Recommended Reading, July 12, 2011

[David MacLeod]

Towards a Post-Growth Society by James Gustave Spelth, YES! Magazine
Today, the reigning policy orientation holds that the path to greater well-being is to grow and expand the economy. Productivity, profits, the stock market, and consumption: all must go continually up. This growth imperative trumps all else. It is widely believed that growth is always worth the price that must be paid for it—even when it undermines families, jobs, communities, the environment, and our sense of place and continuity.

The Peak Oil Crisis: At Mid-Year by Tom Whipple
The last six months have been a wild ride. The Arab awakening, the Japanese tsunami, the EU's continuing economic crises, rising temperatures, drought, floods, and another major surge in oil prices have combined to darken the outlook for the months ahead. Political stagnation continues in Washington, where nearly everybody knows we have a problem, but few have yet comprehended just what kind of a problem, much less what are sensible solutions.

Transition Network Conference: Rob Hopkins' Reflections
We had a great few days at Hope University in Liverpool.  This will not be an attempt at a complete document of that event, you will find the most comprehensive record over at the Transition Network’s conference feed.  What I am going to share, with links to some of the key pieces of media from that feed, is some of the notes of my reflections at the end of the conference.  As the event drew to a close, I went around and asked people for their brief reflections on what they saw as the character unique to this conference in comparison to others.  Three words came up again and again, deepening, focus and maturity.

A Taste of the Forthcoming "The Transition Companion" by Rob Hopkins
Things are moving along well with ‘The Transition Companion: making your community more resilient in uncertain times’ which is due to be published in early October.  We are currently doing the fine editing and sorting out all the pictures.  As part of the run-up to the publishing, Green Books have produced what’s called a ‘blad’ (“Book Layout And Design”), which gives a taste of the layout, style and contents in a little 16 page booklet.  You can download it as a pdf here.

And from our local Transition Whatcom blogs...

 

Celt's Garden: Fried Radishes for Breakfast and Other Tales of the ...

by Celt Schira
Out in Hamsterland, I am hearing alarming rumblings of an economy gone south. Each story is individual: unemployment run out, resources exhausted, job lost, small businesses dragging their small butts, bankruptcy from a construction loan to build a modest house on a modest lot out in the county, the lady talking about her niece the pole dancer in Everett whose tips are way down (I suggested the young lady in question go to BTC and take plumbing; plumbing cannot be outsourced and pays almost as well as pole dancing.) The collective picture is enough to send shivers up the back. All the more reason to cook from basic ingredients and grow what we can.

 

TWOG Blog: Creating the Culture of the Future by Emily Farrell

At our last TWOG meeting on Wed., we were talking about the EDAP/ARC.  Creating and implementing the "Energy Descent Action Plan" or "Actions for a Resilient Community" is at the center of the mission of Transition Whatcom.  As we reflected on what that actually meant, Paul commented that really the ARC/EDAP is a culture, the culture of the future.

This hit me like a bolt of lightning. Transition Whatcom is attempting to create a path to a culture, and all of its elements (community, transportation, housing, energy, education, healthcare), that does not yet exist. How overwhelming is that?!

 

 

TWOG Blog: Dreaming the Future; Acting the Present by Kyler Boyes

...Transition is a tool,

the result is always remade,

driving through the wilderness,

looking for the light,

dawn takes us by suprise,

and draws us into another day...