Transition & responses – Sept 21
– a Look at the Example of Detroit
-Lessons From a Low-Impact Week
-Free Geek – Computers for the Community
Act: Inspiration
The End of the World-as-we-know-it in 10 years? And the rise of the post-carbon era…
We are running out of time. By 2018, converging food, water and energy shortages could magnify the probability of conflict between major powers, civil wars, and cross-border conflicts. After 2020, this could result in political and economic catastrophes that would undermine state control and national infrastructures, potentially leading to social collapse.
Five reasons to plant trees now
To some people, planting a tree is the epitome of the environmental cliche. Planting a tree seems so simple, so easy, so… low-technology.
A vision of the future : In the Mothers’ Land
The world of In the Mother’s Land is one of the few credible descriptions of what a realistic ecotechnic society could look like, and this description does ask hard questions about our future and our vision of it.
You will never know: The volatile life
We have had a period of unprecedented stability in the last decades – mostly declining food and energy costs have allowed us to live as we have. That’s changed. Now the one thing we know is that we’ll never know.
Transition barter habit spreads up the Severn
The sort of conundrums which the barter market produced helped us unmask some of the hidden dynamics of markets, in particular how we measure value.
Deep thought – Sept 20
-Do Not Pity the Democrats
-Are dying languages worth saving?
-The environmentalist’s paradox: we do better while the earth does worse
Transition and loosely coupled systems
The term “loosely connected systems” popped out during a talk with a friend about the Transition Town phenomenon. Curious, I traced the concept back to a paper by Karl E. Weick during the heydey of systems thinking i 1976. It appears to be a perfect organizational architecture for Transition
(excerpts and links)
Stories that light up the dark
Tips for personal resilience from conversations I’ve had with indigenous people:
- Seek guidance from people who have overcome suffering with dignity.
- Learn from those who have maintained a sense of humor through difficult times.
- Converse with grandparents and great-grandparents about their stories of hardship and the lessons they’ve learned. …
- Connect with your own culture by developing an understanding of, and sympathy for, the experiences and stories that your ancestors handed down in your family.
Will you help with re-writing the Transition Handbook?
Over the coming few months I will be sharing with you the ongoing work in developing the patterns-based model of Transition that will form the centrepiece of the second version of the Transition Handbook, starting on Monday.
Cluck Trek
Chickens are the happening thing in the city — as evidenced by the fact that the our chicken coop tour was highlighted by the Los Angeles Times (none of our Transition events have ever made it past the editors of this giant paper before). There aren’t too many people who have chickens here, but there is LOTS of interest.
Why words matter – part 2
Being mindful of the word-pictures we paint for ourselves is good thinking, no matter where you fall on the Kübler-Ross scale. To tell you why, I will leave the cliff vs. crossroads analogy for now, and turn to something I know a little bit about: martial arts.
