Author Archives: Rob Hopkins

In a couple of weeks we will be inviting Transition initiatives across the UK to apply to host one of several Roadshow events we plan to run during late 2014 and early 2015.  As we announced previously, there will be no 2014 Transition Network conference, at least, not in the way we’ve done them before. […]

Transition is a wonderful melange of conversations, projects, interactions, inspirations, hard work, failures, successes and entirely unexpected events which we are altogether unsure what to make of!  Transition initiatives themselves are as unique as the people who make them up.  Initially termed ‘Transition Towns’, they have twisted and squirmed out from under that label like […]

It’s been a fascinating month here, with our theme of “what is the impact of Transition, and how do we know?”  Feels like we only just started to scratch the surface of this huge subject.  We started the month with an editorial which asked, in the light of the latest IPCC report, “what is the […]

One of the most in-depth pieces of research on Transition published recently was Failure and Success of Transition initiatives: a study of the international replication of the Transition movement by Giuseppe Feola and Richard Nunes at the University of Reading.  Giuseppe is a lecturer in Environmental Development whose research focuses on issues around how sustainable development […]

The question “what’s our impact?” went with me to Israel and the West Bank, where Naresh and I were invited to run the first Transition:Launch training. As part of our trip we ran a one day Transition workshop in Bethlehem in the West Bank. Although it’s just a few miles from Jerusalem, the bus drives […]

At Transition in Kitchener-Waterloo, we have recently achieved a lot of new things, and it’s been exciting. We have launched our Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit, and we have also become an official Transition initiative. We have a lot to be celebrating – and we’re definitely doing that – along with some of our new volunteers […]

Originally published last week at Co-operative News under the headline The ‘Silicon Valley’ of community resilience. My town, Totnes, on the south Devon coast, is the UK’s first Transition town. Over the past eight years, it has catalysed over 40 projects, many of them co-operatives – such as a community energy company, and initiatives creating truly […]

We last spoke to Michael Shuman just over three years ago.  He is author of several books on local economic development, the most recent being Local Dollars, Local Sense. He is an attorney, an economist, and his current job title is Director of Community Portals for Mission Markets. Not every day you meet one of […]

“And God said, “Let there be light” and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected…” Spike Milligan We hope to do better…. We have created the West Solent Solar Co-operative to generate renewable energy for, and by, the local community. The solar farm we […]

Here is the second of my monthly pieces for the Guardian’s Live Better Challenge: When Gail Jackson put an invitation through every door on her street in St Albans, inviting her neighbours round to her house to discuss doing Transition Streets, she didn’t really expect any of them to come.  “I ended up with 11 people crammed into my […]

Katrina Brown is a Professor of Social Sciences based at the Environment and Sustainability Institute at Exeter University. The three key themes her research centres on are Resilience, Vulnerability and Development, Dynamics of Change in Coastal Social Ecological-Systems and People, Poverty and Carbon.  As someone who has published papers about community resilience, I was interested, in the context of […]

Here’s something we’d love your help with.  How can we capture the impact of Transition in numbers?  We’ve done our best with what we can find, and we’d love to know what you would add from your local initiative. Any numbers you can put to your impact? Number of meetings? Amount of funding? Amount raised […]

Aveiro em Transição is a Transition initiative in Portugal.  When they heard we were looking for tales of the impact Transition initiatives see their work having, they sat a group of people down who are active in the initiative and asked them the question.  Here’s what they had to say.   Jenny Tavares: O que é […]

At this year’s Political Studies Association International Conference in Manchester, Andrea Felicetti of the University of Canberra presented a paper called Radicals without rebellion? A Case Study on four Transition experiments. In it he explored “whether and how social movements can promote radical positions whilst refraining from adopting an oppositional approach”.  This was one of the first pieces of research I have come […]

One of the most fascinating recent studies into the impact of Transition was Local Communities Leading the Way to a Low Carbon Society, a report published by AEIDL (Association Européenne pour l’Information sur le Développement Local.  It looks at Transition, permaculture and ecovillage networks, what it calls the “Silent Revolution”, “a potentially powerful driver of pro-environmental […]

Hosszúhetény is the most populous village in Baranya county, in the south of Hungary, with 3400 inhabitants. It’s situated in beautiful natural surroundings at the foot of the Zengő peak of the Mecsek hills. People who live here are traditionally very proud of their natural environment, one famous example of which was in 2004, when […]

What role does measuring and evaluating your impacts have to play for Transition initiatives?  How important is it, and how straightforward is it in a group that is already busy “doing stuff”?  Jo Hamilton is a researcher at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute whose research focuses on those very questions. Together with colleagues Ruth Mayne […]

It’s time for a rant about SACAT.  “About what?” you might most reasonably cry.  ‘Semi Attended Customer Activated Terminals’, that’s what.  In plain English, it’s those self checkout things that are taking over shops up and down the land.  In 2008 there were 92,600 such units in use worldwide, by the end of this year […]

“What’s the catch?” she asked as she idled up to the table. The yard was filled with blankets and tables, boxes and miscellany scattered over almost every square inch except for the well-marked paths. Our information table was welcoming people at the entrance, and this question was asked over and over again to our organizing […]

Nic Marks founded the Centre for Wellbeing at the London-based think tank New Economics Foundation and also more recently founded Happiness Works. Much of his work has focused on measuring wellbeing and happiness, as captured in his excellent talk from 2010.  When thinking about how a Transition initiative might measure the extent to which it is […]

Greyton Transition Town has been in existence for just over two years and is beginning to have a significant impact on our community.  The one way which stands out for all of our community is what a great vehicle it is to bring about social integration.  The context of Greyton is worth noting here as […]

From the Ground Up (FGU) was launched in March 2010 by Transition Town Kingston with the mission to bring affordable, local organic fresh food to our communities.  Dissatisfied with the limited variety, variable quality and high cost of fresh organic food from our conventional sources, Transition Town Kingston took action. FGU was built on these […]

We are really honoured to be able to share with you today an interview with Sir David King.  Sir David is currently Special Representative to the Foreign Secretary in the UK on climate change. For 7 years, between 2000 and 2007, he was Chief Scientific Advisor.  Much of his current role is focused around the negotiations for […]

Monday’s IPCC’s report presented a stark and focused reminder that business as usual will lead to “severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts”, and that the impacts of climate change are already “widespread and consequential”.  Our theme for April is “what is the impact of Transition, and how do we know?” In this piece, I want to explore […]

Manitou Springs is a small town with a population of 5100, located in Colorado at the foot of Pikes Peak. The town is home to 11 mineral spring fountains which many claim have healing powers. For me, it tastes like Vichy and I am happy to walk outside my door, feel the mountain air and […]

Here’s something new we’re going to try.  With our monthly theme we put out a lot of great content, and we felt people might like it if at the end of each month we gave an overview of what we’ve covered, the highlights and some key insights. A digest in fact.  Our theme for March […]

I live in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England.  From 2006, there was an organisation called Marlborough Climate Pledge, which worked to raise people’s awareness around the issues of peak oil and climate change.  In 2011, at a Green Drinks, there was a visiting speaker from Romsey, Hampshire, talking about how they had started a Transition Initiative.  This […]

Today we have a guest post from Luis, an active member of a Transition Initiative in Portalegre em Transição in Portugal.    “We are in a semi-rural area, with a quite old population. There are still a lot of people we know who lived all their lives in direct contact with nature and, often, in my […]

Through Transition I’ve been active in my community for years, trying to help people understand the importance of climate change and how it could impact on the lives of them and others in the future. I’ve seen all the hard data, digested all the scary graphs, seen all the heartbreaking photos from the Arctic. I’ve […]

In the market town of Totnes in Devon, a small group of volunteers are redistributing produce that would have otherwise gone to waste, with inspiring results (an article I wrote for the Live Better section on the Guardian’s website).    It’s a Thursday afternoon and I’m in a large and gloomy food storage shed at […]

To situate this blog post, we’re in Kitchener-Waterloo, two cities that act as one, but can never quite become one because of decades or maybe even centuries of bickering. We are in southwestern Ontario, or west of Toronto for those who don’t really know Canadian geography. We like to call ourselves KW.  What does this […]

While the ecological and infrastructure impacts of climate change are becoming ever more self-evident, what about the social impacts?  Do the impacts of climate change show that “we are all in this together”, or are its impacts unevenly felt across society?  Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) recently published a report called Climate Change and Social Justice: an […]

Today we talk with Prof. Myles Allen, head of the Climate Dynamics group at the University of Oxford’s Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department.  He is a prominent and widely published climate scientist.  He also wrote a recent article in the Mail on Sunday called Why I think we’re wasting billions on global warming, by […]

Transition Athelney links five villages on or bordering the Somerset Levels.  At the February meeting of our organising group we were asking ourselves what contribution we could possibly make in response to the disruption and suffering caused by the prolonged flooding.  An answer presented itself a few days later when a member of T.A. who is […]

Stand by your newsstands!  May 1st sees the relaunch of Transition Free Press following its successful pilot which produced four very popular and high quality papers.  The relaunch also represents  a shift in emphasis for the paper.  I spoke to Alexis Rowell, TFP’s Managing Editor, who told me that in the relaunch issue, “the focus […]

COIN, the Climate Outreach and Information Network, recently published a great report called After the floods: communicating climate change around extreme weather, which set out to explore our “complex attitudes to climate change and extreme weather events”.  Why do extreme weather events not necessarily mean that people “get” climate change?  How should Transition initiatives in communities […]

Has the climate debate stalled? Does extreme weather in the UK mean we’re talking about it more or less? When’s a good time to try to make the connections between climate change and floods? And is there anything Inner Transition has to offer to the questions about how and when to have these conversations? Yesterday […]

Those of us living and transitioning in the Upper Midwest of the United States have experienced climate change as “global weirding.”  In Minnesota, summers have gotten hotter and  more humid while formerly predictable summer rains have become nearly non-existent. When a single rain barrel once would suffice to water gardens from one rain to the […]

Well, I say a ‘quick’ trip…  Not flying, and living in a town whose train connection to the rest of the world was severely nibbled by the Atlantic, recently means that a day in Milan requires a full day to get there and a full day to get home again.  In spite of once living […]

Perhaps those for whom the notion of ‘living with climate change’ is most acutely felt are farmers.  Their business models depend on the weather obliging them with good growing conditions, something it is increasingly failing to do.  We talked to Guy Watson, the founder of Riverford Organic Vegetables to hear his thoughts and experiences.  His […]

I have been ‘living with climate change’ for the last few years, living on the Somerset Levels with the highest ever recorded rain fall events causing vast flooding to the area.  For me this year it all started around Boxing Day when the road from the next village of Muchelney to Langport flooded and became […]

One of the things Transition can bring is the ability to turn ‘living with climate change’ into inspired and positive action.  We asked Chris Rowland of Ouse Valley Energy Services Company (OVESCO) to tell us his story: “The triggers which got me involved with Transition Town Lewes started with the 2000 flood in Lewes, a talk […]

What does Transition look like in a place with just 4″ of rain a year?  This is the challenge faced by Transition Joshua Tree (population 8,000) in the Mojave desert.   Dr Karen Tracy from the group told us more: “Even without climate change, the Mojave Desert looks dry, daunting, and even fearsome. Here in Joshua […]

Transition Network is seeking four new Trustees to help the organisation to continue to grow and develop.  Everything you need to know about that process can be found here.  Over the next few weeks we’ll be asking former and current Trustees for their thoughts and experiences.  We start today with Delivery Director Sarah McAdam.  We […]

“I am not sure what it is you are doing but it seems like a lot of fun. Can I join in?” This was the message I send to the Edible Deventer group in the Netherlands after reading yet another article about their local initiatives: household garden courses, creation of an edible, decentralized carbon sink […]

Paul Kingsnorth wrote recently of the floods that have hit the UK, arguing that they represent the beginning of “a gradual, messy, winding-down of everything we once believed we were entitled to”.  It’s 2 years since he announced “I withdraw from the campaigning and the marching. I withdraw from the arguing and the talked-up necessity, […]

Here is an Open Letter which responds to the BBC’s letter defence of the recent appearance of Lord Lawson on the Today Programme.  My original complaint can be found here. Dear Ceri Thomas, Thanks for your response setting out the BBC’s defence of Lord Lawson’s appearance on the Today Programme (reprinted in full below).  I […]

This month our theme is “living with climate change”.  We’ll be exploring that from a variety of angles, speaking to climate scientists, hearing contrasting opinions as to what it could mean in practice, looking at the inner impacts it has on us.  We’ll hear from Transition folks around the world as to what climate change […]

No water.  That pretty much sums up living with climate change around here, in Los Angeles.  California is currently experiencing “the worst drought in 500 years.”  We had one minor “rain event” in October just before Rob Hopkins came to town, and another minor rain event in late January. Up until this week, we’d had […]