Building Community

Peak Moment 197: Portable House, Simple Life

by

Embarrassed by her middle class affluence after a visit to Guatemala, Dee Williams grabbed her hammer, built a tiny house on wheels, downsized to less than 400 possessions, and parked her house in a friend’s yard. Her living arrangement then blossomed into a multi-generational family/community. Dee shows us her warm and comfy 7 x 12 foot house, how she meets city codes, and some unusual ways this life has affected her. Her advice to wannabe tiny home builders: Take on the experiment. Just do it!

Surviving the heat when the power or the A/C is out

by

As most of the country slowly roasts in one of the worst heat waves so far, I thought it was worth reminding people that one can stay safe in the heat, even without air conditioning. This is important now for the millions of people who don’t own air conditioners, who don’t want the environmental impact of an air conditioner, or who find themselves for various reasons, without power in the hot weather. As we all know, this is peak season for brown and blackouts.

Living at the edge of the world

by

Okay, so we all know it’s going to hell in a handbasket. We just don’t know when. And so the question becomes what we do in the meantime – how do we live now, clinging as we all are to the fraying edges of a ‘civilisation’ that is so cut off from anything real that, if it were an individual, it would be diagnosed as clinically insane? To me, in some ways, it’s the only question that matters: the urgent one, the one that requires us to find an answer now, while we’re still living, while we still can. Some people choose to look for the answers in philosophy books or meditation classes; David (my husband) and I look for it in the land, and our relationship to the land. More specifically, we look for it – and find it – in crofting, a very special way of living on the land that is unique to Scotland.

What happens when you open the streets for people

by

The streets are commons that belong to everyone. So imagine diverting traffic from a major street in your neighborhood, then welcoming families on bikes, families on foot, babies in strollers, people in wheelchairs, toddlers on training wheels, grade schoolers on skateboards, teenagers on single-speeds, hipsters on fixed gears, grandparents on recumbents, couples arm-in-arm and even yoga classes in the middle of the road. What would happen? If your neighborhood is anything like mine—which I am sure it is—get ready for a massive outbreak of smiles.

Liberation from civilization!

by

For many years the thesis of this blog has been: Our civilization is in its final century, and there is nothing we can do to prevent its collapse. When I began writing this, I was largely dismissed as a defeatist and a depressed “doomer” (or worse). As awareness has grown about the now-inevitable end of (a) cheap energy, (b) stable climate and (c) the growth economy, there is a growing acknowledgement that the collapse scenario I have written about is at least conceivable.

Don’t alienate conservatives, says Rob Hopkins

by

“Transition is much more powerful for not being explicitly political,” Rob Hopkins told a conference call of American Transitioners yesterday. “It’s better when Transition avoids associating itself with either the left or the right.” But in the US, where climate denial has become an article of faith for the right wing, can a movement committed to cutting greenhouse pollution community by community hope to stay under the political radar for long?

Rich little poor girl

by

I am a happy poor person. There are many things I have had to give up and get adjusted to, going from a comfortably middle-class, corporate-suburban existence to living a lifestyle far below the poverty line. But make no mistake: I’m happy. Extraordinarily so. More than I have ever been. I’m not sure I talk about that enough. It’s time to rhapsodize.

A conversation with Rob Hopkins (and hosted by Richard Heinberg)

by

Richard Heinberg hosts a conversation with Rob Hopkins on New Thinking in Transition. The podcast begins with Rob giving an update on what is going on in the Transition movement and introducing the upcoming Transition handbook, and is followed by a Q and A.

La transición alimentaria y agrícola

by

A spanish translation of the Post Carbon Institute report ‘The Food and Farming Transition: Toward a Post-Carbon Food System’.El sistema alimentario norteamericano descansa sobre unas bases inestables de insumos de combustible fósil masivos. Ante la disminución de las reservas de combustible el sistema alimentario se debe reinventar. El nuevo utilizará menos energía, y la energía que use vendrá de fuentes renovables. Podemos empezar la transición al nuevo sistema inmediatamente mediante un proceso de cambio planificado, graduado y rápido. La alternativa no planificada –la reconstrucción desde la base tras el colapso- sería caótica y trágica.

Starting down the permaculture path: Thoughts from a PDC student

by

People come to permaculture for all different reasons, but all through some shared understanding that we live in a world full of disconnects. Many of us feel disconnected from the sources of our food, water and energy, and equally as disconnected from our neighbors, our communities, and our government. We know about the problems and we think there must be solutions. But what draws people to permaculture (as opposed to other approaches) is that its solutions fit together. In a world full of disconnects, permaculture shows us how to make connections.