Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

11 Mar 2008
Review of The Transition Handbook. By Robert Morgan.
http://transitionculture.org/2008/03/11/a-third-review-of-the-transition-handbook/

The “converging crises” of peak oil and climate change are spawning an 
increasing number of popular books. These include grim forecasts of the 
consequences such as JH Kunstler’s The Long Emergency and Mark Lynas’s Six 
Degrees, explorations of alternative scenarios requiring massive government 
policy change such as Richard Heinberg’s Powerdown and George Monbiot’s Heat, 
and fiction such as Kunstler’s World Made by Hand. What most if not all of 
these lack, is any clear guidance for individuals and communities on what 
they can actually do to deal with the crises which short-sighted governments 
and profligate lifestyles look set to bring upon us. Rob Hopkins, forefather 
of the Transition movement which in two years has developed from the spark of 
an idea to a strengthening international force, has at last provided this 
guidance.

Essentially, Hopkins’s arguments are that a future with more expensive and 
ultimately less energy is inevitable, so that localisation is also 
inevitable. To avoid economic and social meltdown, local communities need to 
start preparing immediately to reduce their dependence on cheap energy and 
the low-cost, remotely-sourced goods it makes available. Instead, they must 
reconstruct themselves as resilient, almost self-sufficient units. As 
explained by Hopkins, the logic is nearly irrefutable and techno-fantasies of 
a “hydrogen economy”, fusion power and life amongst the stars are rapidly 
dismissed. Instead, the vision is of people reconnecting with their fellow 
beings and the Earth, living genuinely satisfying and purposeful lives, freed 
from the curse of consumerism.

One of Hopkins’s greatest skills is the way in which he guides readers 
through the scientific evidence for climate change and peak oil, without 
glossing over essential details. Crucially, he sees these two issues as 
intertwined with neither being amenable to solution without reference to the 
other. This is one of the most crucial aspects of the 
sustainability/localisation argument as most of the “business-as-usual” 
techno-fixes suggested in the last few years, deal with one of these problems 
while making the other worse.

In places, Hopkins makes himself a hostage to fortune by using some 
predictions of near-term oil production decline (for example figure 3 on page 
27), which can already be seen to be inaccurate. As Dr. Colin Campbell, 
founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) says, the 
precise date of the peak is not so important. What is, is the certainty that 
it will be soon and that individuals and communities planning to rely on 
central government (in)action, will almost certainly find themselves 
ill-prepared to deal with it. Addressing this issue is the great strength of 
this book, as it describes in almost obsessive detail the precise steps 
groups of individuals can take to alert and mobilise their communities to 
withstand the coming shocks.

In conclusion, the book succeeds brilliantly at every level: as a precise, 
detailed, what-to-do manual for those developing Transition Initiatives; as a 
guide for those curious as to what Transition is all about; and even as a 
lay-persons guide to peak oil, climate change and what to do about them. 
Chapters which might otherwise be heavy going and earnest are relieved by 
Hopkins’s easy-going writing style and often-hilarious excerpts of supposed 
future headlines (“Imelda Platt proudly displays a bottle of her company’s 
new liquid gold fertiliser ‘N-Pee-K’ “ – you can guess what it is!). 
Seriously, this is one of the most important books in the sustainability 
field to appear in this decade. It is essential reading for all environmental 
activists and all concerned about what we can actually DO about the threats 
now bearing down on us. The future well-being of us all, depends on its 
success.

Robert Morgan is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science at the University 
of Glamorgan and Co-Director of The Green College.