Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The Transition Network conference 2010, held at Seale Hayne Agricultural College, was an extraordinary few days. It is a mark of how far the organisation and the concept has come in its 4 year life that it can bring 300 people together for such a deep, challenging and nourishing 3 days. I left feeling deeply honoured to be part of such a dynamic movement, and also of the team that organised the event, an incredible bunch of people.
Boy am I ever humbled to have been featured in the New York Times story ‘Imagining life without oil, and being ready.’
We’re caught in a vicious circle: The more we’re concerned with money, the less time we have for others (making and managing money takes time). When we’re mainly concerned with money, others are our adversaries — we’re all competing for limited resources.
The ongoing economic collapse will not reach completion while the television remains on. Viewers are simply too easily and chronically manipulated by the irresistible medium. Resistance is futile.
As cracks spread through the wall of peak oil denial, the subculture that has grown up around peak oil activism may just have to deal with their concern becoming mainstream. That offers many positive options, but also some troubling possibilities on the downside — among them a social phenomenon common in periods of turmoil and the collapse of existing cultural narratives.
You have been warned. This is a politically incorrect article. In 1999, I read Jane Goodall’s book, Reason for Hope, which took the optimistic view that, in spite of human activity, our beautiful blue planet is very resilient. She lists nature’s resiliency as her third reason for hope, the others being the human brain, the indomitable human spirit, and the determination of young people.
Mahatma Gandhi is widely regarded as the father of the Indian nation, which he was. But the founding of the nation was not his only aim. He was, as he freely admitted, using India to demonstrate to the whole world how nonviolence could change history. The swell of mostly nonviolent revolutions that has followed in the last 30 or so years would seem to indicate that his bold scheme worked.
In her Commentary and her Critique of the Transition Initiative/Network, Lorna Salzman questions the role of government and Transition. Ms. Salzman asserts that the Transition approach omits government. As I will attempt to explain below, our approach is far from that.
When we were still in Seattle, preparing for this project, a few friends asked if this was a tour of ‘yuppie urban farm projects.’ Isn’t that who participates in the urban farm? they generalized.
The GOM oil spew reinforces the extent to which Americans “just don’t get it” regarding
the unsustainable nature of our American way of life.
The insights of process work are enormously helpful in understanding group dynamics, especially how to work with rank and power, and be creative with conflict – key skills for successful projects in all parts of Transition.
As people throughout the Western world are increasingly seeking to reconnect with their food, there’s a lot to be learned from the many peoples who have long maintained these dynamic relationships between their sustenance and the earth. Ethnobiologists research these very relationships through a scientific lens and it’s a field of study bringing together many disciplines like anthropology,ecology and conservation to name just a few.
