The Post Carbon Institute has been responsible for a couple of great viral videos recently. Who killed economic growth? is a pithy introduction to post growth arguments, and 300 years fossil fuels in 300 seconds has now been watched over a million times on Youtube. Perhaps emboldened by the success of the latter, PCI has gone [...]
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Spain re-discovers the Peseta, and the healthy diversity of currency
In 2002, Spain introduced the Euro, and the Peseta was slowly phased out. However, the central bank didn’t set a deadline for people to redeem their old currency. If you find a jar of old coins lying around, you can still cash them in for Euros. That means there’s still a lot of money out [...]
Top ten social documentary cliches
I’ve seen quite a few social documentaries in my time. We show awareness raising films in Transition Towns, and there are some really great, thought-provoking, well crafted documentaries out there. And then there are some very bad ones. Digital video production has made film-making possible (if not advisable, or profitable) for almost anyone. But making [...]
In Transition 2.0
You’ve all seen In Transition 1.0, the Transition Towns movie, right? I should hope so. You may have noticed the 1.0, and that’s because there was no way the first documentary could claim to have told a definitive story, especially so early in the history of the movement. More iterations of the film were to [...]
Build your own industrial civilization
Question: Can you guess what these are? Answer: they are the 50 industrial machines necessary to create a small civilization with all the comforts of modern life. They include a tractor, a cement mixer, a welding machine, a bakery oven and a heat exchanger. And you can build them all yourself. Or at least, that’s [...]
The Schumacher legacy
On monday I posted a short biography of E F Schumacher. Today I want to look at what happened to his ideas, and how his thinking has continued to evolve. Schumacher’s work did not end with his death. It has carried on through numerous organisations, societies and individuals, some directly inspired by him, others incorporating [...]
The Transition Companion, by Rob Hopkins
If you’re a transitioner yourself, chances are you’re well aware of this book. You may even have a hand in it somewhere, having sent in a story, a photo or a quote. You may have read the draft chapters as they were posted on Rob’s Transition Culture blog, or suggested a title. The Transition Companion: [...]
Britain’s first local e-currency
Over the last few years, a number of local currencies have launched in the UK, Totnes, Stroud, and Brixton being the most significant. The Brixton pound has now taken it one step further and next week, at its second birthday party, launches as an e-currency. Users will be able to pay by text, making it [...]
Paint your roof white
If you’ve ever crossed a hot car park in summer, you know about albedo. Dark colours absorb heat, while lighter colours reflect it. That’s one of the principles behind the idea that a melting arctic may be a self-reinforcing feedback loop: relective ice melts and is replaced by dark water, which holds heat better and [...]
The sizzle: selling climate change
The science is more robust than ever, but public awareness hasn’t risen. Political will is stagnating, and the climate is playing second fiddle to the economy on the international agenda. It’s not lack of information, argue Futerra, the sustainability communications agency. It’s a matter of presentation. “Climate change is no longer a scientist’s problem – [...]
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