James Howard of Powerswitch in the U. Peak Oil and Climate Change are a bigger threat together than either are alone. Our biggest hope is to similarly converge our understanding of them, and how to deal with the problems they present.
Peak Oil and Climate Change must be fused as issues-an approach is needed to deal with them as a package. If we are looking for answers, the environmental movement has pushed suitable ones for a long time. Peak Oil presents a tremendous chance to push those solutions ahead; failure to incorporate a full understanding of Peak Oil into the solutions argument for Climate Change would be an abject failure. Fundamental to the Transition Town movement is the notion of resilience. Three requirements for a resilient system are: Diversity, Modularity, and Tightness of Feedbacks.
Diversity simply refers to the number of elements in the system-people, species, businesses, institutions, and sources of food. What matters is not so much the number of any of these entities but the connections between them and the diversity of responses to challenges, the diversity of land use, and the diversity between systems. Modularity of a structure refers to the parts of the system that can re-organize in the event of a shock. It is a key facet of designing an energy-descent plan because the more modularity, the less vulnerability to disruptions in wider networks.
Tightness of feedbacks analyzes how quickly and strongly one part of the system can respond to changes in another part. Globalization and national systems can weaken feedbacks, whereas in localized systems, the results of our actions are more obvious and allow the community to bring the consequences of its actions closer to home.
The format of this mini-workbook sized manual is extremely appealing. These are good books, well worth reading cover-to-cover, or having on the shelves as a wide-ranging resource and source of inspiration. I definitely think activists should read them. But for me they describe just one part of a solution and are limited by their failure to appreciate the reality of the times we live in and the responses they demand of us all. The proceeds would be poured back into addressing the causes and consequences of climate change, with an emphasis on the poor and those most acutely affected.
The approach would create, it is claimed, market incentives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the development of alternatives. Kyoto2 is quite a demanding read, being relatively technical and lacking the playful touch of the Transition books.
However, it repays the time spent getting to grips with the issues. However, for me the book suffers from essentially being a lengthy polemic for a single idea. Some of the 10 will already understand the exponential problems the world faces. All of the 10 will be willing to acknowledge the concepts of peak oil and climate change.
All will recognize the opportunity to prepare for life beyond oil depe I am always dreaming enormous dreams, such as giving this transformative book to ten carefully chosen people within every American town. All will recognize the opportunity to prepare for life beyond oil dependency and without government support. It will take the few a long time to convince the masses in America, because of the consumerist culture, which is all the more reason to get started.
It is a race to build a new culture from within and right under the giant. This handbook has started a movement in Europe, New Zealand and Australia. Some towns in California and Vermont have already adopted its guidelines. Hopkins writes from a wealth of experience and research.
His profession being permaculture, he naturally understood relationship and interconnection, then applied these principles to ever-larger areas and facets of life, with the objective of creating a resilient and self-reliant community. This holistic thinking of sustainability goes so far as to introduce local currency as a way to keep local economy strong. After his involvement with organizing and creating the first Transition Towns in England, he certainly had information to share.
The ideas presented in this book are the lessons learned from those experiences. The book is a reference and guide for those wanting to begin a community transformation. Together with the corresponding website it is the foundation of a contagious and collaborative movement positively affecting society.
The need for this transformation is based on the premise that when the effects of resource shortages hit, it will become increasingly difficult to make the necessary changes. Positive, planned, and preemptive commitments are essential because the alternative is a future of reactive actions that are theorized to be negative, unplanned, and bordering on the total collapse of society as we know it.
Today, the methods some grassroots organizations utilize are designed to scare the populous into action. Hopkins breaks the book up into three main sections, The Head, which is realizing the need for community based change, The Heart, which is the community vision, and The Hands, which are the manifestations of the vision. To foster true change Hopkins gathers information from many academic disciplines, creating a comprehensive action plan focused on achieving results.
One of the methods employed comes from addiction study research. His methods have come together collaboratively and are intuitive, meant to get to The Heart of the matter. Borrowed, adapted and well thought out, they help to manifest the transition to a life beyond oil.
Hopkins also makes wonderful use of analogies in this book. For instance instead of viewing peak-oil as a cliff we are about to fall from; view it as a deep pond of sticky oil. We have reached the bottom and are now rushing to get up for a breath of air. The style and formatting of the handbook complement the function; it is easy to reference key items you would need to begin a Transition Town.
The margins present remarkable quotes, data, and excerpts from other research. Charts and photos help make complex ideas understandable and examples realistic. Group exercises and news clippings are given the space and attention to be effective. Why pay increasingly more for less happiness all the while further degrading the earth? Perhaps for some the debate still lies in The Head.
However, whether they think about it daily or not, individuals know that the earth is all we have, and that it is a closed loop system. People realize the industrial revolution created consequences. Most Americans are caught up in the busy life, without direction or a vision forward. This is where the Transition Handbook is helpful; it has already transformed towns in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and a few in Vermont and California. It suggests an answer, an option, of how to proceed to a healthy next era on earth with hope and enthusiasm.
America should stop waiting around for the government to do something. Americans have the chance to bring power and control to the ground they walk on. The ideas contained within The Transition Handbook could become a reality. It only takes a few aware, concerned, and courageous people to begin.
It is a positive and healthy choice. This is a movement of people, for people, by people. What could be more American than this?
Dec 30, Nadir rated it liked it Shelves: how-to. Parts of this book are excellent and other parts are tedious, hence my change from 4 down to 3 stars. Resilience is the new term en vogue - what can your community do on its own?
To the extent that most or all of these things come to you from far away illustrates your vulnerability should sy Parts of this book are excellent and other parts are tedious, hence my change from 4 down to 3 stars.
To the extent that most or all of these things come to you from far away illustrates your vulnerability should systems of support slow or break down. In this regard, starting on your own property is step 1, then encouraging and helping others to enter higher levels of independence becomes step 2, and at a certain point, it becomes self evident that making your community more self sufficient is step 3. This is going to require changes in areas one doesn't often consider - like zoning e.
So, this book is worth reading, but it's not precisely what I'd hoped for when I bought it. Still searching. May 21, Lisa rated it it was amazing Shelves: sustainability. This book has so affected my life that I've begun the process of bringing Transition to my home town by scheduling a training for 50 attendees. The trainers actually went to Britain and trained with the founder and author, Rob Hopkins. Rob tells a story about how we environmentalists usually approach change: he says, you tell someone about this nasty, cold, ugly, bed and breakfast situated behind a high rise in northern England on the wrong coast -- and then you tell your friend, "You REALLY REA This book has so affected my life that I've begun the process of bringing Transition to my home town by scheduling a training for 50 attendees.
Rob tells a story about how we environmentalists usually approach change: he says, you tell someone about this nasty, cold, ugly, bed and breakfast situated behind a high rise in northern England on the wrong coast -- and then you tell your friend, "You REALLY REALLY don't want to go there. We could have more connected communities, better health, more exercise, more local food, relationships with those who produce the goods we use, fewer stress and diet-related diseases, and so on.
Go to You Tube and watch a few videos of Hopkins talking about his simple, yet ingenious concept of Transition Towns. And then, read this book! Oct 14, Kristen rated it it was ok. Someone else here described this book as a "hippie-dippy community-self-help book for utopic apocolyptos. The author went on exhaustively - really, too much! The big problem for me is that I already agree with much of that, but the book was very short on tips, objectives, and clear examples.
Mostly it was about organizing and Someone else here described this book as a "hippie-dippy community-self-help book for utopic apocolyptos. Mostly it was about organizing and community-building, explained in what seem to me vague and overly-long terms.
The community organizing and awareness is important, I guess, but really not what I was hoping for from this book. I guess I'll have to look for other sources on how to really develop a local community-based life. Not the book I wanted it to be. Oct 09, John rated it really liked it. This book is a handbook for a practical development of a community spirit for personal responsibility for make global environmental changes through local action. This is both a lot of weird juxtapositions: "a practical development of spirit", "a community spirit for personal responsibility", "personal responsibility for global change", and the most natural practical response in the world to just about everything people don't like about life: "I hate this thing that is going on everywhere, so I'm This book is a handbook for a practical development of a community spirit for personal responsibility for make global environmental changes through local action.
This is both a lot of weird juxtapositions: "a practical development of spirit", "a community spirit for personal responsibility", "personal responsibility for global change", and the most natural practical response in the world to just about everything people don't like about life: "I hate this thing that is going on everywhere, so I'm going to come up with some things that I like that seem to go in the other direction and get my friends, and their friends, to come along and we'll see if we can cobble that together into a different way of doing things".
With a book of this title, we have to talk about what it is not. This book is not a complete handbook on how to make a successful transition from a standard Western community to a locally resilient community with a complete adopted plan for "powering down". I wouldn't get on this guy's case though, because it has never been done.
It is a guide for getting communities excited to start a transition journey and start undertaking a variety of useful initiatives in that general direction. This book is a handbook for starting a sustained engagement with a transition process, and as such is a guide to psychology, community development, and public relations. If you want some nuts and bolts on what the necessary skills to power-down are, you might be better of reading on permaculture directly.
I think those readings would be complimentary; I think reading this first will give you a taste for that kind of thing while providing some context for doing that in society. If you are looking for an example, checklist, template, or process for a workable energy descent plan itself, the goal of the transition process, might end up looking like, this book also isn't for you, as it doesn't provide one it does, somewhat irritatingly, provide in the appendix a homework assignment to create one.
So, if this book really doesn't address how to make the move oil dependence to local resilience, why bother? What this book will provide is a great three part push for yourself to make a personal engagement with climate change and reductions in energy return for the energy applied, in the form of three parts 1 coming to a sober recognition of the facts 2 seeing that it really might be personally better and 3 engaging the people around you in imagining a self-sufficient and engaged region.
But, that's not the fun part. The fun part is holding a lot of great events and listing to people about what they think needs to change, and systematically letting them steer things towards doing it. It is true that it isn't pure method: it has some suggestions about some specific things you'll need to worry about Energy, Food, Housing, Interpersonal stuff, Economics, Conflict resolution and even some specific advice in some areas.
The right way to read this as some folks saying "We're going to have to live differently, so why don't we have some nut trees! A lot of people like nuts, they will be great to have around.
Also, don't you want to learn some old fashioned skills? Build up a sense of accomplishment and might be really useful. Also, you should have some local money with local landmarks or historical figures or whatever, that promotes local businesses. We're all going to be more useful in a variety of circumstances, and listen to each other more, have some great local gardens, and basically have some wonderful celebrations with each other at every stage along the way. Also, you should get a bicycle, they are great; maybe some solar panels too if it makes sense".
I mean, it sounds like a pretty good time. It's kind of like a book of sustained eco-partying. The edition I read was published in , and apparently it was only in about that the author started trying to do these sorts of initiatives, though he was already coming to these activities having taught permaculture and so having a fair amount of experience in training, promoting, organizing, and having some expertise in the root facts.
So, it seems to be going well; these seem like pretty positive preliminary results. So, even though this book delivers far less than its title promises, I'm going to rate this pretty high because it is kind-spirited, and I like that.
Sep 04, Aleksandar rated it liked it Shelves: politics , permaculture , community , non-fiction. It feels strange reading this book 10 years after it has been published. I don't think I've read anything that has aged so poorly so quickly, particularly regarding all the predictions regarding fossil fuel supply and culture change. It also feels like the book was written too soon, within 2 years of the first Transition Town launch.
I suppose one of its goals was to inject fuel into the Transition movement, which I'm sure it did in its time. However, reading the book now Both in terms of peak oil and global cultural advances made. It seems like we've only had more of the status quo for the past decade, with no visible significant changes in any direction. I know it was meant to be inspirational, but I'm full of doubts after reading it.
Still, the main premise is sound, as well as the solution in terms of focusing on the local. I myself live in a form of Transition community, so all of this makes sense to me.
But having read the book, I don't think I've picked up on much applicable knowledge, at least not applicable to our context in south-eastern Europe. Oct 24, Ryan rated it liked it. I feel like this book primarily serves as a conversation starter in mainstream environmentalist circles. It does a good job of envisioning a sustainable future for Western civilization and provides an almost too optimistic vision of a pathway to it, but is still confined by many of the existing flaws of mainstream environmentalism.
It manages to overcome societal nihilism and all the rampant pessimism that many environmental authors like Jensen rely on as well as avoiding the naivete and lack of I feel like this book primarily serves as a conversation starter in mainstream environmentalist circles.
It manages to overcome societal nihilism and all the rampant pessimism that many environmental authors like Jensen rely on as well as avoiding the naivete and lack of pragmatism that environmentalists on the opposing end of the spectrum fall into. However, it fails to reconcile the issues of privilege and race that mainstream environmentalism usually falls flat on.
Jul 10, Mina Villalobos rated it it was ok Shelves: world-improvement , ethics , design , gardening. I would have liked to read a bit more about the way a city can work as a transition town. Definitely a very different way of living, and something I would like to to see applied in my city, but a bit hard to imagine how to even get started in such a disconnected place.
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