Transitioners’ Digest (March – April 2016) International.
By rob hopkins 27th April 2016 Culture & Society
Our theme over the past 2 months was ‘International’. We set out to look at Transition in its many international manifestations and how it has spread, and what it has become. We started with our editorial piece which looked at the EU in/out referendum in the UK in June from a Transition perspective. It was a piece that generated a lot of debate in the comments thread, which was good to see. We also talked to Juliet Davenport of Good Energy about her views on what the referendum means in terms of the UK’s transition to a renewable energy future.
There was a beautiful international flavour to the new film we unveiled, ‘8 days @ COP21‘ which chronicled the 8 days different members of the Transition Network team spent in Paris during COP21. We used the film as the invitation to people to support the making of the film financially so as to enable us to do similar things again. If you haven’t seen it, do watch it, and please, chip in and help out with it.
Juan del Rio wrote (in Spanish) about his recent amazing trip across South America doing Transition training and networking with Transition groups there. Isabel Carlisle wrote about One Year in Transition: becoming an international community of practice, documenting the spread of this great programme around the world. As the spread of the award-winning film ‘Demain’ continues, we caught up with its co-producer, Cyril Dion, to talk about how the film came about, how its success has changed his life, and he tells us “My message to the Transition movement is a huge ‘thank-you'”. We also heard from François-Olivier Devaux of Transition Hub Wallonie-Bruxelles about how ‘Demain‘ is giving Transition a boost in Belgium.
Naresh Giangrande reflected on Launch Online, one of our Transition training offers which works really well with groups of international students. He also talked to Tinna Guðmunds about The Panama Papers and the emergence of Transition in Iceland. In 2013, Transition Network’s Rob Hopkins and Peter Lipman flew to the US to do lots of Transition things. Rob for many years had taken a firm stance of not flying, and this trip was a deeply considered exception. In a blog called ‘Flying to the US: was it worth it?’, Rob attempted to balance the pros and cons of the trip, and the extent to which one can build a ‘carbon case’ for making such a trip. It is another piece that generated some good debate and discussion.
Transition Galway in Ireland recently produced their ‘2030 Vision’ report, their Energy Descent Action Plan, a great piece of work, so we contacted them to ask them to tell us more about it. Which they did. The REconomy Project recently held a great event in Wigan, working with Billinge and Orrell in Transition, called ‘The Road from Wigan Pier’. A fantastic occasion, it really boosted the profile of Transition in the area, as Laura Outhart and Ainslie Beattie reported.
Rob Hopkins reflected on several events that featured in the media, firstly offering a Transition take on the 2016 UK Budget, arguing that “what we are facing isn’t a financial crisis, but a crisis of the imagination”, accompanied by a rather fetching photo of George Osborne with carrots dangling from his famous red case. He also wrote about the power of visioning in ‘On having a great vision, and not ‘blowing an uncertain trumpet’. He also explored, in one of the most-read pieces we have published recently, What to do if Donald Trump joins your Transition group. The images that go with that piece were particularly enjoyable.
We spoke to Bob Hudson about ‘devolution’ in the UK, and how something that, at first glance, appears to be very in line with Transition thinking, is actually anything but. We heard from Sara, Pedro and Deborah, the new Transitionese team working on a project to expand the International Transition movement’s translation capacities, who introduced themselves and the tools they will be using. Transition Denmark were one of 8 groups who co-organised an event in Hvalsø called Det Faelles Bedste (‘The Common Good’), and a wonderful couple of days it was too. Rob Hopkins attended, and wrote a well-illustrated blog about the event.
We also had snapshots of Transition in different countries, namely Ireland, Brazil and Japan. Lastly, we also looked at some of the resources in our Support Offer, namely How to Develop a Healthy Group, Being Part of the Transition movement, and How to Get and Keep People Involved in Transition.