Rob Hopkins is a cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network, and the author of The Transition Handbook, The Transition Companion, The Power of Just Doing Stuff, 21 Stories of Transition and most recently, From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want. He presents the podcast series ‘From What If to What Next‘ which invites listeners to send in their “what if” questions and then explores how to make them a reality. In 2012, he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals. Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought and A Good Read, in the French film phenomenon Demain and its sequel Apres Demain, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events. An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins also holds a doctorate degree from the University of Plymouth and has received two honorary doctorates from the University of the West of England and the University of Namur. He is a keen gardener, a founder of New Lion Brewery in Totnes, and a director of Totnes Community Development Society, the group behind Atmos Totnes, an ambitious, community-led development project. He blogs at transtionnetwork.org and robhopkins.net and tweets at @robintransition.
What if we read more books?
By Rob Hopkins, Rob Hopkins blog
When was the last time you read a book cover to cover? And if you are still able to do this, do you feel you read in the same way you did, say, 20 years ago?
The Tale of the Camden Future Journal
By Rob Hopkins, Transition Network
A year ago we shared with you the story of the Camden Think & Do, the amazing community-led What If space created by Transition Kentish Town (TKT) in partnership with other community organisations. This is the story of what they did next, the tale of the Camden Future Journal.
From What If to What Next: with Dr. Wanda Wyporska and Chuck Collins
By Rob Hopkins, Rob Hopkins blog
In my latest podcast we are exploring how it would be if Feeney’s thinking were to be embraced by those holding the vast reserves of money that the world needs to address its complex problems right now. What if they shifted and recognised the need to let go of what they’re holding onto? And how would it feel to do so?
Resilience lacks radicality. Let’s cultivate our imagination seriously
By Anthony Cara, Rob Hopkins, OuiShare
In the Transition movement, we saw resilience as a way of “bouncing forward”. We wanted to use the anticipation of these shocks to design different and better systems.
Drucilla Cornell on the power of the public imagination
By Rob Hopkins, Rob Hopkins blog
I’m an old union organiser, and the way you get a public imagination is that you organise from the ground up, and you get people together to begin to see a common world.
What if a revolution in our relation to land unlocked a revolution of the imagination?
By Rob Hopkins, Josina Calliste, Chris Smaje, Rob Hopkins blog
In today’s episode we bring together Josina Calliste, a health professional and community organiser who is one of the co-founders of Land in Our Names (LION), a black-led collective addressing land inequalities affecting black people and people of colour’s ability to farm and grow food in Britain, and Chris Smaje, author of the book ‘A Small Farm Future‘ and the brilliant blog of the same name.
What If? there was a daily imagination lesson?
By Rob Hopkins, Rob Hopkins blog
The imagination is radical. It is the only way to get us beyond what is and to get us to what if. It can get us beyond business as usual, beyond what is in front of us.
Some reflections on the difference between ‘Yes, but’ and ‘Yes, and’
By Rob Hopkins, Rob Hopkins blog
While I entirely appreciate that ‘Yes, but’ has a role in holding those in power to account, it also suffocates and stifles and undermines. Just for those few moments, I allowed myself to imagine how our political debates might look if they had ‘Yes, and’ at their heart. I liked what I saw.