PowerSwitch

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... sley-smuts

Just watched the second video of Adam Curtis new series on the eco-system myth. It occured to me that the TT movement is based on these principles.

There is no leadership, everybody in the movement is nominally equal and it is non-hierarchical with lots of various TT movements around the place.

Maybe one of the reasons the Brighton TT collapsed (a extreme case) was that it was logical extreme of the flaws of the self-organising movement elaborated by Adam Curtis. When he looked back at the history of the communes, it sounded very similar to the stories from the now defunct Brighton and Hove TT!

Of course, there will be some who argue that the Brighton TT was a bad apple, I suspect that it was a extreme case of a common problem across the TT movement. Too much green politics, in-fighting and not enough leadership.

It seems to me that the TT movement is just as obsessed with the flawed notions of the mythical 'eco-system' as the old ecological movement in the 70's.

On anather note, the whole concept of the 'steady state economy' - something I have always found difficult to understand, comes from this bogus science. If history is one of constant dynamic change and chaos, how the hell can we create a permament steady state economy?

Its impossible.

not enough leadership.

The exact opposite, not enough following.

The Green movement has a preponderance of people who, armed with their 3rd in media studies from Bolton, are going to tell others how to save the world, and then retreat to the planning room as the worlod is "saved" via back breaking manual labour labour.

It lacks people willing to dig over the field, not people with megaphones calling for it to be done.

Nor is it a problem confined to TT, greenery, or even the left.
My local Conservative Association recently suffered something similar, there was a clash of personalities between an entrenched head and an incomer, the incomer tried to break away part of the association, so instead of one covering 4 wards, there would be one association covering 3 and another covering 1, much rules lawyering went on and the break away assoc was declared unlawful and stripped of its bank accounts and funds.
Pretty much the same deal, "I know best, I wanna be in charge, what do you mean, I've gotta deliver 5000 leaflets, I'm trying to work out our strategy, I cant do that, I'm too busy, I'm too important, you dont understand the pressure my role entails"

Are either of you actually involved in a transition initiative?

Of course they aren't and I don't have a 3rd in media studies from Bolton, though I quite fail to see that means anything at all.

There are a few hundred Transition Initiatives. It would be surprising if one didn't fall apart from time to time. Just like any other organization be it a social or sports club, a commercial company, church, commune, family, nation or whatever. It just shows they're made of people.

Particularly interesting for the consistent poor spelling.

I think it would be sensible (it may already be happening), for the central TT group to look at why Brighton and Oxford imploded. Often we can learn more from our mistakes and failures than our successes. It is interesting that it hasn't worked in two of the most environmentally aware cities in the UK. Also I understand that Somerset Council no longer describes itself as a Transition Council and I wonder why that is?

My guess is that Transition works well in smaller places. with a group that may already know each other and work well together- maybe it just can't be scaled up very well?

My guess is that Transition works well in smaller places. with a group that may already know each other and work well together- maybe it just can't be scaled up very well?

It works well when a small group all agree, it falls apart when another small group joins and disagrees.

Lord Beria3 wrote:On anather note, the whole concept of the 'steady state economy' - something I have always found difficult to understand, comes from this bogus science. If history is one of constant dynamic change and chaos, how the hell can we create a permament steady state economy?

Its impossible.

It's not a science for a start. Since continual growth in a finite world is an impossibility, the alternatives are periodic "corrections" of the system (or its more extreme cousin, the boom-and-bust cycle, which is the system we have now) or a zero growth, aka "steady state", economy. The latter is the system we had for hundreds of years until modern capitalism ruined it all. It's perfectly achievable, although somewhat tricky to implement now we've built our entire civilisation around greed and growth.

nexus wrote:Also I understand that Somerset Council no longer describes itself as a Transition Council and I wonder why that is?

Change of political party in power. I think it was more that they could no longer be described as a Transition Council, rather than no longer describing itself as one.

nexus wrote:I think it would be sensible (it may already be happening), for the central TT group to look at why Brighton and Oxford imploded. Often we can learn more from our mistakes and failures than our successes. It is interesting that it hasn't worked in two of the most environmentally aware cities in the UK. Also I understand that Somerset Council no longer describes itself as a Transition Council and I wonder why that is?

My guess is that Transition works well in smaller places. with a group that may already know each other and work well together- maybe it just can't be scaled up very well?

Transition Oxford produced a review of what went wrong:
http://transitionculture.org/2009/09/22 ... ve-stalls/

Transition Network are already looking into what makes initiatives succeed or fail (or go dormant) at the moment.

I agree that transition works best in smaller units but those can then be built up into wider alliances.

Lord Beria3 wrote: On anather note, the whole concept of the 'steady state economy' - something I have always found difficult to understand, comes from this bogus science. If history is one of constant dynamic change and chaos, how the hell can we create a permament steady state economy?

Its impossible.

And the concept of an ever growing economy comes from the bogus science of economics.

DominicJ wrote:
The Green movement has a preponderance of people who, armed with their 3rd in media studies from Bolton, are going to tell others how to save the world, and then retreat to the planning room as the worlod is "saved" via back breaking manual labour labour.

It lacks people willing to dig over the field, not people with megaphones calling for it to be done.

Just spent the weekend at a Woodcraft camp - A deliberately low tech low carbon affair run by middle class parents for middle class families (mostly).

It was an excellent event which required a large amount of preparation and co-operation by all involved, most of the parents had at least an upper second degree, including both latrine diggers (euphemistically referred to as keeps of the garbage).

Everything is (nominally) decided by 'circles' - either all inclusive of grouped by age. This weekend was a major debate over officially allowing mobile phones and/or electronic entertainments onto the camp - they are officially banned although most people take phones anyway. Predictably, all the kids wanted them - almost none of the adults. The 'compromise' was to allow the oldest band of kids limited access to them for a trial period.

Ideal training for Transition Town people. It is all about people (mostly kids) learning to cooperate and get on with the people around them, whilst constrained in a very limited environment, and being as self-sufficient as possible.

Done right, even managing poo is a respectable and not too unpleasant a job (but quite hard work). Garbage keepers are excused rota duties too!

What is the most sucessful transition town in the UK & what have they achieved?

Maybe the movement is loosing steam beacuase BAU is still limping on so it lacks economic basis & can't florish on idealism alone.

Food & energy are still very cheap as a proportion of incomes & most UK people aren't into hard work unless its on a treadmill machine in a gym.

lurker wrote:Maybe the movement is loosing steam beacuase BAU is still limping on so it lacks economic basis & can't florish on idealism alone.

I see this as a big part of the problem. To me, Transition is about putting systems in place that can be scaled up when TSHTF, but while BAU continues, not enough people (even those involved in Transition) see the urgency, so little happens. Of those who do see it and try to make serious preparations, many probably burn out, or just can't do it without more support .

The Woodcraft example is a classic case of a the good that can happen (in a very small time frame) when everybody involved shares the same outlook and values.

Sadly, the green middle class ethos is not shared by the majority of the population. We all know that TT is packed with these kinds of people.

Thats great, but if the point of TT is to reach the entire community, than you are in trouble because the majority of the population don't share your concern about climate change, are much more materialistic in their lifestyle expectations.

So, although the TT movement on a small scale can do a lot of good, it wants to prepare the entire community it needs to go beyond what it is at the moment: a group of nice middle class eco-aware people.

My experience with TT (Brighton) was a disaster and I ended up doing specific courses which taught me useful skills - a TT group which is built around that has the best hope of succeeding.