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Everyman’s journey

By November 15, 2012
Pilgrim couple

We're re-running this popular piece from the first year of Transition Voice. Pilgrim's Progress: From This World to That Which Is To Come A Survival Sampler "So, can I ask you a personal question? What do YOU call this whole thing, whatever it is, that's gonna happen?"  I posed this to a man I had just met and who happens to be the largest supplier on the East Coast of long-term food storage and survival items.  He had just given us a tour, complete with samples of dehydrated applesauce … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Spirit Tagged With: , ,

Homemade Halloween

By October 18, 2012
costumes

We're running this piece from 2010 again in celebration of the upcoming Halloween. One of my worst parenting memories happened when I took my daughters trick-or-treating on the vaunted Lawn of the University of Virginia campus one year. The girls were about six and four at the time, and the picturesque associations of the annual UVa. Halloween tradition conjured up by friends made it sound incomparable to other activities. This was easy: show up around 4:30pm and go by Lawn dorms to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Small World Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Polluters vs. the people

By October 2, 2010
Vintage shot of underground coal miners

Guest column by climatologist Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. We hold this truth to be self evident – all people are created equal. That truth is the basis for equal protection of the laws – a right guaranteed by our Constitution. "All people" includes young people, mountain people, poor people. Our government was instituted to protect the rights of all people. We are gathered here today to draw attention to the failure of our … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

It takes a village to raise the world

By October 2, 2010
Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the worldwide Transition Town Network. Photo: Stephen Prior

For a guy who set out in 2005 to help his small Irish village move toward an economy beyond fossil fuels and ended up spawning a world wide movement that in five short years has lead to 323 Transition groups around the world, Rob Hopkins sure is humble and unassuming. We sat down recently with the no-fly-zone leader for an interview via Skype straight to the beating heart of the Transition Network nerve center to find out just where TN is now in its development, and what makes Hopkins tick. … [Read more...]

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Would Patton hate nukes?

By October 1, 2010
George C. Scott as Patton

It appears that General George S. Patton, hero of the Battle of the Bulge, is back.  As always, he's not taking any balogna in Bastogne.  But this time, he's come to open up a can of whoop-ass on energy ideas that would make America open to foreign baddies. "Patton is the biggest enemy of nuclear power,"  according to his amanuensis, former CIA Director James Woolsey,  who channeled the ghost of Old Blood and Guts for a group of clean-energy executives at a meeting in Virginia in early … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Interview: Matt Simmons

By October 1, 2010
Matt Simmons, July 2010. Photo: Courtesey of the Ocean Energy Institute.

When we hatched the idea this summer of starting Transition Voice as the first online magazine devoted to regular coverage of peak oil, we knew immediately that Matt Simmons was the first expert we wanted to interview. Those familiar with the subject will know why. That's why we were so glad when Simmons took a chance on our fledgling effort, and agreed to talk to us for our first issue. We spoke by phone with Matt in late July from his newly formed Ocean Energy Institute in Maine, where … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Green hawks fight clean (and mean)

By October 1, 2010
Hellfire helicopter firing

Their natural habitat is the Pentagon, NATO Allied Joint Force Command, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And their prey is oil sheiks and petro-caudillos, saboteurs of nuclear plants, and others who would use energy to intimidate America. They worry that importing oil from foreign countries ruled by hostile regimes puts America's national security and world dominance at risk. They are generals, admirals, spymasters, and national security advisors. They are the green … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Texas: don’t mess with California

By October 1, 2010
No on Proposition 23 icon

Ah, Texas oil guys. There really is a lot to love about your supersized state: great quesadillas, wind turbines, Kinky Friedman, the Chicken Ranch and Austin indy rock. And let's not forget the late Matt Simmons. But are you oil and gas barons just addicted to trying to screw California? You'd think that whole Enron thing, causing blackouts just for grins and jacking up power rates back in 2000-2001 until the little old lady in Pasadena screamed, would have taught you guys in Houston some … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: , , ,

How community is like a garden

By October 1, 2010
Mother and son find play in life. Lynn Crounse Photography

Have you ever sat still in a garden and focused your attention on the symphony of life around you?  Perhaps you lifted some mulch and witnessed the soil teaming with life just below the surface – insects, nematodes, bacteria, worms, mycelia mats, young sprouts, rotting debris – all dancing in unison to the fecundity of life. Observe and flow with nature As an instructor in Permaculture, a whole-systems design methodology developed from careful observation of the complex adaptive systems … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Permaculture Tagged With: , , , ,

A climate wake-up call

By October 1, 2010
Wake Up America -- global warming is here

Imagine this scenario. Your medical doctor informs you: “You need to stop all industrial activities immediately, or you’ll be dead in twenty years. And so will your five-year-old child. Eventually, of course, you will die anyway — after all, nobody gets out alive — but your death is guaranteed if you do not stop relying on fossil fuels for travel, heating and cooling, water from the tap, and food from the grocery store.” Naturally, you go straight from the clinic to the nearest … [Read more...]

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