Customer Reviews
Transition Handbook - By: Doomster, 08 Oct 2008 
This book is way overdue. I have been eagerly searching for books addressing the preparation for post peak oil for many many years. Books like this should have been written years ago so I was delighted to see that at last practical guides are starting to appear on the book shelves.
I really enjoyed the first couple of chapters dealing with peak oil & its implications for society. Subsequent chapters I did not enjoy as much particularly when the Kinsale Energy Decent Action Plan is promoted as a role model for sustainable community development.
There is a huge wealth of expertisein the development community, particularly which which was developed from overseas aid agencies. They have developed approaches, standards, principles & a multitude of methodologies for developing communities, with limited or almost non existent resources, & where success or failure costs lives. This expertise has been ignored & attempts made to reinvent the wheel.
I think the focus of the book should have built on the expertise of organisations such as Oxfam, VSO, Save the Children, & Overseas Development Administration & focused on the structures, processes & outcomes, which would help develop community resilience & sustainability, with limited resources.
I have a worry that communities who attempt to use this handbook as the basis for their transition will make fantastic progress initially through the generation of enthusiasm but due to improper planning, a lack of monitoring & evaluation of effectiveness & imprecise goals & objectives, people will become disillusioned & drop out. There is also the danger that communities who adapt this approach will not be able to communicate effectively with traditional disciplines, local authorities, health services, energy engineers or others. Who should change first? The current decision makers & service providers or the community development
organisations?
This process of conflict between service providers & community organisations has happened time & time again, without learning the lessons of what actually is sustainablein the long term. It usually resultsin the community organisation being unable to access state funding resultingin decline & or death. How can a community organisation sustain itself unless it becomes a business, with formal structures, job descriptions, terms of reference, fundamental guiding principles, training, development, salaries, income generation, sales etc. How can that fit with the "loose" concepts proposed?
Lets hope this is just the first of a huge range of increasingly sophisticated publications yet to come that will address these issues using the best expertise availablein the fields of business, development management, community organisation, sustainability, public health, & many more, combined into a consensus best practice manual for transition. I hope these comments help to stimulate a critical approach to sustainable community development.
A smart, accessible guide to a resilient, low-carbon future - By: Philippe Vandenbroeck, 11 Sep 2008 
There is a powerful currentin our contemporary, post-industrial culture that is arguing for a simpler, more sustainable alternative to our wasteful, environmentally damaging way of life. Proselytisers rely on a varying mix of three sets of arguments: the environmental challenge posed by climate change, the energy supply challenge posed by peak oil and, finally, the spiritual challenge emerging from the newest science on personal wellbeing (in a nutshell: beyond a certain point more money & stuff doesn't make us happier.)
Rob Hopkins' Transition Movement is pragmatic attempt to come to terms with the disruptions that are heralded by climate change & peak oil. Thoughtlessly addicted as we are to fossil fuels, our societies are ill equipped to deal with the adverse implications of energy scarcity & a hotter, less predictable climate. According to Hopkins, what we need to develop is resilience: the ability to deal creatively & locally with energy supply & environmental shocks.
The Transition Handbook is a hands-on guide to help communities make that transition towards a resilient, low-carbon future. It is useful to distinguish three layersin the book.
The first layer encapsulates the three main parts of Hopkins' argument, focused on the head (the facts about climate change & peak oil you need to know), the heart (the need for positive vision & commitment) & the hands (practical guidelines for enabling resilient communities).
The second layer consists of a range of design principles that can be relied on to shape resilient communities. For example,in preparing for an energy-scarce future we need to know that resilience relies on a small scale, modular & decentralised infrastructure. We also need to investin high-quality productive relationships, integrate rather than segregate & use the creative edges of systems to make the most of their potential. There are many more of these principles that have been lifted from an eclectic mix of disciplines, including systems science, ecology & the psychology of change. Hopkins himself was deeply influenced by the permaculture movement, a radical design approach to constructing "sustainable human settlements".
The third layer features a range of practical solutions that comply with these design principles. These solutions are meant to be the cornerstones of any resilient community & include a template for working towards a more energy-thrifty ("energy descent planning"), decentralised energy generation, local food sourcing, re-skilling of consumers into creative citizens & local currencies.
Transition thinking is not only a theory but it is also a social movement & the book features a number of UK examples of communities that have started going down the path towards resilience. Hopkins is acutely aware that the governance of the Transition movement needs to mirror the design principles underlying resilience. It would hardly be credible & effective to embody a Transition movement by a tightly-managed, centralised bureaucracy. So, Hopkins is only willing to give pointers to help peoplein facilitating bottom-up, small-scale, self-steering initiatives. Lots is left to emergence & action learning ("... where it all goes remains to be seen ..." is an often used phrasein the book).
The Transition Handbook is an accessible, smart guide to helping us deal with the challenges we may face as a result of climate change & peak oil. In itself the book doesn't offer anything new, but it rearranges familiar pieces of a puzzle into a compelling & coherent approach towards learning again to help ourselves & to do more with less.
Enabling - By: Logic Droid, 01 Jul 2008 
Hooray. Despite some people's misgivings about the psychology section, which seem largely dependent on a definition of 'success', this is an outstanding book. It's primary achievement is to show the reader how societal change can take placein the absence of the usual too little too late response of governments, whose priorities lie with business, rather than people or environmental sustainability. The future security of Britain, & elsewhere, liesin groups of people with the will & power to make communities sustainable. It might seem unbelievable, but we have the power to transform our society, & are not at the whim of government. They will follow. If you admire Kohr, Schumacher, Papworth & Sale, you will respond positively to this book.
Brilliant in parts, dangerously foolish in others - By: R. P. Clarke, 28 Jun 2008 I've the greatest sympathy with this book's conceptin many respects. Rob correctly identifies the overriding need to reduce energy dependence, & that we must not wait for "them" to do anything about it, or even help us. Correctly he sees that we need a "how-to" manual for how to make communities (rather than just the reader) self-sufficientin food & so on. But the devil isin the practical details, or more precisely the practical unknowns which are all too easily glossed over.
The book gets hideously, dangerously misguidedin its important section on psychology, with its notion of the importance of a "positive vision". History is bursting full of "positive visions" which endedin huge disasters. Instead, what is needed is a
judiciously realistic vision. It is vitally important to recognise that criticism & doubt are just as important as hope & "constructive" "enthusiastic" thinking. Otherwise huge energy & effort is almost certain to be lostin enthusing down disastrous dead-ends.
In a traumatised society, many people become lost to despair, depression, negativity. But there is the equal problem that too many people desperately pin their hopes on "positive" but false solutions which ultimately fail them.
Someone said that the transition concept has been "phenomenally successful". That is seriously unhinged fantasy. There hasn't yet been a transition to test out how or even whether the ideas work outin practice.
You need to be very careful to avoid assuming that action is the same as achievement of solutions, or that international fame & crowds of enthusiastic followers is the same as successin solving the problem.
I would strongly urge the author to revise the psychology section of his book to take account of these comments. The importance of a
realistic vision.
essential reading - By: Deborah Joffe, 30 Apr 2008 I'm two thirds way through this book & overall find it an inspiring read. The first sectionin particular summarises some of the issuesin a very easy to understand style. I liked the section on psychology particularly - I think both grieving, shock & addiction models are useful to understanding the apparently irrational responses of people to climate change & peak oil.
The rest of the book is harder to read - a lot of detail about how one should go about starting a transition initiative. Some of this stuff makes very important points about embedding the initiative into the community & I appreciate that it is derived from experience. At the same time I found it somewhat prescriptive, especially the directions for conducting meetings/workshops etc. This is a bit of a turn off - there are of course lots of ways of doing these things & I feel it would have been better just to refer to some resources or put thesein appendices.
We have to act on climate change & peak oil & I buy the resilient local economy model. There is lots of useful stuffin this book, maybe some of it just more detailed than necessary.
