The Transition Companion: Making Your Community More Resilient in Uncertain Times - Softcover

Hopkins, Rob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1603583920 ISBN 13: 9781603583923

Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co, 2011

Synopsis

What if the best responses to peak oil and climate change don’t come from government, but from you and me and the people around us?

In 2008, the best-selling The Transition Handbook suggested a model for a community-led response to peak oil and climate change. Since then, the Transition idea has gone viral across the globe, from Italian villages and Brazilian favelas to universities and London neighborhoods. In contrast to the ever-worsening stream of information about climate change, the economy, and resource depletion, Transition focuses on solutions, on community-scale responses, on meeting new people, and on having fun.

The Transition Companion picks up the story today, drawing on the experience of one of the most fascinating experiments under way in the world. It tells inspiring tales of communities working for a future where local economies are valued and nurtured; where lower energy use is seen as a benefit; and where enterprise, creativity, and the building of resilience have become cornerstones of a new economy.

The first part discusses where we are now in terms of resilience and vulnerability in the face of rising oil prices, climate change, and economic challenge. It presents a vision of the future if we do not address these issues, and how things might change if we start to do so. The book then looks in detail at the process a community in transition goes through, calling on the experience of those who have already embarked on this journey. These examples show how much can be achieved when people harness energy and imagination to create projects that will make their communities more resilient. The Transition Companion combines practical advice—the tools needed to start and maintain a Transition initiative—with numerous inspiring stories from local groups worldwide.

About this title

Review

What I love about the Transition approach is that it is inspirational, harnessing hope instead of guilt, and optimism instead of fear. --Patrick Holden, Director, The Soil Association

The Transition Companion offers an extraordinarily rich yet highly accessible model for drawing together the people around you, and describes the tools needed to start an economic and social renaissance in the place you live. --Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage

The biggest urban brainwave of the century. A visionary, practical blueprint that took root in a town and is circling the globe.This is a book that can change your life; our lives. --Nick Crane, writer and broadcaster

The Transition Companion offers an extraordinarily rich yet highly accessible model for drawing together the people around you, and describes the tools needed to start an economic and social renaissance in the place you live. --Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage

The biggest urban brainwave of the century. A visionary, practical blueprint that took root in a town and is circling the globe.This is a book that can change your life; our lives. --Nick Crane, writer and broadcaster

About the Author

Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and of the Transition Network. He has many years' experience in education, teaching permaculture and natural building, and set up the first two-year full-time permaculture course in the world, at Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland.

He is author of The Transition Handbook: from oil dependence to local resilience (now out of print) and The Transition Companion: making your community more resilient in uncertain times, and co-author of Local Food: how to make it happen in your community (all published by Green Books / Transition Books); also Transition in Action: Totnes and District 2030: an Energy Descent Plan (co-author), Woodlands for West Cork! and Energy Descent Pathways.

The Transition Handbook has been published in seven other languages to date, and was voted the fifth most popular book taken on holiday by MPs during the summer of 2008. Rob publishes www.transitionculture.org, which has been voted the fourth best green blog in the UK . He is the winner of the 2008 Schumacher Award, is an Ashoka Fellow and a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, served as a Soil Association Trustee for three years, and was named by the Independent as one of the UK's top 100 environmentalists. He is the winner of the 2009 Observer Ethical Award in the Grassroots Campaigner category, and in December 2009 was voted the Energy Saving Trust / Guardian's Green Community Hero. He lectures and writes widely on peak oil and Transition, regularly featuring as a keynote speaker, and has participated at the following events, among others: Community Land Trust Conference; WWF; Sustainable Consumption and Production Conference; Eco-Build Summit; Prince's Foundation Annual Conference at St James's Palace; Skype presentation to the Nova Scotia Planning Directors Association (NSPDA) Conference; Skype presentation for the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) conference.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1603583920
• ISBN 13: 9781603583923
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320