are OK so what’s the problem?” The problem is a measles epidemic. Now convert that way of thinking as an approach to climate change- “the climate doesn’t seem to bad right now, touch wood, think I’ll just keep on burning the ol’ carbon”.
Graham,
I’m glad you enjoyed my book, and thanks for your many kind comments on it and the work I put in – they are much appreciated. As ever though, I will expend more words addressing your constructive criticisms!
As you state, I acknowledge in the book that the lack of a thorough energy audit is a big loss, and it was simply not feasible for me to take this on a full UK energy audit as an unfunded individual (as Rob will testify, I did have that ambition at one stage!).
I completely agree that our plans must be visionary, but also need to be grounded and quantified. I am currently working with the Zero Carbon Britain team to this end, but if you have ideas as to other constructive ways to take this work forward, then drop me a line.
I have been in contact with the authors of the Mayo Energy Audit, and others looking at this area, but could not see a good way of incorporating such work into my book, with its broader scale. In the end, we decided a collaborative approach was best, and so put the book out there as is as a first draft, with the intention that this work could continue from there via the Transition Forums and the Appropedia collaborative drafting process
Nonetheless, I feel that the scenarios as they stand make a useful contribution. You would likely agree that my broad brushstroke approach is sufficient to highlight the unsustainability of business as usual, which of course leaves us with the task of devising a satisfactory low-energy, low-emissions way of life.
You say that the book is lacking “some kind of analysis of what a reasonable standard of living might be”, but I would argue that the whole Transition Vision section of my book is that very exploration of the possibility of a lower-consumption, higher quality-of-life way of living. Indeed, your Cuba suggestion makes a number of appearances in that section in just that role.
Yes, energy use reductions of an even more dramatic nature may be required, but getting people thinking about these questions at the local level is a positive step either way. The fundamental point of the book is that if we are actually going to act on any auditing work done then our underlying cultural stories need to shift dramatically. This is where the first edition of my book focuses its efforts.
Re: your specific comments on population it seems to me that we fundamentally agree. My book makes very clear that both population and consumption must be addressed, and on that we agree. I make no attempt to present it as either/or. I completely agree with Nate Hagens that we are predisposed to increase both our population and our consumption, and he completely agrees with me that “cultural change is likely our only successful path forward” (from his endorsement quote in the front of my book).
The Transition Timeline also makes clear that consumption is the bigger contributor of the two to our environmental catastrophe. On that you do not challenge the facts but question whether it is a meaningful distinction. It seems to me that it is, but since that does not change the actions we advocate to reduce both, I don’t think it’s one for us to lose sleep over.
I was a bit surprised to see that almost half of your review focused on one brief comment on ‘alternative’ medicines (the quote you pull out being the only mention in the whole book). As I understand it, your strong reaction is really to the “New Age and pseudoscientific ” cultural story that you perceive as underlying that quote, although you acknowledge that the book and the wider Transition movement are generally based on verifiable science.
Your discussions with Rob and others above and in the Transition Timeline forum re: homeopathy, vaccine policy etc I wouldn’t presume to comment on. I know little about this, and they are not mentioned in my book. Although I worked with many brilliant people in putting The Transition Timeline I am not a specialist in healthcare, any more than I am a specialist in food and farming.
Still, I would respond to your comment:
“Now, certainly the problems with modern medicine are manifold, in particular the over-dependence on oil, horrific levels of waste and a level of corruption amongst Big Pharma. None of this is evidence that alternatives…work”.
Of course this is true. But this unsustainability is evidence that alternatives to the current way of doing things are all we have to try and find something that does work.
As you say, some ‘alternative’ medicine works and some doesn’t, just like every other kind of medicine. And since large-scale industrialised research trials are just as unsustainable as the rest of industrialised medicine, an interesting question is perhaps how we can organise reliable low-energy tests of efficacy.
If there is as you say “no way of knowing for sure” without high-energy processes, then we will be left with the process of experiment and local ‘anecdote’ that tended to humanity for millennia, but perhaps we can do better?
I think we can agree that instances of ‘quackery’ exist, and also that instances of corruption and bias in large-scale trials exist, but perhaps we can draw on your interesting analogy between the arguments of climate change denialists and endorsements of alternative medicine.
As I understand it you are criticising the extrapolation from one cool day, week, month or year to the belief that future periods will also be cool. Such an extrapolation clearly ignores all the evidence collected by climate science as to the long-term trends. In other words, their sample size is vastly too small, but this is not to say that the evidence of that cool day is inadmissible, simply that it is outweighed by the evidence in the other direction.
In a similar way, taking the fact that a treatment worked for you to mean that it might work for a friend does constitute valid evidence, it is just on a very small sample size. Clearly increasing the sample size is desirable. Yet this kind of trusted advice or ‘anecdote’ is the basis for a great deal of human behaviour, in all manner of contexts. So how can we increase the sample size on which it is based?
I’m just pondering out loud here, but maybe some form of internet-based collaborative way of “WeThinking could increase the sample size of our evidence, without greatly increasing energy demands? Perhaps practitioners could sign up to point all of their clients at the appropriate survey before treating them? Though this idea would depend on opinions as to the sustainability and resilience of the internet of course…
Thoughts welcome, but anyway, thanks again for your considered and thoughtful review
All the best, Shaun http://www.darkoptimism.org
ps I tend to agree that the Peak Car estimate should be moved forward – such are the perils of putting anything down in print!
The discussion continues here: http://transitiontowns.org/forum/topic/transition-timeline-feedback?replies=16#post-1811
Shaun
but I dont feel you have really addressed the issue: you specifically go out of your way in the book to highlight “alternative” medicine as a CORE PILLAR of the transition approach to medicine. All these approaches are lumped together in the same way that they tend to lump themselves together. You wont get an acupuncturist claim they have evidence for the effectiveness of their therapy, while at the same time challenging, say homeopathy; alternative therapists clan together, because for them, the treatments are faith-based, promoted by clever marketing- “holistic” “natural, safe alternatives” to which we might add “helps build community resilience; medicine without oil dependency”; none of which adress the issue: do they work? The evidence for this is absolutely as clear as is the evidence for climate change: they do not work. If you can grapple so skillfully with the nuances of the evidence for GW, you should have no problem with evidence-based medicine. Interesting point you make about whether we will still have the energy for clinical trials, but for most of what you are referring to as “alternative medicine” the evidence is already there, the trials already done: are you suggesting we ignore this because in the future we may not be able to do science the way we do now?
what do you mean by “alternative”? I think the only answer, since you make no distinctions between them, is “holistic” in the religious sense, ie. remedies that are exempt from having any supportive evidence. This is why I spent so long on the issue in my review- for one it seems a sloppy and even irresponsible approach to something as important as health; but more broadly it betrays an ideological and anti-science world view which underpins much of the environmental movement, and,it seems, the transition movement as well- which as I say is surely an example of cognitive dissonance.
I think the role of energy literacy – which is probably only about Junior cert maths when it comes down to it – cannot be over stated when formulating energy descent or energy transition action plans. Its hard to have a reduction strategy without some idea of the ultimate destination.
In a recent short review of the Mayo Energy Audit, (http://transitiontownsireland.ning.com/forum/topics/mayo-energy-audit-review) Roger Adair points out that indigenous resources, even if developed in an optimal way, will only provide the equivalent of a small fraction of current energy usage. If we take Final Energy Consumption, the figures are as follows (proportion of current Final Energy Consumption ultimately provided from indigenous resources): 2020: 16% 2030: 28% 2040: 35%
I have used the word ‘indigenous’ as there was some turf included in the Mayo calculations. However, this is a diminishing resource, and the extraction of the raw material carries a high environmental footprint.
The Mayo figures were quite optimistic, as they assumed the necessary steps to plant thousands of acres of sub-tillage-quality land in broadleaves (for biomass) would begin almost immediately. I don’t see much sign of that happening!
However, there was also some surplus electricity (not included in the figures above), which could be exported to regions of Ireland less endowed with electricity generation capability.
Is Mayo representative of Ireland? Not really. Its population density of 22 persons per km2 is only slightly over one third of the national average (59 persons/km2). Conversely, it has good renewable resources compared to many parts of Ireland. Current per capita energy use is slightly above the national average owing to high transport requirements.
The inescapable conclusion is that the Final Energy Consumption percentages given above should probably be divided by three when applied to Ireland as a whole. This gives:
2020: 5-6% 2030: 9-10% 2040: 11-12%
Remember, these are best case scenario figures, and assumes massive country-wide mobilisation, beginning immediately.
Just to put the energy figures in context, if Ireland relied on indigenous resources alone, the best case scenario would imply about the same per capita energy usage as India, not Cuba!!
It is worth pointing out that Ireland’s low population density and good renewable energy resources base still puts it in a much better position than many of its European neighbours, especially Britain ( with 15 times the population and only 3 times the renewable resources)!!
The question is, how long does Ireland have to make the switch from fossil fuels to a renewable energy-based society that carries out its essential functions on as little as one tenth of what we use now? If we really did have till 2040, and could wean ourselves off oil and gas in a gentle gradual way, probably the transition could be made relatively easily. I somehow doubt the reality will be anything like that.