Packed with real-life examples and the voices of people who have created innovative local businesses and invested in all manner of new enterprises, this call for local action argues that the seed of a new economy—and the answer to the desperate search for a new way forward in an increasingly economically insecure and ecologically unstable world—is an understanding by individuals that change starts with them. The aim of the Transition movement is to galvanize people into taking action, whether on a large or a small scale, with the goal of creating communities that model a local economy rooted in place, in well-being, in entrepreneurship, and in creativity. While the book is primarily focused on food production and sustainable energy, the practical applications it offers also address how to rebuild a local community in the face of austerity due to a natural disaster or economic collapse. Eschewing political arguments of any kind, this discussion will appeal to readers of all persuasions who are eager to play a role in creating a more stable and healthier world one community at a time.

The Power of Just Doing Stuff: How local action can change the world

Business & Money

HOPKINS, Rob

Economics

Green Books

We live in an oil-dependent world, and have got to this level of dependency in a very short space of time, using vast reserves of oil in the process without planning for when the supply is not so plentiful. Most people don't want to think about what happens when the oil runs out (or becomes prohibitively expensive), but "The Transition Handbook" shows how the inevitable and profound changes ahead can have a positive effect. They can lead to the rebirth of local communities, which will generate their own fuel, food and housing. They can encourage the development of local currencies, to keep money in the local area. They can unleash a local 'skilling-up', so that people have more control over their lives. "The Transition Handbook" is the manual which will guide communities to begin this 'energy descent' journey. The argument that 'small is inevitable' is upbeat and positive, as well as utterly convincing.

The Transition Handbook

Industries

What if the best responses to peak oil and climate change don’t come from government, but from you and me and the people around us? In 2008, the best-selling The Transition Handbook suggested a model for a community-led response to peak oil and climate change. Since then, the Transition idea has gone viral across the globe, from Italian villages and Brazilian favelas to universities and London neighborhoods. In contrast to the ever-worsening stream of information about climate change, the economy, and resource depletion, Transition focuses on solutions, on community-scale responses, on meeting new people, and on having fun. The Transition Companion picks up the story today, drawing on the experience of one of the most fascinating experiments under way in the world. It tells inspiring tales of communities working for a future where local economies are valued and nurtured; where lower energy use is seen as a benefit; and where enterprise, creativity, and the building of resilience have become cornerstones of a new economy. The first part discusses where we are now in terms of resilience and vulnerability in the face of rising oil prices, climate change, and economic challenge. It presents a vision of the future if we do not address these issues, and how things might change if we start to do so. The book then looks in detail at the process a community in transition goes through, calling on the experience of those who have already embarked on this journey. These examples show how much can be achieved when people harness energy and imagination to create projects that will make their communities more resilient. The Transition Companion combines practical advice—the tools needed to start and maintain a Transition initiative—with numerous inspiring stories from local groups worldwide.

The Transition Companion: Making Your Community More Resilient in Uncertain Times

Chelsea Green Publishing

From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want

“Big ideas that just might save the world”―The Guardian The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it. In these times of deep division and deeper despair, if there is a consensus about anything in the world, it is that the future is going to be awful. There is an epidemic of loneliness, an epidemic of anxiety, a mental health crisis of vast proportions, especially among young people. There’s a rise in extremist movements and governments. Catastrophic climate change. Biodiversity loss. Food insecurity. The fracturing of ecosystems and communities beyond, it seems, repair. The future―to say nothing of the present―looks grim. But as Transition movement cofounder Rob Hopkins tells us, there is plenty of evidence that things can change, and cultures can change, rapidly, dramatically, and unexpectedly―for the better. He has seen it happen around the world and in his own town of Totnes, England, where the community is becoming its own housing developer, energy company, enterprise incubator, and local food network―with cascading benefits to the community that extend far beyond the projects themselves. We do have the capability to effect dramatic change, Hopkins argues, but we’re failing because we’ve largely allowed our most critical tool to languish: human imagination. As defined by social reformer John Dewey, imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise. The ability, that is, to ask What if? And if there was ever a time when we needed that ability, it is now. Imagination is central to empathy, to creating better lives, to envisioning and then enacting a positive future. Yet imagination is also demonstrably in decline at precisely the moment when we need it most. In this passionate exploration, Hopkins asks why imagination is in decline, and what we must do to revive and reclaim it. Once we do, there is no end to what we might accomplish. From What Is to What If is a call to action to reclaim and unleash our collective imagination, told through the stories of individuals and communities around the world who are doing it now, as we speak, and witnessing often rapid and dramatic change for the better.

Self-Help

Creativity

“Big ideas that just might save the world”―The Guardian 
The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it. 
In these times of deep division and deeper despair, if there is a consensus about anything in the world, it is that the future is going to be awful. There is an epidemic of loneliness, an epidemic of anxiety, a mental health crisis of vast proportions, especially among young people. There’s a rise in extremist movements and governments. Catastrophic climate change. Biodiversity loss. Food insecurity. The fracturing of ecosystems and communities beyond, it seems, repair. The future―to say nothing of the present―looks grim. 
But as Transition movement cofounder Rob Hopkins tells us, there is plenty of evidence that things can change, and cultures can change, rapidly, dramatically, and unexpectedly―for the better. He has seen it happen around the world and in his own town of Totnes, England, where the community is becoming its own housing developer, energy company, enterprise incubator, and local food network―with cascading benefits to the community that extend far beyond the projects themselves. 
We do have the capability to effect dramatic change, Hopkins argues, but we’re failing because we’ve largely allowed our most critical tool to languish: human imagination. As defined by social reformer John Dewey, imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise. The ability, that is, to ask What if? And if there was ever a time when we needed that ability, it is now. 
Imagination is central to empathy, to creating better lives, to envisioning and then enacting a positive future. Yet imagination is also demonstrably in decline at precisely the moment when we need it most. In this passionate exploration, Hopkins asks why imagination is in decline, and what we must do to revive and reclaim it. Once we do, there is no end to what we might accomplish. 
From What Is to What If is a call to action to reclaim and unleash our collective imagination, told through the stories of individuals and communities around the world who are doing it now, as we speak, and witnessing often rapid and dramatic change for the better.

Chelsea Green Publishing UK

We live in an oil-dependent world, arriving at this level of dependency in a very short space of time by treating petroleum as if it were in infinite supply. Most of us avoid thinking about what happens when oil runs out (or becomes prohibitively expensive), but The Transition Handbook shows how the inevitable and profound changes ahead can have a positive outcome. These changes can lead to the rebirth of local communities that will grow more of their own food, generate their own power, and build their own houses using local materials. They can also encourage the development of local currencies to keep money in the local area. There are now over 30 “transition towns” in the UK, Australia and New Zealand with more joining as the idea takes off. They provide valuable experience and lessons-learned for those of us on this side of the Atlantic. With little proactive thinking at the governmental level, communities are taking matters into their own hands and acting locally. If your town is not a transition town, this upbeat guide offers you the tools for starting the process.

The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience

Sports & Outdoors

Local Food is an inspirational and practical guide for creating local food initiatives - showing how we can restore and establish community networks to generate healthy, locally produced food. Many people already buy their vegetables as locally as possible, eat organic and seasonal food when they can, and may even be getting to grips with managing an allotment. But Local Food shows you how to get together with the people on your street or in your village, town or city. It explores a huge range of initiatives for rebuilding a diverse, resilient local food network - including community gardens, farmers' markets, Community Supported Agriculture schemes and projects in schools - and includes all the information you will need to get ideas off the ground.

Local Food: How to make it happen in your community (1) (The Local Series)

Pinkerton, Tamzin

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

The first 'energy descent action plan' for a community in the UKAn essential guide for Transition activists who want to plan the future for their local communitiesThis is a lively and colourful community-based guide to reducing local dependence on fossil fuels and reducing the local carbon footprint over the next 20 years, a period during which they anticipate changes associated with declining oil supplies and the impacts of climate change to become more apparent. The Energy Descent Action Plan has been developed by and for the community of Totnes and District, a busy market town and its fifteen encircling parishes, by engaging the community in a creative process of preparing for resilience based on localization with understanding, skills and inner preparation for the anticipated changes and some of the biggest challenges civilisation has ever faced.At the heart of the EDAP are 15 sections covering key sustainability topics from food production to governance; within each are scenarios of business as usual versus willingness to change proposed with a vision of 2030. It offers a new story of the future, based on a scenario of positive visions and proposes practical pathways of ideas, activities and policy changes across a series of themed timelines to 2030.

Transition in Action: Totnes and District 2030, An Energy Descent Action Plan

Hodgson, Jacqi

In contrast to the ever-worsening stream of information about climate change, the economy and resource depletion, Transition focuses on solutions, on community-scale projects and on positive results. The bestselling The Transition Handbook suggested a model for a community-led response to peak oil and climate change. Since then, the Transition idea has gone viral across the globe, from universities and London neighborhoods to Italian villages and Brazilian favelas. The Transition Companion picks up the story 5 years later, describing one of the most fascinating experiments now under way in the world. It shows how communities are working for a future where local enterprises are valued and nurtured; where lower energy use is seen as a benefit; and where cooperation, creativity and the building of resilience are the cornerstones of a new economy.

The Transition Companion: Making your community more resilient in uncertain times

One day in 2005, Rob Hopkins, an ordinary British citizen, started knocking on his neighbors’ doors in the small town of Totnes, where he had just settled in. He was proposing that they come together to organize nothing less than a new, locally based economy. A new model, the Transition Town, harnessed resources at hand and modeled a new way of life: no longer expect food to arrive from the other side of the planet at great fuel costs, but instead create short food supply chains and cultivate all the available land (gardens, rooftops, municipal parks); no longer complain about pollution, but rally fellow citizens around a project of local renewable energy cooperatives; no longer rail against the banks and the stock markets, but adopt a local currency that enriches the community. His experience has been successful not only in Totnes; it has spread to 1,200 cities in 47 countries. Each of the Transition Towns are transforming their communities, without fanfare, without outside funding, making them more autonomous and more resilient to the crises looming ahead―a network of oases offering a wealth of solutions. Hopkins’ charisma and his story spur us all to become the best we can be. He has revived a sense of hope, buried under years of resignation and the disillusionment of “economic realism.” The saga of the Transition Towns movement inspires us all to take action and tap into the unimagined capacities we all have to promote change.

The Transition Starts Here, Now and Together

Astruc, Lionel

Actes-sud

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by HOPKINS, Rob. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by HOPKINS, Rob

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by HOPKINS, Rob. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Power of Just Doing Stuff: How local action can change the world

The Transition Handbook

The Transition Companion: Making Your Community More Resilient in Uncertain Times

From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want

From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want

The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience

Local Food: How to make it happen in your community (1) (The Local Series)

Transition in Action: Totnes and District 2030, An Energy Descent Action Plan

The Transition Companion: Making your community more resilient in uncertain times

The Transition Starts Here, Now and Together