Transition Bedford

There is a growing wealth of great long and short films which cover a range of peak oil and climate change issues. Two recent cinema released films which maybe worth viewing by Transition Bedford members are “There will be Blood” an oil evolution film by Paul Thomas Anderson which has recently been described as the film of the noughties by the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw and “a tragic parable of man’s dysfunctional dependence upon oil: the once glorious lubricant of commercial triumph and technological innovation, and now the dwindling lifeblood of our material prosperity, the unacknowledged driving force of our military conflicts, and even the cause of a coming ecological catastrophe” The second more hopeful film is “Fuel” . The Wikipedia page comments that “Most Americans know we’ve got a problem: an addiction to oil that taxes the environment, entangles us in costly foreign policies, and threatens the nation’s long-term stability. But few are informed or empowered enough to do much about it. Enter Josh Tickell, an expert young activist who, driven by his own emotionally charged motives, shuttles us on a revelatory, whirlwind journey to unravel this addiction—from its historical origins to political constructs that support it, to alternatives available now and the steps we can take to change things.”

This leads me to suggest that we should think about recording/filming Bedford’s transition journey. Anyone?

Bishop of Bedford

This article appeared in this weeks Bedfordshire on Sunday and i thought i’d reproduce it here with full credits of course. The reason being that it’s an article of significance but also because i often see articles in the local papers that i think we should re-post on the TB site so that we can collate information. These articles generally indicate a project or organisation that i’m amazed to find exist in our region that i know little of and that i feel we’d do well to connect with. In my mind, largely Transition Bedford as a Transition hub is a mechanism from supporting and bringing together existing activities. So here’s the article. You can see the original here

Bishop faces up to ‘greenhouse’ issue

BY CHRIS GILL

This is the Bishop of Bedford as you probably haven’t seen him before – or are possibly likely to see him again. News – Bishop of BedfordThe Rt Richard Inwood agreed to be photographed with the word Copenhagen written across his forehead to show his backing for climate justice. Other Bishops in the St Albans diocese followed suit ahead of climate talks in the Danish city.

The images will be projected onto landmark buildings across the UK, along with hundreds of other messages from people who are calling on the international community – and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in particular, to seal a fair and effective climate change deal at the key summit.

The Rt Rev Inwood, said: “Climate change poses a very real threat to humanity and to our planet. “We must be in no doubt that the Copenhagen climate summit requires strong leadership that will deal fairly and effectively with the consequences of climate change.

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I’ve always believed that the transition would be a mix of incremental and step change and that the step changes are largely psychological changes in the way we see ourselves. My belief follows that these psychological changes would come about through global events, festivals, celebrations and protests (not the traditional anti protests but protest in the modern more creative sense displayed in the video below), where people join together from across the globe for 1 day or 1 hour to do the same thing, whatever that thing might be. This global union or connection makes us conscious of each other in a new way. Well in my understanding a global shift is one step closer. Watch and enjoy!!

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Whether we are aware of it or not, the members of the Initiating Group (IG) at Transition Bedford are now evolving from the “forming” stage into the “storming” stage. Can you feel it? Entering the storm means we are making real progress, even if it seems unclear right now. So, at this important juncture, in hopes of taking us even further into the eye of the storm, I’d like to share some ideas which have been swirling about in my mind ever since my Transition Training in London. It has to do with media, our responsiveness to it, both conscious and unconscious, and our role as leaders in the community. (more…)

There is no denying that we live at a time in history when much of the world around us is changing. The currently fluctuating economy is proving to be challenging for many, causing us to change our spending and saving patterns. Climate change and the need to move away from fossil fuel dependency are becoming more and more apparent, making it necessary to make rapid decisions about how to address the issues, and to reflect upon how we need to change as a society. Technology is also rapidly changing the way we interact, and we frequently find ourselves on the one hand more able to communicate at a virtual level, but also feeling more and more isolated from one another in the flesh. Over the past few decades, we have become increasingly disconnected from the sources of our own sustenance (such as food production) and more and more dependent upon our own technological creations for survival. To see how dependent we actually are, imagine how vulnerable you would feel if tomorrow morning you woke up to find you had no internet or other telecommunications systems, had no access to electricity, oil or petrol, or you were unable to obtain food, clothes, medicine and other necessities from outside sources. (more…)

Green alkanet grows everywhere and its flowers are edible

In the last few years I’ve become rather attracted to the idea of foraging for food. Having had an allotment in the past, and knowing the time and work that goes into growing veg, the idea of going out into the wider environment to find sources of food which have cost me nothing in monetary and effort terms is very, very attractive.

On a recent trip to Conwy in Wales, the bushes alongside farm lanes were dripping with sloes, rosehips and blackberries. But what about here in (sub)urban Bedford, what’s to be found for foraging?

I’ve lived in the town for a year now and found a few places to find wild food: sea buckthorn, damsons, blackberries and rosehips at Priory Marina; crab apples in the streets around Castle Road, elderberries on the footpath off Caves Lane and green alkanet (pictured above – you can eat the lovely blue flowers) and hairy bittercress all over the place. if you’re a forager, please share your haunts below in the comments…

So, let’s say everyone gets into the idea of foraging – what then? Will there be enough to go around or will we be fighting over those damsons, rowans and bittercress? I suspect we’ve got a while before this is a problem, but it’s worth thinking about.

Right now, though, the difficulty is getting people to pick even the obvious fruit outside their front doors. There’s a street off Castle Road (I can’t remember which one: maybe Pembroke?) with a apple tree that was full of little red-skinned, red-fleshed apples in late summer: I think I’ve identified them as a variety called Red Devil: great to eat and produces beautiful pink juice.

I nearly cried when nobody touched them: the sweet little red apples dropped and were mashed under feet and car tyres, probably driven by people driving to a shop to buy – you guessed it – apples grown half way across the world (and not half as tasty). I’d have brought a ladder and picked them all, but I was a bit worried about how people in the street would react: maybe next year.

If you want to read more of my stuff on organic gardening and ethical consumerism, visit my personal blog, Horticultural, and follow me on Twitter.

We come out of decades of needed campaigning and protests against the world we don’t want and we move with exponential momentum towards the systematic and uncontrolable creation of the world we want.  Transition involves being aware of the negatives of former but embedding ourselves in the positives of the latter. This video below, with dynamic speaker and author Paul Hawken, exemplifies exactly that.

It’d be interesting to find other video clips that hold a story of unyeilding positivity that’s not told through dreams or fantasies but through real life inspirations.

The tables have flipped, can you feel it? Probably not, it’s not portrayed in the media, nor in our political circles, it’s difficult to see at all in or every day lives but now, today and for the first time the status quo is on the back foot. Those supporting it’s continuation now make up the resistance movement. No longer is the great challenge to change the world, a far greater challenge is resisting the tide of change.

Every hole dug with a shovel, every seemingly boring community meeting, every humble local project started, every personal  commitment made……..we have to gain a sense of it’s place in a sea of diversity of small changes across the globe that are building a new and nourished world, one dig of the shovel at a time.