I just stumbled across this documentary (English with Dutch subtitles) following the story of the 70s/80s punk band Crass. They are still living wholeheartedly by their Do It Yourself ethos and “There is no authority but yourself” philosophy. A recommended watch. Read more »

I recommend David Attenborough’s excellent documentary How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?, which can be viewed on BBC iPlayer here for the next four days on YouTube here. He observes that the human population has increased from 2.5 billion to nearly 7 billion in his lifetime, and begins to ask some of the key questions about how we might respond to the challenges that brings.

It was interesting to note, however, that despite the litany of limiting factors on future population growth described in the programme, it was universally agreed that our numbers will surely increase by another couple of billion or so.

It has been another crazy whirlwind of a month, with this weekend set to be the first in five which I get to spend in Transition Town Home, having spoken recently in Bungay, Glastonbury, Belsize Park and the Forest of Dean, as well at the Transition Conference (I hate that name, can’t we call it a ‘Gathering’ or something?) in Battersea, and at the Sunrise Celebration Festival.

One highlight for me was watching the world première of the movie “In Transition” and being surprised and delighted to find that I was in it (having completely forgotten the quick interview they grabbed with me at my book launch!). Another was meeting an A-Level teacher who is already using my book as a teaching aid for his Environmental Design students.

But perhaps of wider interest was the fact that Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, turned up at the Transition Conference as a ‘keynote listener’, but still managed to drop a few bombshells. Read more »

The latest version of the Transition Movie – In Transition 1.0 (post updated December 2009 to embed full movie – including an appearance from me around the 35 minute mark!)

The last month has been a bit of a blur, with very well-attended book launch events all over Britain, a two-day seminar at the Centre for Alternative Technology scoping out Zero Carbon Britain 2, more radio interviews, and even being caught on film for the first time (more practice required methinks!).

While I’ve been zipping around, a number of people have requested a more detailed write-up on The Transition Timeline than I have so far provided online, so let’s take a closer look. Read more »

(Just a quickie, but the frantic process of preparing my book for publication is nearly complete, so posting here will resume in earnest soon. I have so many half-written posts to finish up! In the meantime, check out this interview I did with Carl Munson of Traydio.com the other day)

I spent a few hours this Christmas watching former Pfizer Vice President Chris Martenson’s Crash Course, which undertakes the daunting task of presenting the overarching interplay of economics, energy and environment in today’s world, and doing it in a friendly, accessible way. He does an impressive job, and it’s all broken down into easily digestible videos from 2-15 minutes long.

His simple indisputable explanations of topics such as why economic growth does not equal prosperity are invaluable, but most impressive to me was the clarity with which Chris distinguishes between his own beliefs and the facts he is sharing which have shaped those beliefs. For example, he states up front his belief that “the next twenty years are going to be completely unlike the past twenty years”, and then shows us just which facts have led him to that belief. It becomes hard to disagree. Read more »