Communities, Councils, and a Low Carbon Future – launch and competition
By Ed Mitchell 12th October 2010
Alexis Rowell from Transition Belsize has many talents. As well as doing some great spots in this year’s Open Mic session at the Transition Network conference, and having a great haircut, it turns out he is a talented researcher and author.
His excellent book is the latest in the Transition Books series, and it’s a corker. It’s about how to work with (or without?) Local Councils around our low carbon futures, and we recommend you buy it (no, really, it’s great, whoever published it).
You can buy individual copies on the Green Books site, or get cost reductions if you buy them in bulk for your initiatives from Transition Books.
Alexis asked us to say this:
“If you want to engage with your local council how about raising some funds to send every councillor and the Chief Executive a copy of my book. Green Books will give you a hefty discount for a large order and I guarantee it will be worth it. One of the first things I did when I became a councillor was to give out copies of Mark Lynas’s book Six Degrees and George Monbiot’s book Heat to all members of Camden Council’s cabinet!”
Rob is so excited he is running a competition, literally giving copies of the book to the best ideas for the next book in the series:…
As you have hopefully noticed, we have now published 4 books in this ‘Transition Books’ ‘local’ series: Local Food, Local Money, Local Sustainable Homes and now this one (which line up beautifully next to each other on a bookshelf … you should try it…)
What do you think should be the next title in the series?
To enter, simply email an idea, however well thought out, silly or throwaway, to rob (at) transitionculture.org.
Every entry, whatever the suggestion, will go in a hat, and the winners drawn out at midday on Friday. What should be next? I await your answers with great anticipation … and a slight trepidation….
Here is the write up from our books page:
Communities, Councils and a low carbon future
This book is entitled “Communities, Councils and a Low Carbon Future – what we can do if governments won’t”: Publication date: Autumn 2010
The Transition Handbook is very clear that local government is a critical element in Transition because of the levers it controls such as planning, and that Transition groups need to build bridges to local government. “You will not progress very far unless you have cultivated a positive and productive relationship with your local authority,” writes Rob Hopkins in The Transition Handbook. Equally, councils and councillors have much to learn from the Transition Movement where so much thinking is underway about life after oil in a world with climate change.
What if there existed a companion to The Transition Handbook which contained examples of best eco practice from local authorities across the UK (and elsewhere), to inform and inspire councils and councillors everywhere? And what if that companion handbook was also designed to help local environmental activists, community groups and Transition Initiatives to understand what they can reasonably (and unreasonably!) ask for from local councils, as well as to explain exactly what levers they can pull? That book is Local Communities and Local Councils: working together to make things happen.
You can read much more detail on the Book page on Green Books.