Irish Transition Network April 17, 2008
Posted by Graham in : General , 2commentsLast Saturday at the Powerdown Symposium at Cultivate saw the inaugural meeting of people from around Ireland interested in starting a Transition process in their town.
More than 60 people attended the meeting with a dozen or more towns represented.
The main meeting was lead by Ben Bragwyn co-founder of the UK Transition Network who spoke about the origins of the concept and took us through the 12 Steps to Transition. Davie Philip will co-ordinate the network here through the Cultivate Centre.
A discussion took place as to what the criteria would be for joining and how “local” could the process be made in terms of specific process. Ben assured us that the key thing to remember for a Transition town - as opposed to, say, a purely Climate Change group - is building community resilience. This is a response that recognizes the wider implications of fossil fuel dependency and works to create sustainability rather than reduction of emissions.
Davie Phillip of Cultivate writes:
“The first step in getting the Irish network up and running is getting a few more communities recognised by the Transition Network in the UK. There are currently only two official Transition initiatives in Ireland, Kinsale and Hollywood. From the meeting it is clear that Newbridge, Monaghan, Cloughjordan, Kilkenny and Tralee could all be very close to fulfilling the steps to be recognised officially.”
Cultivate are also running a series of Transition Training events to give communities some of the tools they need to follow the process- the first one is already fully booked but check the Cultivate website for updates.
Convergence 13: Transition Strategies April 10, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Powerdown, Transition Towns, community , 4commentsLast weekend saw the Community Powerdown Symposium at the 13th Convergence Festival at the Cultivate Centre in Dublin.
Opened by John Gormley, Minister for Environment, Heritage and local Government, this landmark event was attended by about 100 people and saw the beginnings of a fledgling Irish Transition Network with a meeting of over 60 representatives from about 15 towns around the country interested in starting the transition Process.
Left: Minister John Gormley opens the Powerdwon Symposium; Right: Ben Bragwyn, Daniel Lerch, Megan Quinn, Jonathon Dawson (more…)
Kinsale Spring Fair March 31, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Transition Towns, community , 2commentsI was back down in Kinsale at the end of the Easter break on Saturday for the Transition Towns Spring Fair.
Organised by permaculture students and members of Transition Towns Kinsale with Kinsale Tidy Towns, it consisted of a market with stalls selling local produce in the town, with exhibits, talks, Transition TV and more stalls in the Temperence Hall.
In particular it was great to see the newly formed Kinsale Food Co-op with freshly baked cakes and wholefoods with a presence in the market.
(more…)
Of Tipis and Yurts March 24, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Yurts , 4commentsI have always been interested in the simple nomadic life- although I am now settled in Derryduff for nearly 7 years- and lived in a tipi in Shropshire for a year in 1989. During this time I made frequent visits to Tipi Valley in south Wales- a whole community of around 100 people living in tipis that has been there for nearly 30 years (if it is indeed still going).
Tipi Valley had fairly strict rules about the kind of structures that were permitted- in the lower part of the village tipis only were permitted. The lifestyle was harsh and dedicated- firewood collecting was a constant chore and in the absence of roads through the settlement most people were restricted to whatever dead wood they could carry back on their shoulder each morning, cut with a bow-saw. (more…)
Joe Polaischer R.I.P. March 3, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Permaculture , add a commentI only just noticed on David Holmgren’s website the sad passing on Feb 14th of Permaculture Elder Joe Polaischer.
Originally from Austria, Joe was founder, with his partner Trish Allen, of Rainbow Valley farm in New Zealand. I had the pleasure of meeting Joe at the International Permaculture Convergence in Croatia in 2005. I was struck by his charisma and breadth of knowledge which was infectious and inspiring.
Right: Joe and Trish (on right of picture) Ljubljana 2005
After the conference he traveled with some of us back to Ljubljana. He regaled us with tales of his very colorful life and expressed amazement at the extensively wooded countryside in Slovenia. The last time he had been in this part of the world was over 40 years earlier when he had run away from home at the age of 18 over the Alps into what was then Yugoslavia. Seemingly in those days there were many goats and few trees. The story goes that the then dictator, Tito, had ordered the removal of effectively all the goats from the countryside, allowing the impressive regeneration of the woods- a story I often recount to express the rapid ability of the trees to come back.
He also had stories from the war time in Austria when he was a young boy on his father’s farm. Previously wealthy people from the city would come begging for food. His father would let them stay for a day- but no longer. On one occasion he saw the visitors throw jewels onto the table offered as a fee to let them stay where there was food a while longer. the young Joe, not having seen such shiny things before reached out to take them but was told sharply by his father, “No! Don’t touch them! They are filthy!” The lesson was, anything that hadnt been earned by the sweat of the brow on the land was not to be trusted, a lesson that Joe embodied in his permaculture life.
You can read David Holmgren’s obituary here
Powerdown TV Show March 2, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil, Powerdown , add a commentI have not been posting very regularly recently and part of the reason is that I have been very busy moving into the now (mainly) finished timber cabin. I am delighted to have moved into this cosy space. Warm, functional and full of light it promises to be a very comfortable and appropriately-sized living space.
Some of my first visitors were the crew from Cultivate who came down last week to interview me for the forthcoming TV show that will accompany the Skilling Up for Powerdown Course.
Right: Davie, Eoghain, Rob in the Cabin.
This innovative 10-week course is the brain child of Cultivate’s Education Officer Davie Philip who has been putting it together over the last year or so as a community learning resource. Davie has just started running it in Dublin for the third time, and it has also been trialled in Kinsale. When finished, it will be a groundbreaking resource for community self-learning on issues of community responses to peak oil and Climate change and will include a book and DVD-rom with a short film specially made to explore each chapter of the course. (more…)
The Transition Handbook March 1, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil, Permaculture, Powerdown, community , 3commentsBook Review
The Transition Handbook From oil dependency to local resilience Rob Hopkins Green Books 2008 Pbck; 240pp The transition Handbook is available from www.transition culture.org
“The concept of energy descent, and of the Transition approach, is a simple one: that the future with less oil could be preferable to the present, but only if sufficient creativity and imagination are applied early enough in the design of this transition.”
-Rob Hopkins, The Transition handbook
The publication of the much anticipated Transition Handbook marks the latest landmark in what has become the fastest growing environmental movement since CND in the 1960s: the phenomenon that is sweeping the UK, the Transition Towns movement. (more…)
Pedal Power February 15, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Renewable Energy , 1 comment so farI had the pleasure of visiting the Cork Community Bike project in Cork City the other day where I found Garrett Blake and Rob in the workshop. 
Both have been to the inspiring Maya Pedal Project in Guatamala which has created a great range of pedal powered machines including grinders, mills, pumps and generators. This is exactly the kind of appropriate and sustainable, empowering technology we should be focusing on more, rather than putting all our faith in high-tech solutions such as thin-film solar
Garrett, who has a Masters in Sustainable Energy from UCC, founded the project three years ago to promote training and facilities for bikes and pedal powered machines in Cork. From their website:
“Cork community bikes is developing a do-it-yourself bike workshop for the community to use. Our work aims to salvage unwanted bicycles from the waste stream, repair them and resell them. We work with local schools and youth groups promoting the use of bicycles and sustainable transport . We want the workshop to be a centre of training and a social focus for anybody with an interest in bicycles in the cork city.”
I had a go on their pedal-powered dynamo which can be used to power sound systems at festivals. This is something I could really do with, having limited power at home, for charging batteries. A good dynamo with a fit pedaler can generate something in the range of 100watts, enough to run a laptop computer for example.
Another good site with info on pedal powered dynamos can be found here.
Pedal power is of course a key part of any post-oil society and it is great to see projects like this springing up providing such tools and skills. All power to their pedals.
`
Monbiot on Population February 1, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Environment, Human Ecology, Overshoot, Peak Oil, Population , 8comments[Update: See John Feeney's excellent response to Monbiot here.]
A few people have pointed me to George Monbiot’s recent article on population in the Guardian. While it is welcome that Monbiot addresses the issue I wanted to reply because I found it really disappointing, failing to join the dots and in some ways misleading.
The main thrust of the article is that some environmentalists complain the issue of population is ignored- perhaps for political reasons- even though it is the “number one environmental problem” and Monbiot sets out to discuss whether this is in fact true. The basic issue in this debate is, can we really give out as it were about the large populations of the developing world when over-consumption in the West is in fact having a bigger environmental impact? (more…)
Back to Nature #5 Consciousness for Sustainabiltiy January 27, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Human Ecology, Overshoot, Permaculture, Science and Rationaltiy , 4commentsConsciousness for Sustainability
The discussion of the “Back to Nature” series has been looking at developmental models of human behaviour, with a view to seeing what light, of any, such approaches can shed on the perplexing question:
Why do so many people seem to be in denial, or to be unable to grasp the reality that the human ecological footprint has far exceeded the carrying capacity of the earth, and that energy depletion, climate change and general environmental degradation will inevitably result in the end of our current way of life?
In this concluding part of the series we will have a look at some of the general implications of this model for achieving sustainabiltiy and try to find an answer to the question: Can we really go Back to nature? (more…)
