On Saturday 5th December, ahead of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, the biggest family-orientated demonstration in history will walk though London to demonstrate support for a safe climate future for all.

We feel that this is one of the most important events in our life-times - so do over 100 charities and groups including the WWF, Christian Aid, RSPB, the Women’s Institute and Unicef who are asking their supporters and members to attend. For more details on the event visit the Wave website.

There is to be comfortable low carbon coach transport (with toilet!) from Stratford and we’d be thrilled if the coach from Stratford was full.

We are hoping that this will be a fun event, so if you’d like to be part of it the coach will be leaving from central Stratford at 8.00am on 5th December and calling at Shipston-on-Stour before proceeding to London. The coach will return via Shipston, arriving at Stratford at approximately 7.00pm.

The cost will be £10 per person (children under five free). Please book ahead as places are limited - although if we get huge support we could always stretch to a second coach…

The theme is ‘bring or wear something blue’ – the idea is to make a human wave.

To book a place - send me an
email.

Don't miss this...

Global Ice Survey

The TED talks take place in Oxford and are dedicated to 'ideas worth spreading'. They have an award winning website where recordings of their lectures are shown. Brilliant stuff - well worth a visit.

Here is one of the talks, by a chap called James Balog who has done time-lapse photography of melting glaciers as proof of climate change. This is breath-taking stuff...

...and extremely ironic that it is sponsored by BMW.

Forget Peak Oil

BP has discovered a large deposit of oil in the gulf of mexico. Link.

Put this into context. The new oil field contains around 3 billion barrels of oil - 500 million of which are extractable using contemporary technology. 500 million barrels of oil will last the US alone less than 1 year at current useage rates.

The new oil field is one of the deepest oil fields ever discovered which makes it very expensive to extract. The Statfjord oil field in the North Sea contained 5 billion barrels of oil. Thirty years after it was discovered it is almost entirely depleted. As are nearly fifty oil fields in the North Sea.

And, should we really be exploiting more carbon based fuels right now?

On the positive side, the small difference that this (and all the other discoveries of oil over the past 10 years) will make could be put to good use.

Here is a very exciting example of what we could be developing. Link.

There is hope!

The Peak Oil Debate

The Independent recently published this very interesting article about Peak Oil.

The article has prompted a great deal of astonishment and comment on the internet. Much of the surprise is because the IEA (International Energy Agency) is the body used by all major governments for independent research to inform energy policy. In their 2007 report the IEA said that oil production will plateau and last for the next 40 years - which was used by the UK Government as the basis for their policy making on energy security. But now that the IEA have said they were wrong and that oil supplies are running out much quicker than anticipated will the UK Government change it's policy?

I recently submitted an email form on the Department of Energy & Climate Change website asking why their energy policy was based on the 2007 figures and received this reply:

You may be happy to know that the Prime Minister has asked the Rt. Hon Malcolm Wicks MP, as his Special Representative on International Energy Issues, to review likely future international energy security. His report will present a global picture and consider in more detail the implications for the EU and in particular for the UK. Mr Wicks is aiming to report to Ministers and the Prime Minister by the end of July 2009.

I have been keeping an eye out for the Rt. Hon. Malcolm Wicks report but have not seen it yet. Perhaps in veiw of the IEA's change of opinion he is frantically re-drafting.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair

Meeting and eating

Transition Stratford's food group met on a wonderful warm summers day and shared delicacies we'd grown or made ourselves. It was a gourmet meal that included home-made wild yeast bread, a freshly picked salad with ripe raspberries and baby carrots, strawberry scones and a magical spiced mead.

The meeting was fun, but it was also effective. We were discussing the follow-up to the food Open Space meeting we held in May. The aim was to come away with practical and achievable projects for Transition Stratford and prepare next steps for delivery.

The idea of creating a CSA was debated, but it was felt that as it was an ambitious plan it would be best to talk to farmers in the area to see if they felt that it may be viable as a business option to take forward themselves.

The idea of garden networking and sharing was met with enthusiasm as a great way of continuing to build on the gardening group we hold at Lifeways. It was linked to all of our aims and is achievable by a voluntary working party. If successful it could lead to more projects teaching cookery skills, mapping and sharing surplus produce and possibly marketing our own home grown food. Judging by the standard of food brought to the meeting we'd be on to a winner with that!

The next steps will be to discuss how we can go about our garden sharing project in earnest. Watch this space or the become involved, please email us.

The Transition Stratford gardens at Lifeways

Transition Stratford Meetings

Meetings

Food Group: Every Monday, 7pm, in the Garden of the Lifeways Centre in Albany Road

Energy Group: Thursday 2nd July, 6pm, West End pub, Stratford

Economy Group: Friday 26th June, 7pm at the West End pub, Stratford

Transition Stratford Core Group: Wednesday 15th July, 7.30pm, contact us for home address

Events

Introduction to Permaculture Weekend Course
Saturday and Sunday the 8th and 9th of August 2009
A highly recommended training course with Permaculturalist Ruth O'Brien, taking place in the beautiful Lifeways Gardens. Lot of fun, lots of great things to do learn and do. Bring something for a shared lunch/BBQ on each day.

Cost for full weekend between £25 and £65 dependent on income. Click HERE to contact Dave for more details.

Lesley

On Thursday the 4th of June we said goodbye to Lesley Greenwood, one of Transition Stratford's gardening group. As many of you may know, Lesley was involved in a car accident which left her in a coma from which she did not recover.

For me, Lesley was an inspiration, always positive, encouraging and very enthusiastic about transition and in particular the transition garden. She had so much life and energy that I found it very difficult to believe that she was seventy years old when she died. We will all miss her very much.

After the thanksgiving service Lesley's family held a reception in the Lifeways gardens. The weather was perfect, and we sat in the marquee and remembered Lesley or walked around the gardens looking at the work she'd been doing with us.

At the end of the reception, we were all given a white balloon. After each saying a few words of thanks, we all released the balloons and let them drift away - a beautiful way to say thank you to a beautiful person.

Thank you Lesley.

Redneck transition

Repower America is a campaign that is a direct result of Al Gore's vision for the future in 'An Inconvenient Truth'. They've just released the following 30 second TV ad which I hope you will enjoy. Interestingly it relys slightly more on nationalism (lets reduce our dependency on foreign oil) rather than on a global climate perspective.

Open Space - Next steps...

What a barnstorming and exciting Open Space meeting we had - and of course we now have masses of notes and ideas that have already been typed up which we will circulate soon. If you are not on the email list - email us at transitionstratford at gmail.com and we'll send you a copy. In the meantime, we'll be reviewing the notes and getting in touch with all those who said that they could help. I hope that we can get some projects launched quickly.

Here is a little video interview with a chap called Hidetake Enomoto about Transition Japan that I thought was spot-on. I particularly liked the idea that transition has to be reinvented for every area where it is adopted. I think that is what we are doing in Stratford.

Transition Town Japan: Hidetake Enomoto from UNUChannel on Vimeo.

Peak Oil according to Simmons & Co

I've been pointed in the direction of a presentation made by Simmons and Company to the Yale Law School. Simmons & Co are an independent Investment Bank specialising in the energy industry. In the past they have tended to be sceptical about climate change, but are obviously taking the threat of Peak Oil very seriously indeed...

Stratford calling...

I hope that this site will become a useful guide to Stratford's progress as well as a noticeboard for events. The Blog format is a bit of an experiment, but it does allow you to comment on my ramblings and hopefully will inspire debate and action. Please save this page to your favourites and return frequently for news and updates of Transition Stratford's events and projects.

Here is a link to a short film that was made by BBC South West as a primer to the transition initiative in Totnes. If you are inspired to help - email us.



Cheers,

James