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Mark Brown »
The New Futurists
Posted on 9:00pm Thursday 3rd March 2011
It may be too bold to say this but Transition is the home of the new futurists. It is time for us to grasp the true meaning of this. When I was a kid the future was Judge Dredd. By the time I grew up I realised that THAT future wasn't going to happen. This future is far more mundane.
Mark Brown »
Your money subsidising energy-without-a-future
Posted on 4:10pm Wednesday 2nd March 2011
I got ticked off a few months ago by a fellow Transitioner for letting my enthusiasm run away with me. I had moaned about a Panorama program on BBC repeating the same old tired cliché about renewable energy being expensive. I operate my brain circuits on a true-cost model. Hence my economics works off a different operating system.
Mark Brown »
The revolution will not be televised
Posted on 4:00pm Tuesday 1st March 2011
We never say "we told you so". I think the Transition Town movement is hardwired not to do this. We don't do hubris. It isn't our style. Transition Towns are almost unique in that we describe our work as experimental. We don't have prescribed solutions. We only have a way of "trying out" local, community-scaled, ideas. On the global arena though, recent events across the Arab world and in world markets seem to be panning much as predicted.
Mark Brown »
Where the bullets don't kill you
Posted on 3:40pm Monday 28th February 2011
I have blogged before about how green stereotypes are peddled to pull the wool over public's knowledge of what is happening in the economy. Once distracted we fail to see the inevitable need to transition to sustainability. But the latest example I have seen took the biscuit.
Mark Brown »
Wind Power - Wycombe's one Magic Bullet
Posted on 2:30pm Sunday 27th February 2011
20,000 homes in High Wycombe could soon be proudly wearing solar panels. These are not numbers from 2011 Carbon Reduction Framework but from an obscure report released in 2008. The "Feasibility Study on Energy Policy and Infrastructure for the Wycombe District" was co-produced by the consultancies Sustainable Energy Action, Renewable Energy in the Urban Environment, Ramboll and Brodies. It is freely available (for public download) from the WDC Web Site Planning area.
Mark Brown »
Wake me up at utopia
Posted on 2:20pm Saturday 26th February 2011
Our thanks to MP Steve Baker for retweeting to us the following link to an article in The Economist: http://econ.st/ik8G4C. It asks the same question we asked in our last blog: Can we put the "free" back into "free trade"? To quote: "Trade liberalisation generally produces net benefits, such that some of the winners' gains can be redistributed to losers, leaving all in better shape than before. But this is not how policy functions in the real world."
Mark Brown »
Future Conservatism today
Posted on 5:40pm Friday 25th February 2011
OK - quiz time, who wrote this: "we should demand food that has traveled shorter distances, less packaging for goods, and products that will actually last". Need a clue? Greenpeace? Me? Rob Hopkins? Nope. I'll give you a clue. He is the Conservative MP for Richmond Park.
Mark Brown »
My view: return to a real Free Market
Posted on 5:30pm Thursday 24th February 2011
In my last blog I wrote about my personal frustration in seeing politics fail. Its failure has been so enormous that I believe it has lead to the Transition movement. Now I will examine in more detail how political parties of every colour have all lurched to the right in favour of free enterprise but none have ever delivered a free market utopia.
Mark Brown »
What are you, a Communist?
Posted on 5:20pm Wednesday 23rd February 2011
In my previous blog I argued that, although we often agree about solutions, we let political ideaology get in the way of practical action and cooperation. I shall go on now and explain what I believe to be the link between this and Transition. Transition has no party politics. It is apolitical. It is a rejection of centralisation and to embrace of local empowerment, localism and localisation. We have stopped hoping that Westminster will right the wrongs and invest in our future. Instead we'll do it right here, in our communities. It may be our only chance of re-inventing our lives to create a resilient low-carbon community.
Mark Brown »
"Honest money" versus "positive money"
Posted on 5:10pm Tuesday 22nd February 2011
In the green corner we have the New Economic Foundation - an economic think tank and friend of the Transition movement. In the blue corner we have the Cobden Centre - a traditionally right-of-centre economic think tank and friends of the Adam Smith Institute. Up for grabs? Monetary reform and the future of the banking system. Zzzzz. Most of us would be excused at this point. But read on...
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