The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience

I really loved this book, it was an eye opener for me in regards to the Peak Oil and Climate Change problems we face. The infomation was fascinating to read and kept me hooked throughout, the only criticism is I hoped for more answers to deal personally with this problem. Instead the second section was more about how to get local government involved to deal with these issues. Although this is obviously an important part of the Transition Movement, I hoped for more information and some suggestions with more with the 'what to do' in the areas of energy, food, water etc. Still its a fantastic book and I hope the next book is already being written with these answers.

This is a great book for anyone who would like to work on self reliance as a community. I am amazed at how many people are waking up to the fact that it's time to take control of your life instead of letting big companies who only care about their profit margin or being in control of the worlds food supply. This book is a guide to help local communities with communities gardens, support you local shops, how to set up meetings, how to find other people who feel the same way. I think it's a great book. And remember this is for your local community so you can fit it to your local needs.

Rob Hopkins has tackled a complex inter-relationship between tow vitally important subjects in a completely new way. Looking at the problems of Climate Change and Peak oil together shows him, and then allows us to see, that relocalisation is the key to producing not just the answer to our problems, but the kind of high quality low consumption lifestyle we need in the future. He makes the future an attractive and exciting place in which to live and thus allows us to escape from the apocalyptic survivalist scenarios so common in the USA. The best thing about this book is that it is not just a book that tells us what we need to do, it actually maps out multiple pathways for us to begin doing it. Rob is no starry-eyed idealist. Without minimising the difficulties, and acting in the face of uncertainty as to whether or not the differences he suggests will or not make the difference required, he clearly shows that we will not know the answer unless we really try. This book is a clarion call to shift beyond panic to engaging in positive action. It steps beyond finding scapegoats to blame, and shows that we can all play a productive role in confronting the biggest domestic and international issues of our times - Climate Change and Oil Depletion. The idea of creating a "Project Support Project", of the group that begins activities planning for its own demise, and being a syndicate of initiative, fostering participation, inclusion and creativity, are all important themes of this book. Its readable, engaging and difficult to put down. The only difficulty I can find is that it is a little repetitive in parts (for example the story of the Totnes Pound is repeated a little too much), which could have benefitted from a tighter editing process. Perhaps bringing the references together in a single section could have helped. Its good to see a German Edition already in print. Other languages should follow swiftly.

All elements of the American political spectrum now agree on the importance of getting America off its dependence on foreign oil. Fueling this agreement is a collective awareness of the deleterious impact fossil fuels have upon the environment, the crippling impact of high fuel prices upon the American economy, as well as the national security implications of being so dependant upon the occasionally hostile foreign nations supplying our oil imports. Rob Hopkins draws upon his many years as a teacher of permaculture and natural building in "The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency To Local Resilience" to write a seminal instruction manual on just how communities can go about growing their own food, generating their own power, building their own houses using local resources and materials -- thereby reducing the need for imported oil to fuel their economies and activities, while at the same time keeping money in the local area and strengthening the local economy and fostering local prosperity. Enhanced with References, Resources, an Index, "The Transition Handbook" offers a thoroughly 'reader friendly', informed and informative text laced with figures and 'Tools of Transition' commentaries on everything from making the most of public events to designing productive meetings. Simply stated, 'The Transition Handbook" is a critical important contribution to the growing body of Environmental Studies literature and a 'must read' for environmental activists, city administrators, and governmental policy makers.

Rob Hopkins writes about the context for starting a transition town and then follows with step-by-step instructions on the action steps involved with bringing awareness and hope to communities. Transition towns spring from a grassroots initiative to do something positive and cooperative in response to the impending triple crisis of peak oil, climate change and global economic collapse. It all starts with awareness and ends in an energy decent action plan. Every community is different, so Rob is very careful not to offer any practical solutions to how to grow food or get energy. He simply offers a guiding hand on how to talk to people about peak oil and transition and how to go about preparing communities to reskill and re-localize.