Forest Row .org Community Forums

I can lend anyone the following, all of which I highly recommend....
Heat - How to stop the planet burning, by George Monbiot: radical ideas for social and economic change required by climate change...

An inconvienient truth, Al Gore's film on climate change:  I left a copy with the Parish office for anyone who might want to see it and have another copy at home if you would like to see this landmark film. (Though personally I think Marc ter Kuile gives an even better overview!)

Shopped, by Joanna Blythman, a thorough read about our horrendous national food buying habits which I thoroughly appreciated reading even though I thought I already 'knew' about supermarkets and the market power they wield

A similar one I've yet to read but looks good is Tescopoly by Andrew Sims.... anyone have a copy?

Why is Forest Row a Transition Village? What is it moving from and where is it going? Who has decided that such a move should take place and it there majority agreement?

More information please, not just invitations to read books.

Ken Farrar

Go to this article, "Time for Transition" by Mike http://www.forestrow.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=117&Itemid=42 (http://www.forestrow.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=117&Itemid=42)

Hi Ken,
I wonder whether you have read Mike Grenville's article and what you think of it all.  Clearly a 'Transition Village' that does not have general support for the concept would have little credence - you ask whether the majority should vote for it. 

We have yet to reach a point where we vote on individual things as communities except through our elected Parish Council and higher levels of local government.  As it is early days of the Transition village project there is much that is around awareness raising and discussion.  I myself wrote to the new Parish Council and asked whether they would like to have a meeting about the Transition Villages initiative and this is currently being set up.  I hope it will be open to all though the focus would be on discussion for the Parish Council.

My personal involvement is due to awareness of climate change and basic economic laws of demand and supply.  We will argue the causation of climate change for some time to come but there is scientific agreement that it is happening and that burning fossil fuels doesn’t help.  We also live in a culture that depends heavily on oil for energy and a huge range of products, including food.  The Peak Oil concept is that future world oil production will soon reach a peak (if it has not already) and then rapidly decline.  Coupled with rising world demand for oil, this has huge implications for prices and security of supply.  Not to mention where the oil is - geographically and politically.

The Transition Towns (& Villages) idea is that a community develop ‘bottom up’ ways to prepare and ‘transition’ to a to a low carbon consuming ‘post-oil’ way of living. This will require new way of thinking, new skills and ways of living with each other.  Many of these ‘ways’ may not really be so new but bringing back a more careful, local and skillful use of resources compared to our current lifestyles.

A key strength of the approach is that it is bottom up, and does not require 'authority' but can only do that which it can establish its own authority for.  It not prescriptive and offers communities ways to come together and have fun, whilst respecting and sharing knowledge that is already there locally and developing projects to increase local self-reliance.

As Forest Row's representative on Wealden District Council for the last electroral term, I can say that there is much that local government can do, but also much that it cannot do.  What it cannot do is harness community ideas and lead them though it can work productively with the outcome of those ideas.  I see the Transition Village idea as a very potent way of building community ideas and actions and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

best wishes
Rowena