Davie Philip on Transition and The Good Life 2.0 February 11, 2010
Posted by Graham in : Transition Towns, community , add a commentMy long-time Permaculture and peak oil colleague Davie Philip gave an inspirational talk for Feasta in Dublin last summer.
He includes a nice account of the origins of the Transition movement in Kinsale with the Energy Descent Plan by Rob and his Permaculture students, and his own personal journey with Peak Oil which started even before with the Feasta conference in 2000;the influence on his thinking before that even of John Seymour; then following the story of Rob’s moving to Totnes and the movement starting in earnest from there, bringing us up to now with a discussion of some of the issues now facing Transition.
Took me back to those heady days of the first viewings of The End of Suburbia and flickerings of an awareness of oil depletion.
Davie Philip – Developing a transition mindset to overcome the inertia of the familiar from Feasta on Vimeo.
Faith in Transition July 12, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General, Peak Oil, Science and Rationaltiy, Transition Towns, consciousness , 5commentsUpdate: 16/07/09
See Dan Dennett on “Belief in belief” here
Updates: I’ve just put a couple of updates for clarification and a couple more links. I’ve marked them in the text.
I also want to say, whatever about my concerns regarding the ideology behind Transition, there is heaps of great work being done in the movement, which is hugely influential in exploring responses to Peak Oil and Climate Change. I am particularly looking forward to reading the “Can Totnes District Feed Itself” report- I hope it has some recipes in it!
I paid a visit to a forum on Transition and permaculture over at Transition Culture recently- wow, I only just got out in time before they lynched me! Apparently, post-modern lunacy is alive and well in the Transition Land where in a very interesting discussion on Transition, Permaculture, inclusiveness and the like, it became apparent that some things are just not on the table for discussion- yes you guessed it, yours truly raised the old chestnut of the evils of faith and all Hell broke loose. I quickly found myself embroiled in a disappear-up-your-own backside post- modern attack on my freedom of speech and left the forum just before the hounds were let out to accuse me of “bashing people of faith”. (more…)
Orlov: Only Aliens Can Save us from Collapse July 5, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil, Population, Transition Towns, collapse , 12commentsThe view expressed in recently reviewed books like Holmgren’s Energy Scenarios and Chamberlin’s The Transition Timeline is that peak oil will be followed by a long, slow decline- Energy Descent- rather than an abrupt collapse.
For an alternative view, Dmitri Orlov, author of the acclaimed Reinventing Collapse puts the case for sudden collapse very well in his recent post The Slope of Dysfunction
What, then, of our canonical Peak Oil scenario, which is that global crude oil (and natural gas condensate) production will rise to a lofty peak sometime soon, and then gently waft down, over several decades, until, by the year 2050 or some other distant date, less than half as much oil will be produced globally? Ever eager to present a hopeful vision, I will say here and now that I believe this scenario to be entirely plausible… but it requires alien intervention. As Russian oil production was saved by foreigners, so Earthling oil production must be be saved by aliens from outer space.
Orlov’s basic premise is that sudden collapse can only be mitigated once a country’s indigenous oil has peaked by making up the difference with increased imports, something that will not be possible after global oil peak.
The Soviet Union provides a historical model for this-
“There, production declined 43% between 1987 and 1996. The decline was arrested and reversed by the introduction of foreign investment and technology”.
It could be argued that the Soviet Union is not a good model because of other reasons such as its political system, but in fact, as he shows in his book, parts of the West, especially North America, are much less well placed to withstand abrupt declines in oil supply.
If Orlov is correct, our efforts at creating Energy Descent Plans and Transition Strategies would be better spent flashing SOS signals up into the night sky or hanging around those crop circles in the hope their alien authors will return with a few barrels of crude.
It will be very hard to mitigate any such sudden collapse, but Orlov links oil peak directly with financial collapse, which he predicts will be followed by political collapse, and then social collapse; these scenarios could be just around the corner, judging by the gathering speed of financial and political decline.
All is not lost however, and to read Orlov’s unique and side-ways look at how we might prepare (and how we might not) essential reading is here in his adress to last month’s Feasta Conference in Dublin Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation.
See especially slide no. 19 on this post “Collapse” or “Transition” ? for his sardonic view of the Transition movement.
Slide no. 2 helps explain why I take issue with Chamberlin’s views on population in my review of The Transition Timeline. On paper of course it may be possible to argue as he does that if we all did the right thing and reduced our consumption to, say, half of what it is now- the level of energy consumption of Cuba- reducing population might not be so urgent; in reality, it is incredibly difficult for us to voluntarily reduce our energy consumption. Most people living at the level of Cubans would love to increase their consumption and have an easier life!
I probably have a lower energy cosumption thatn average for ireland (not by much, mind you) and earn my living teaching how to reduce consumption, but the one thing I could do right now that would make a significant difference would be to get rid of the van, something that is not currently an option for financial reasons.
See also the comment from Andy Wilson at the end of the Transition Timeline review -we may be heading for just of 1/10 energy availability by 2040 which would be closer to the per capita consumption of India, not Cuba. Great for a gap year back-packing trip, but not something most of us would choose voluntarily no matter how motivated we are.
The Transition Timeline June 29, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Health, Peak Oil, Population, Powerdown, Science and Rationaltiy, Transition Towns, book review, climate change, community , 6comments
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. (more…)
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 Tookit #8 Energy Descent Pathways April 26, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil, Powerdown, Transition Towns, collapse , 1 comment so farEnergy Descent Pathways – Post Carbon Cities, Transition Towns and Eco Villages
This is the introduction to week 8 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
Subject
The concept of “energy descent” was first proposed by Howard Odum who recognized that the human economy is governed by the Laws of thermodynamics and energy and resource availability.
Odum believed that if we were guided by geologists and ecologists as much as by economists, we would be able to safely navigate our way across the inevitable peaking of world oil production and find “a prosperous way down”.
David Holmgren drew on Odum’s thesis in creating the permaculture concept in the 1970s, and more recently proposed a set of “Energy Future Scenarios” to allow us to peak into the future and gain an image of where we may be heading.
“I use the term ‘descent’ as the least loaded word that honestly conveys the inevitable, radical reduction of material consumption and/or human numbers that will characterise the declining decades and centuries of fossil fuel abundance and availability.” -Davie Holmgren
The ‘industrial ascent’ of Hubert’s curve over the past 150 years has given us a one-time energy bonanza allowing the industrialisation of almost every aspect of our life and the globalisation of our economies. Continual economic growth has required an assumption of continuing increase of energy availability, a myth we can now see as we sink into a post oil-peak world and the commencement of global recession.
Powerdown Toolkit # 2: The Power of Community- Social Capital, Resilience and the Local Community February 5, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil, Powerdown, Transition Towns, community , add a commentThis is the introduction to the second week of the Powerdown Toolkit 10-week community learning course created by the Cultivate Centre 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.
Subject: “Community powerdown”.
“Community” is often dismissed as a romantic notion, “harking back a golden age that never existed”. Traditional rural communities tended to be held together by the absence of choice: you were your mother’s daughter or your father’s son, and the range of possible futures – opportunities for travel, education, and employment- were limited.
From an ecological perspective, such opportunities were limited essentially by the availability of energy. This may have lead to a sense of being stifled by the conservative norms of the community, and their parochial and sometimes oppressive nature. The community became something to escape from once the opportunity arose. (more…)
Powerdown Toolkit January 22, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil, Powerdown, Transition Towns, climate change, community , add a comment
Over the past year or so I have been working with Davie Philip of Cultivate on the Skilling Up for Powerdown program, a learning resource in support of Transition Initiatives in Ireland.
The course has been run in Dublin and Kinsale a few times already and will be available as a community learning course throughout Ireland. In conjunction with this course, a series of 10 TV shows have been made for Dublin Community TV which are due to be aired starting next month.
Over the next few weeks I will post up the 10 Introductions for the course which I have co-written with David Fleming and edited.
Below is the general introduction.
Cultivate Community Powerdown Energy Use, Carbon Reduction and Resilience
The Cultivate Community Powerdown Toolkit is designed to support communities in their responses to the converging crises of the 21st Century: Climate change and Peak Oil; global social justice and equity; resource wars and development; loss of biodiversity and pollution. As we shall see, many if not all of these issues stem from our use and abuse of non-renewable fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. While Peak Oil concerns the availability of energy and how we will adjust to a decline in supply after a century and a half of growth, climate change is being caused by pollution from this energy-intensive lifestyle in the form of greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)
Rob Hopkins on Permaculture and the Kinsale College May 21, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Kinsale, Permaculture, Transition Towns , 1 comment so farTo mark the end of an era and the retirement of John Thuillier as director of the Kinsale FEC, Zone5 has managed to secure this exclusive and enlightening interview with Rob Hopkins who founded the unique 2-year course in Practical Sustainability 7 years ago. Thanks also to Rob for sending on some photos from the early days of the course which I have placed though the interview along with some recent ones from the past year.
When did you first move to Ireland?
I moved in September 1996, from Bristol. I had just finished my degree and my second child was about 6 months old. From a house in the middle of Bristol to a mouse-overrun farmhouse up a lane near Skibbereen. I had lived in cold houses before, but this one was COLD. From the moment I arrived though, I absolutely loved it. (more…)
Transition Town Kenmare May 2, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil, Transition Towns , add a commentThere was a great turn out for the first meeting to start the Transition process in Kenmare, Co. Kerry, which took place Thursday night May 1st at the Brooklane Hotel.
The meeting was organised by Oonagh Comerford who did a great job in inspiring people to come out. I gave a short talk about Peak Oil, the Kinsale college and permaculture, and how the Energy Descent Plan came to be written, sowing the seeds for the Transition network in the UK and now Ireland. We also watched an Australian documentary Four Corners- Peak Oil? which includes a trip to Ballydehob and an interview with Colin Campbell. It was great to see a thicket of hands go up when I asked how many had home gardens- Kenmare is clearly well placed and ahead of the game in that respect. And there is already a small group who have started a community garden so congratulations all for that. Discussions during the meeting included asking how much land precisely would each person need to feed themselves- “five acres and a cow” was one response- to what might we substitute for wheat as supplies decline. There will be a follow-up meeting on June 4th when the film The Power of Community- How Cuba Survived peak Oil will be shown -we promise!
