Transition Culture

• Spending Time with a Bevvy of Social Entrepreneurs: a Trip to Austria

  I spent the earlier part of this week in Austria at a meeting of European Ashoka Fellows and a fascinating couple of days it proved to be.  I travelled there by train, with an overnight sleeper from Paris to Munich on the way out, and a stop-over in Cologne on [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 2:05pm EST
  by Rob

• My TED Talk, now online

  Here, finally, is the TED talk I gave in Oxford earlier this year. Probably the most nervousness-enducing talk I have ever given. I hope you find it useful. [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 11:48am EST
  by Rob

• Transition Town Tooting’s ‘Foodival’

  Number of comments: 1
  Transition Town Tooting recently held their fantastic ‘Foodival‘ event. Rather than me write reams about it, check out the film below which offers a great record of the day. [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 1:38am EST
  by Rob

• The Mayor of Lambeth Goes on a Brixton Pound Spending Spree

  Number of comments: 2
  [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 10:54am EST
  by Rob

• A Local Currency Pilgrimage to Wörgl

  Number of comments: 9
  Well not quite, but en route to a gathering of Ashoka Fellows in Austria where I’ll be for the next couple of days, I by chance found myself in the Austrian town of Wörgl, famed for its alternative currency experiment in the 1930s.  In order to mark the deep influence [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 9:48am EST
  by Rob

• An Event in Totnes for Transition Oral History Buffs

  Number of comments: 2
  How We Used To Live – Food, energy, skills, and elbow-grease: memories of a pre-oil Totnes. How did Totnes feed, heat and transport itself before the age of globalisation and cheap energy? What did a local food system look like to those who depended on it? Two generations have passed [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:31am EST
  by Rob

• ‘Transition Norwich: a Fine City in Transition’ – 2009 Survey Findings

  Number of comments: 5
  Hot on the heels of her excellent 2009 Transition Network survey, Gill Seyfang of UEA is back, this time with a similarly excellent and comprehensive survey of Transition Norwich.  You can download the pdf. of her survey here.  The findings Gill notes are very interesting, such as how a third [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 2:16am EST
  by Rob

• Announcing the Italian edition of ‘The Transition Handbook’

  Number of comments: 10
  I was delighted to hear today that the Italian edition of The Transition Handbook, “Il Manuale Practico della Transizione”, has arrived and is now in print.  Regular readers will know that I spent a few years living in Italy earlier in my life, and have a continued affection for the [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:16am EST
  by Rob

• Interview on the Agroinnovations Podcast: Part Two

  Here is Part Two of my interview on the Agroinnovations Podcast. [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 9:54am EST
  by Rob

• ‘Transition in the East’: a brilliant look at what’s rising in the East of England

  Number of comments: 3
  Last Saturday, in spite of the atrocious weather, 55 people from 19 Transition initiatives across the east of England gathered in Diss in Norfolk for the second meeting of Transition East.  Transition East is made up of Transition groups in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.  In honour of the [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 2:08am EST
  by Rob

• The Future of Food conference, Conway Hall, London. 12th November 2009

  Number of comments: 15
  Oh these mad Devon-to-London-and-back-in-a-day trips, I really must learn not to do them. I’m writing this on the train home after the train was stuck for half an hour at Pewsey due to a failed signal, which the driver waited for and then, it would appear, noted that it wasn’t [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 4:25am EST
  by Rob

• From TED: Edward Burtynsky photographs the landscape of oil:

  Number of comments: 4
  Here’s an excellent short talk from TED, exploring in a very visual way the impact that oil production has had on the world. It was also great that I wasn’t the only speaker who talked about peak oil! [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 1:27am EST
  by Rob

• ‘Local Food’ Reviewed in Permaculture Magazine

  Number of comments: 2
  LOCAL FOOD: How To Make It Happen In Your Community. Tamzin Pinkerton & Rob Hopkins. Green Books, 2009. 220 x 220mm, 216pp. £12.95 As the twin issues of Peak Oil and Climate Change become more widely discussed, more people become interested in prom-oting local food as one of the steps towards [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 1:01am EST
  by Rob

• Why the last thing London needs is more Clouds

  Number of comments: 15
  Gah.  I feel a rant coming on.  Here’s a crap idea for you.  The BBC announced today the idea of ‘The Cloud’, a new hideous construction to grace the city’s skyline in time for the 2012 Olympics.  It would take the form of a “giant cloud” that would “float” above [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 10:50am EST
  by Rob

• Vandana Shiva on how Transition initiatives in the North can best help the South

  Number of comments: 13
  While Vandana Shiva was in Berlin recently promoting her book ‘Soil Not Oil’, Andreas Teuchert and Thomas Finger of Transition Berlin, who were filming the event, spontaneously asked her for her thoughts on what the Transition Towns movement could do that is of real use for people in the southern [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 2:13am EST
  by Rob

• Transition Taunton Town and their local Council produce a Transition Vision for 2026

  Number of comments: 8
  Just realised I hadn’t blogged about this yet. It is an extraordinary story, one which we might regard as an example of best practice in terms of how Transition initiatives engage their local authorities.  In effect, Transition Taunton Town got over 350 staff from the local Council to create a [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 2:02am EST
  by Rob

• Interview on the Agroinnovations Podcast: Part One

  Number of comments: 1
  I did an interview yesterday with the Agroinnovations podcast, which went on for over an hour. It has been divided into two parts; part one has already been posted, and here it is. Part two will be up in a week or so. [...]
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  Posted: November 10, 2009, 1:55am EST
  by Rob

• Reunions with Trees that I Have Known (and Planted)

  Number of comments: 3
  While in West Cork last week, as well as renewing acquaintances with many old friends, I also renewed the acquaintances of some trees I planted or worked with in some way, and it was fascinating to see how they have grown.  If you ever want a clear and powerful indicator [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 6:48am EST
  by Rob

• The Transition North Conference, with audio files….

  Number of comments: 5
  I travelled up last Friday to Slaithwaite in Yorkshire for first Transition North conference, which was supported by the Co-operative and attended by people from the Transition and Co-operative movements across the North of England. It was a wonderful day. Dynamic, positive, creative and very well attended. Hosted at the Civic [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 5:48pm EST
  by Rob

• Sweden in Transition

  Number of comments: 15
  (Naresh Giangrande recently returned from a Transition Training tour of Sweden, here is a short report about his trip). I spent a intensely satisfying afternoon with the students of a Folks school in Gotenberg exploring how to tell positive stories of the future especially around climate change. We explored topics [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 1:47am EST
  by Rob

• ‘Transitioning Widbey’: a film about, erm, Transitioning Widbey

  Number of comments: 12
  Here is a rather good film from the good people at Transition Whidbey in the US, letting the world know what they’ve been up to.  Fantastic to see places making films like this, do film what you’re doing in this way, document your Transition work for ‘In Transition 2.0′.  Thanks [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 2:02am EST
  by Rob

• Responding to Alex Steffen’s Critique of Transition at WorldChanging

  Number of comments: 15
  I have been following with interest the discussions surrounding Alex Steffen’s piece at WorldChanging in which he critiques Transition.  I am honoured that someone so widely respected as a writer on sustainability issues saw fit to engage in discussions around Transition , but, as a critique of Transition, it leaves [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 2:03am EST
  by Rob

• Llandeilo Becomes the First Transition Initiative to Recieve a Royal Visit

  Number of comments: 3
  (Here is a press release from Transition Town Llandeilo in Wales…). The Transition Town Llandeilo project was very pleased to receive a visit from HRH The Prince of Wales at the Civic Hall on October 23rd. The Prince was introduced to members of Cymdeithas y Dalar, the allotments project on [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 5:49pm EST
  by Rob

• Back to the Old House: a few days at The Hollies

  Number of comments: 8
  Spent the half term weekend in West Cork in Ireland, revisiting people and places that made up my life between 1996 and 2005.  It was like visiting a parallel world, a ‘Sliding Doors’-like glimpse at what could have been, offering reflections on where I am now and where I have [...]
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  Posted: November 02, 2009, 2:56am EST
  by Rob