"I'm making the point that any person who becomes a public figure takes the risk of having their personal life scrutinized...."

Again, seems like a threat.

First of all, anyone posting here anonymously is completely protected against such threats.

Second, if you continue along these lines (i.e. threatening members of this message board) you will be banned from the board.

Quote
rrmoderator
"I'm making the point that any person who becomes a public figure takes the risk of having their personal life scrutinized...."

Again, seems like a threat.

First of all, anyone posting here anonymously is completely protected against such threats.

Second, if you continue along these lines (i.e. threatening members of this message board) you will be banned from the board.

Moderator, Margarets is clearly not making a threat, it is ridiculous to suggest she is. Obviously, as she has already explained, she is saying that public figures are subject to close personal scrutiny and that ad hominem attacks are frequently used to discredit the arguments they actually make.
Margaret has made no ad hominems, nor is she threatening to. Shakti's posts are full of personal attacks which he uses to discredit their argument- I'm not sure for example that David Pimentel is a "known racist"... but even if he is, that doesnt in itself discredit the PO theory.

Greetings again all. This will likely be my last contribution to this thread, given the amount of time it takes me to do these and the piles of stuff around me that is somewhat more pressing, a conference to organise which takes place in 2 weeks, writing deadline etc. Also we seem to have started going round in circles, so I'd like to just sum up a few things if I may.

* Peak Oil. Graham has done sterling work of coming back on this one. I think, Shakti, we really have to agree to disagree here. Transition is not just about peak oil, it is also about climate change, which nobody here has contested, as well as being about the wider thread of resilience (the subject of the PhD I am doing). So when asked what he (she?) would do instead of the Transition approach, Shakti’s response is, "I am certainly not arguing that people bury their heads in the sand. In fact, my "plan" would be far more radical than the TT one. But it would involve international laws and treaties, massive government controls, huge tax increases on polluters, a Marshall plan to get us off oil and onto alternative powers. I don't see us getting there with the TT blueprint". As I have already said, Transition never claims to be able to somehow ‘save the world’ from peak oil and climate change single handedly, seeing it rather as one tool in a range of responses, locally, nationally, internationally. Your suggested response is basically the same as ours, just we add in a layer that states that we also need vibrant communities wanting this stuff and taking the initiative on it, or the "massive government controls" you speak of will be deeply unpopular and imposed... for instance, carbon rationing could be seen as a great opportunity for a range of initiatives at the local level, or as an unnecessary, imposed erosion of liberties. As for the rest of the peak oil discussion, I think we have taken this as far as we can. Shakti doesn't agree with peak oil. Fine. Let's move on.
* Steiner. Graham suggested offline that this discussion be undertaken in the spirit of full disclosure. OK. I went to a Steiner school for 2 years, between the ages of 14 and 16. I have to say that for me it was a life-saving experience (my previous school I suffered dreadful bullying, and the Steiner school was the first one where I felt like a person rather than a number). Having said that, after two years there, I couldn't tell you anything more about Steiner or his philosophies than I could have before I went. The irony is that I learnt more about science there than I did in the Church of England School I was at before, and much less religious woo woo (as Graham puts it). In fact we were invited to discuss ideas and debate things such as religion far more than in previous schools where "that is how it is". It was human scale, creative, your input was valued, and it was fun. My previous two schools were fairly brutal experiences, discussion and creativity were discouraged. In later life, looking into Steiner, I think it is pretty clear that the guy was off the wall. There is much that I disagree with about Steiner education, but I don't recognise in the discussions about Steiner education that I see on this forum (and others) the school I went to. In Graham's recent post about Steiner schools, he posted lots of links to websites who didn't like Steiner, many of those I clicked on were opposed to Steiner schools because they are a bit odd, don’t teach good Christian values and so on. Might one dare suggest that in terms of education systems that have caused long lasting damage, institutional abuse, the promotion of non-scientific ideas, the suppression of creativity and original thought, that perhaps Catholic schools have significantly more to answer for than Steiner schools? And, no Shakti, I didn't encounter the term 'head, heart and hands' anywhere while I was at that school! For the full story, I also then went to a 6th form college, and later did a BSc and and MSc. I don't defend Steiner philosophy, and it is not part of Transition, but I also don’t see Steiner schools as malevolent as you do, a bit fluffy perhaps, with a danger of becoming a bit insular and dogmatic, but nothing on the scale of some other, more overtly religious education systems.
* I do take issue with elements of Shakti's approach, as Margarets astutely observed. You scratch about, usually via google, for anything about someone, or an organisation, that you take exception to, and then use that to summarily dismiss everything they have ever done. You find one piece on The Oil Drum that you question, and all of a sudden, the entire site and all of its contributors have "zero credibility". The Oil Drum has been a great source of analysis and insight from a range of writers, many of them academics and oil analysts.
* The Lewes Pound. The quotes you cite are taken out of context. At the start of the project they printed 10,000 Lewes Pounds thinking that was all they would need, but they all sold out in 2 days, much to their surprise. In the week before they could print new ones, they were selling on Ebay for the prices quoted, but that wasn't them selling them, it was private individuals cashing in on foreign currency collectors. Transition Town Lewes, in order to counter that, also sold some on Ebay, as 'Buy Now' for £1. And with any scheme you will always find some people who say its crap, of course, that's just how it is.... . You never know, even on this forum you might find some people who think Transition is crap!
* A key point for me here, and one I have discussed with Graham in the past, is that of tolerance of other peoples' views. Shakti sneers at the idea of a movement that states that "everything must be tolerated", and cites nazi biker gangs as an example (not something we have a great deal of in Devon, although I did see a few Mods out the other week...). I see it that as an organisation, as a movement, we should be promoting good research, critical thinking and so on, but we also can't exclude everyone that doesn't have that. If we are working in inner city areas, and we choose to only engage with people who hold all those 'qualifications', we fail to engage Muslim, Hindu, Rastafarian, Christian, Bahai, Buddhist etc etc members of the community. Transition is about trying to engage communities and going to people where they are. That doesn't mean that we base the Transition initiative on Sharia law, or introduce prayers before the meetings. On a forum like this, it is very easy to dismiss people with 'woo woo' ideas and feel better about yourself because you base all your life choices on good science. The reality is that we live in very diverse communities with all kinds of people from a vast spectrum of cultural, religious and social backgrounds. We need to find a common way of engaging and that won't happen with a starting point of expecting people to denounce their 'woo woo' beliefs first.
* I think the term 'New Age' is applied appallingly lazily in this thread. One might almost suspect that it has come to mean 'anything that makes me feel uncomfortable, or pushes me out of my comfort zone", as I have said before, for some, sitting in a circle is ‘New Age’. What I have been referring to here, and what makes Shakti feel uncomfortable with its ‘touchy feeliness’, was better summed up by Alex Haxeltine and Gill Seyfang in a paper published by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (2009) called ‘Transitions for the People: theory and the practice of ‘Transition’ and ‘Resilience’ in the UK’s Transition Movement’ (Working Paper 134) (http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/twp134.pdf), when they wrote;
“This emphasis on the linking of inner and outer change, is a very particular feature of the Transition movement, and one that has attracted many people who previously experienced a disconnect at the personal or community level. In some ways it represents a linking of the environmental and social justice movements with psychotherapy and personal growth movements – it provides a space for the emergence of a growing, community-embedded recognition of the deep links between problems conventionally seen as personal (anxiety, isolation, depression) and the structures of the modern consumer society”.
* Clearly though, this is an approach that needs to promote critical thinking. The second edition of the Transition Handbook will include a section on critical thinking, as well as one on the need for Transition initiatives to measure what they do. Graham states that Transition is not inherently New Age but open to that influence. Possibly so, hence the inclusion of critical thinking in the new model for how Transition is communicated. I do think it is far less of an issue than Graham points out though, this is Graham’s big personal crusade, and so seems to see evidence of ‘woo woo’ wherever he looks, sometimes justifiably, and sometimes not. For Graham the green movement is inherently riven with nonsense 'New Age' thinking, and Graham does a great job of challenging assumptions and picking up on weak arguments, and I have learnt a great deal from following his blog (as well as disagreeing with a fair bit of it too) but as I say, this is his great crusade, and so he sees it everywhere, whether it is actually there or not....
* Here in Totnes, where I am writing from, we have lots a substantial New Age population, many of whom see Transition Town Totnes as being a sell-out, as we don’t hold talks about 9/11, 7/7, Codex Alimentarius, 2012, the New World Order etc etc, peak oil, after all, being a scam like climate change is, a view promoted by the guy Corboy referred to as an example of how Transition avoids public debate. Often their response to peak oil is to thrust into my hand photocopied articles about some guy in Australia who has created a car that runs on water (can you imagine, in a drought ravaged country like Australia any more socially and ecologically irresponsible invention than a car that runs on water?!). They would find the idea that TTT is 'New Age' hilarious....

So, thanks all, this has been fascinating. I hope I have contributed something of use to this discussion, and that perhaps people will think twice in future before stating, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that Transition is a cult. Whether you believe in peak oil or not, it is clear that with climate change, the bursting of the debt bubble, and all the other indicators that we have been living beyond our means, that we need to reduce consumption and live more within our means. Transition argues that we can see that as being an opportunity to rethink, to do something different, and to see that Transition as the making of us. And it will need to find ways to engage as many people as possible, learning new ways to communicate these ideas to as wide a range of people as possible, it will need to be skillful. We are trying to do that in Transition. We may not get it right, and we don't claim that we do. Transition is an invitation to experiment, to be creative, to take risks. That spirit of adventure and risk-taking will be vital. We are able to be creative in ways that many other organisations aren't, and that is a very fortunate position to be in.

It carries the risk though of being labelled 'gullible', 'naive', 'New Age', 'appalling, dangerous and misguided' (as one US review of Transition Handbook said, and many other derogatory terms besides. Frankly, it doesn't bother me too much. If anyone has a better idea, get to it. It may be that in a year or five, it becomes clear Transition doesn't work, in which case I'm sure it will inform another, better approach. In the paper by Haxeltine and Seyfang I mentioned earlier, they conclude by saying "the movement has been framed in terms of building (or rebuilding) resilience in local communities. So far the movement seems to have successfully used resilience as a motivating framing concept. The lack of specificity used in the framing of resilience has probably contributed to resilience being percieved as an appealing goal by the wide range of citizens who have become involved with the movement". In other words, we haven't quite got it right, our understanding of resilience might not be exactly the same as the academic literature, but hey, something seems to be working. We're not perfect, but we are having a go, and making it up as we go along, learning from the experience of others where we can, and others are no doubt learning from what we do well, and what we do badly.

I wish you all well, and best of luck with your continued conversations.
Rob

A discussion thread on this subject with UK correspondants

Democracy in the Transition movement?

[www.powerswitch.org.uk]

Another top piece of Google research from Corboy there... that thread hasn't been updated since mid 2007....
Rob

Quote
Graham S
Moderator, Margarets is clearly not making a threat, it is ridiculous to suggest she is. Obviously, as she has already explained, she is saying that public figures are subject to close personal scrutiny and that ad hominem attacks are frequently used to discredit the arguments they actually make.
Margaret has made no ad hominems, nor is she threatening to. Shakti's posts are full of personal attacks which he uses to discredit their argument- I'm not sure for example that David Pimentel is a "known racist"... but even if he is, that doesnt in itself discredit the PO theory.

I didn't take Margaret's posts as a threat. However, they were an attempt to undermine me because I am posting anonymously on a message board, as is is my right. It is clear in the terms that Margaret signed when joining onto this board that this wasn't a place to debate the merits of people posting anonymously or not. She violated those terms and Rick pointed it out.

If I choose to become a public figure, I would expect nothing other than scrutiny, attacks, gossip, etc. That is part of being a public figure, whether a politician, an athlete like David Beckham, or an actress like Lindsey Lohan. Folks like Rob and Heinberg, whether they like it or not, are now in the position of being public figures. There are perks to this, like selling books and being invited to speak at international conferences. And there are drawbacks to this: namely, having your views, academic history, professional history scrutinized by total anonymous strangers on the Internet, especially if you are speaking on a topic that is controversial like Peak Oil. It comes with the territory. It is their choice. It is not my personal choice, and that is my right.

As for David Pimentel, while his academic reputation is very strong, he has sat on the board of nativist organizations like the Carrying Capacity Network, which has significant overlap with KKK front group Council of Conservative Citizens. Article also covers Abernathy.

[www.buildingdemocracy.org]

(my acrobat had a tough time with this, so you may want to find yahoo cache version and view it as html)

Like Lamm, Prof. Pimentel lists in his election biography a number of organizational affiliations and service positions, including a national board position with the Audubon Society and the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Like Lamm he also leaves out a point or two of concern, namely that he also sits on the board of directors of the Carrying Capacity Network (CCN)No organization has been more closely linked to the population reduction wing of the anti- immigration movement than CCN, and not-so-ironically CCN also serves as a bridge to the nativist/white nationalist wing of the movement in the person of board president Virginia Abernethy.

While CCN itself is focused on population and immigration, the organization’s self-positioning goes well beyond a concern with the disproportionate consumption of Americans. A recap of its policy positions on the organizational website states: “Most of America’s main problems—from traffic, to classroom crowding, to pollution, depletion, welfare dependency, increasing taxes, and cultural fragmentation, have deep roots in our unsustainable population growth. Because of that, CCN focuses on stabilizing our population. We are even willing to face the awkward demographic fact that immigration is the cause of most of our recent growth (at current rates, immigration will cause about 80% of our growth as we double in an estimated 50 years or so).”

But veiled references to “cultural fragmentation” are a far cry from the ideas expressed by the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), namely that minorities are turning the U.S. population into a “slimy brown mass of glop”—a process likened to “genocide.”

Abernethy is intensely involved with thisorganization. All of the CCC’s core issues are racially charged: official recognition of Confederate battle
flags, preserving monuments to the Confederacy, attacks against non-white immigration and the undermining of affirmative action. As founder Robert Patterson wrote in the group’s flagship publication, the Citizens Informer, “Western civilization with all its might and glory would never have achieved its
greatness without the directing hand of God and the creative genius of the white race.” He continued, “Any effort to destroy the race by a mixture of black blood is an effort to destroy Western civilization itself.”

Abernethy sits on the editorial advisory committee of this publication, contributes articles, and attends conferences.Nor is Abernethy the only extremist on the CCN board, which includes only five others besides candidate Pimentel. Another of Professor Pimentel’s co-directors is Louis T. March. Like Abernethy, March is a supporter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, and sits on the executive committee of its North Carolina chapter.

"Ive been reading the Peak Oil Debunked website- he doesnt seem to have updated it since Nov 2009?!"

-So? He's an unpaid blogger, not the NY Times. Maybe he just got bored of arguing with people. Doesn't affect the fact that he has thoroughly smashed many of the Peakers with their own words and didn't-come-true predictions. I have an abandoned blog that I haven't had time to update in a year. Life happens...

"That could have come straight out of Transition Handbook. Cut back, save energy, remember the spirit of the Blitz. No challenge to Transition there!"

-Transition, at least on the surface, advocates more sane measures than many of the right-wing Peakers they quote and cite. JD has never commented on Transition Towns that I know of, so I don't see him as a "challenge" to them anyway, just the Peakers and Doomers that I think the Transition folks are hurting themselves by citing.

"Ditto. This is all entirely concomitant with Transition theory- business as usual is not an option; we had better get used to thinking about alternative arrangements such as rationing. Now go to your local politician (or anyone not conversant with PO) and ask them what they think about rationing. They just might think you're a doomer..."

-His point is that we are not necessarily "doomed" if oil becomes more rare. I don't see Transition people as being in the doomer camp, just in the peaker camp. I think the TT message is largely hopeful, and I'll give them credit for not trying to sell crap like RTE meals, underground bunkers, etc. Many of the Doomers have been very off in their statements on the percentage of oil that goes for things like food, when someone like JD is merely pointing out that much of the assumed use that will drive us to the peak is wasteful and can be reduced without destroying global civilization.

"So at the very least we need to start thinking hard about these rather difficult issues. I honestly cant see what he thinks he is debunking here."

-He is debunking those who think they know so much that they can predict specific years when oil and gas crises will occur. He has been tracking their predictions over the years and mocking them for their arrogance and doomerism. He is clearly not a "business as usual/bury head in sand" type and neither am I as I've made clear in this thread. He takes the USGS position that a peak is more likely around 2037 than 2015 ( (which was once 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, etc. if we believe the doomers.) , which appears to be a year Hopkins is settling on. JD is mocking doomerism more than he is the notion that oil will run out. Hell, read his disclaimer: "DISCLAIMER FOR IDIOTS: This site officially accepts that oil is finite, and will peak someday."

For example, let's take Matt Simmons 2003 prediction that we would have a natural gas crisis by 2005... which every well-known peaker bit on.

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/search?q=Matt+Simmons

JD: "For those who aren't up on the history: this is a case where the "peak oil community" has egg on its face about an inch thick. In Aug. 2003, Matt Simmons stated that natural gas armageddon for the US was a certainty within 2 years. Now, here we are 4 years later, swimming in veritable seas of the shit. Read the history, folks. The man is a stooge. While we're at it, let's also recall that the entire "peak oil community" bought into the "natural gas crisis" hook line and sinker:Matt Simmons, Dale Allen Pfeiffer, mobjectivist, Julian Darley, Culture Change, dieoff.org, LATOC, Post Carbon Institute, Energy Bulletin, The Oil Drum etc. etc.

And the crisis never came. In fact, the result was exactly the opposite of that predicted. This huge surge in NG supplies is very important, and very good news. As Robert Rapier says: "It also appears that we have enough natural gas available that civilization isn't going to end any time soon due to lack of energy supplies."

-And what happened back in "Reality Land"?

" The amount of natural gas available for production in the United States has soared 58% in the past four years, driven by a drilling boom and the dicovery of huge new gas fields in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, a new study says. The report, due to be released Thursday by the nonprofit Potential Gas Committee, concludes the U.S. has more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas still in the ground, or nearly a century's worth of production at current rates. That's a 35.4% jump over the committee's last estimate, in 2007, of 1,532 trillion cubic feet, the biggest increase in the committee's 44-year history."

"Well it wont be utopia, but as any PO book or website will point out, from the point of view of the modern world, going back to coal is like going back to the Middle Ages."

-That isn't what the much-cited "Hirsch Report" is arguing. I would agree with you, though.

"I do take the point that many in PO- myself included- want to head for the hills and lead an agrarian lifestyle. There are a lot of negatives about this, it's a lifestyle choice more than anything."

-And one that is far more environmentally impacting than living in a city, unless you have no reason to commute, and are able to support oneself on the farm.

"What about the energy content of our food though? How will we feed the cities? I personally lead a pretty low-energy lifestyle by design; I could cut out the van and really powerdown and still be doing well, but how far can people cut back before there is civil strife? Isnt that already happening in parts of the world? Oops, Im slipping into doomer mode, but it's hard not to when you think these things through. We really are dependent on oil in a very unhealthy way."

-Totally agree. I'm all for ending dependence on oil. I have made that clear throughout. Energy content of food- important point, but one that can be mitigated by a redesigned transporation system. Fixing transportation so it is less fossil fuel dependent would mitigate the issues of oil being used for other things in life. As Deffeyes himself put it (he seems like a relatively sane peaker without the usual agenda), "oil is far too valuable to be burning for transport". I would agree with that.

"JD says: "Scratch the surface of the powerdowner philosophy, and you'll find Marxism dressed up in radical environmentalism."

-I would disagree with that statement by JD. I have found very few Marxists pushing Peak Oil or doomerism. But he is entitled to his opinion, most of which I agree with.

"Now that's odd because I can only think of one Marxist I have met in years of PO debates; while your whole thesis is that behind Transition and PO is extreme right-wing fascists with dodgy New Age beliefs and cults. In fact, your previous comment which I quoted about no need for us to be concerned with the "esoteric" timing of PO made me think that you were coming from a Marxist perspective Shakti. Help! Im confused!!"

-Not a Marxist, but probably to the Left of the Transition folks and certainly to the Left of Heinberg, Campbell, ASPO, Simmons, etc.

"I dont buy your idea that the Saudis, Halliburton, the oil companies etc are all in on the PO theory in order to gain support for more drilling."

-Then why was Halliburton giving funds to the ASPO? Matt Simmons is as tied to the oil industry as it gets. As for the Saudis, they talk out both sides of their mouths.

" The oil companies have all been denying oil shortages until very recently when they have started to admit there could be a problem. "

-The oil companies go back and forth on this. If their interest is maintaining the longterm validity of their industry, then there "is no problem". If they have a short-term political agenda of opening reserves, for example, then it's "oh, my god, we're running out!" For example, if the oil companies are saying "there is no problem", then why have they been pushing for the opening of ANWAR and why is there a GOP chant of "Drill, baby, drill!"?

Also, let us look at who sponsors ASPO. Or at least their convention in 2007:

http://www.aspo-usa.com/aspousa3/Sponsors.cfm

"Pubco Corporation,Marvin Gottlieb, John S. Herold, Inc., Groppe, Long & Littell, Chesapeake Energy, The Mitchell Group, Inc.,
Simmons & Company International, Plains Exploration & Production Company, Austin Energy/Plug-in Partners Program,World Oil Magazine,
Oil and Gas Investor, Community Office for Resource Efficiency, Swift Energy Company, Stonegate Production, GSI Oil & Gas, Inc., Titan Oil Recovery,
Apex Resources, Inc., Post-Carbon Institute. "

-Aside from Plug-in Partners, who are selling hybrids, the Community Office for Resource Efficiency, and Heinberg's Post-Carbon Institute, EVERY SINGLE ONE of these "partners" is a company heavily invested in the gas and oil industry, particularly exploration and drilling! Every one.

" if this is all controlled by conspirators, why now is it high? Why was it cheap all through the 80s?"

-It's actually dropped by 100% in the past two years. During the 80s, it was cheap partly due to collusion between the West and the anti-Communist Saudis who wished to keep the price low to damage the Russians, a major producer. Which worked and did incredible damage to their economy. Or at least that is an opinion I've heard expressed that made sense to me. Check out this recent article on OPEC projections for this year. They are currently in a SURPLUS and trying to clear that off, but are worried about the slowdown of world demand.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/587978-opec-again-lifts-2010-oil-demand-growth-forecast

"OPEC raised its estimate for world oil demand growth in 2010 for a third successive month on Tuesday, but its figures showed economic recovery would not be sufficient to wipe out a surplus of supply this year."

"OPEC also said that members' production continued to rise in April, reducing compliance with their individual output targets.Members with output quotas, all except Iraq, met only 51 percent of the targeted 4.2 million bpd cuts in April, down from 52 percent in March, according to Reuters calculations based on the latest OPEC data."

-Note "surplus of supply". Countries are "out of compliance" with cuts. Meaning they are producing too much and not getting back in line with OPEC targets.

"Your views on PO as a New Age theory dont add up to me. Young New Agers are just as likely to reject the idea, preferring to believe in free energy machines suppressed by the CIA and Big Oil."

-It's not a "new age theory", but there are many New Agers on the bandwagon. And, yes, there are others as well who are into "free energy" and such. Not denying that. Your own posts have clearly shown the connection of New Age to Transition, which is closer to the topic at hand. And the presence of New Agers like Heinberg is undeniable.

"But JD at least does not seem to be disputing PO or even claiming the dates are way off- he is just being optimistic about the consequences."

-JD makes it clear that he considers the dates put forward by many of the Peakers as being "way off". He is not disputing the USGS claim of 2037. Campbell, Simmons, Heinberg are like spoiled milk at this point: past their date.

" The wonder is, it is still around $70 in the worst recession in a generation. How come? "

-Partly because OPEC doesn't want it to drop further than that and is pushing members to CUT production to mitigate the drop in world demand. If it drops too far, then interest in investment (ie Peak Oil fears) and more exploration and drilling decreases. If it goes too HIGH, then alternatives to oil become more viable which is also bad for OPEC. It is a delicate balance they have to walk. Read the article on OPEC above, it spells it out in fairly direct terms.

Also, just to correct one typo I made above: Obviously, the cost of oil has dropped 50% or more in the past two years, not "100%". My bad.

" This will likely be my last contribution to this thread, given the amount of time it takes me to do these and the piles of stuff around me that is somewhat more pressing, a conference to organise which takes place in 2 weeks, writing deadline etc. Also we seem to have started going round in circles, so I'd like to just sum up a few things if I may. "

-Fine. Thanks for coming to debate here.

"* Peak Oil. Shakti doesn't agree with peak oil. Fine. Let's move on. "

-I agree, we can move back to the topic at hand, TT's New Age influences.

" I have to say that for me it was a life-saving experience (my previous school I suffered dreadful bullying, and the Steiner school was the first one where I felt like a person rather than a number). Having said that, after two years there, I couldn't tell you anything more about Steiner or his philosophies than I could have before I went. :

-And yet you remembered the "Head Hearts Hands" slogan. Yet you claim " If that is a Steiner term as stated here, I had no idea, it came to mind while I was writing the book and should in no sense be taken as having any reference to Steiner at all". We are supposed to believe that you went to a Waldorf school for two of your formative years, yet "had no idea" it was a Waldorf saying.

" many of those I clicked on were opposed to Steiner schools because they are a bit odd, don’t teach good Christian values and so on. Might one dare suggest that in terms of education systems that have caused long lasting damage, institutional abuse, the promotion of non-scientific ideas, the suppression of creativity and original thought, that perhaps Catholic schools have significantly more to answer for than Steiner schools? "

-Sure, and I would agree with you. However, there are those of who us are not skeptical of Waldorf for being non-Christian, but because Steiner was such a manipulator, racist, and anti-semite. His view of race is very difficult to separate from the core of his teachings, though I know modern-day apologists have tried. No argument there about the problems with Catholicism. I wouldn't be signing up for "Opus Dei Transition Town" either.

" I do take issue with elements of Shakti's approach, as Margarets astutely observed. You scratch about, usually via google, for anything about someone, or an organisation, that you take exception to, and then use that to summarily dismiss everything they have ever done.

-Look, you're a public figure now. Like it or not. Your ideas are out in the public domain. People will judge them, people will judge YOU. Either toughen up, or "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen". I didn't need to do much "scratching". A simple wikipedia read of Heinberg's association with Velikovsky tells you plenty right there. Unlike you, I've been monitoring the Peakers since, oh, around 2002/03 when Mike Ruppert started to bleat about it. And also, like it or not, he is "Mr. Peak Oil". Forget Campbell, Heinberg, ASPO, Simmons, without Ruppert and his exposure to the world via his "911 was an inside job" position, this conversation isn't even taking place.

" You find one piece on The Oil Drum that you question, and all of a sudden, the entire site and all of its contributors have "zero credibility". The Oil Drum has been a great source of analysis and insight from a range of writers, many of them academics and oil analysts. "

-OK, maybe "zero" is a little low. How about "very little credibility"?

Note: not one of the "experts", while many are well-educated, has even a bachelors in petroleum engineering. Also note this guy, Jeff Vail: "As an Air Force intelligence officer I planned over 200 special operations missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. I now draw on that experience to provide agile and strategically innovative litigation solutions to my clients."

[www.theoildrum.com]

Let's face it, they're doomers. Their blogroll links to the usual suspects. Savinar, Matt Simmons, Mobjectivist, etc.

[energyandourfuture.org]


" The Lewes Pound. The quotes you cite are taken out of context. At the start of the project they printed 10,000 Lewes Pounds thinking that was all they would need, but they all sold out in 2 days, much to their surprise. In the week before they could print new ones, they were selling on Ebay for the prices quoted, but that wasn't them selling them, it was private individuals cashing in on foreign currency collectors. Transition Town Lewes, in order to counter that, also sold some on Ebay, as 'Buy Now' for £1. "

-Great, glad you worked it out. If you have any further news stories about the turnaround, please forward them (that is of course, if you are still reading, which apparently you won't be). But, isn't that kind of jumping ahead of yourselves? Is a "local currency" really going to mitigate peak oil"? Somehow I doubt it.

" I see it that as an organisation, as a movement, we should be promoting good research, critical thinking and so on, but we also can't exclude everyone that doesn't have that. "

-Not in terms of organizing the grassroots, no. You aren't going to win anything with just an "army of academics and rationalists". However, when putting out the CORE scientific info you are hoping to base your movement on, it behooves you to find better sources than Heinberg, Hirsh Report, etc. while disregarding the opinions of groups like the USGS.

"If we are working in inner city areas, and we choose to only engage with people who hold all those 'qualifications', we fail to engage Muslim, Hindu, Rastafarian, Christian, Bahai, Buddhist etc etc members of the community. "

-Agreed. However, when dealing with those groups, I don't think "whoosh" circles and other new age rituals will help your cause that much. Just a tip.

"and ‘Resilience’ in the UK’s Transition Movement’ (Working Paper 134) (http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/twp134.pdf), when they wrote;
“This emphasis on the linking of inner and outer change, is a very particular feature of the Transition movement, and one that has attracted many people who previously experienced a disconnect at the personal or community level. In some ways it represents a linking of the environmental and social justice movements with psychotherapy and personal growth movements"

-This is the stuff that is VERY troubling to me and probably others on this board who will eventually find this thread. Personally, I'm not interested in linking my political activism to "psychotherapy". These are separate things. Movements that have tried to merge the "political" with the "psychological" have an incredibly poor track record, often leading directly to cults. Check out Rick's section on the frightening "Social Therapy" groups of Fred Newman, for example. The self-help industry is not conducive to effective political action. In fact, as discussed in Barbara Ehrenreich's latest book, self-help New Age movements are perfectly alligned with the needs of big corporations.

"Don't blame anybody"
"If your boss didn't follow OSHA laws and your leg got crushed, it's not his fault, you created your own reality"
"If people starve in Darfur, it is their fault with their negative thinking, not the warlords and governments who fund them".

I sense that same "don't blame" philosophy within Transition Town. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But it does remind me of an easy listening station around here that had as its slogan "Finally a station even the boss could love" (which a particular boss I had played for people working on an assembly line). Transition Town feels like an environmental movement "Even the boss could love".

" Here in Totnes, where I am writing from, we have lots a substantial New Age population, many of whom see Transition Town Totnes as being a sell-out, as we don’t hold talks about 9/11, 7/7, Codex Alimentarius, 2012, the New World Order etc etc, peak oil, after all, being a scam like climate change is, a view promoted by the guy Corboy referred to as an example of how Transition avoids public debate. Often their response to peak oil is to thrust into my hand photocopied articles about some guy in Australia who has created a car that runs on water (can you imagine, in a drought ravaged country like Australia any more socially and ecologically irresponsible invention than a car that runs on water?!). They would find the idea that TTT is 'New Age' hilarious...."

-Well, there are always degrees to nuttiness! One of the biggest problems in developing a critique of the "early peakers" is that the first people to critique them were the Christian right types who believe that "everything is god's provenance and surely he would never let his people run out of resources, therefore we must breed unto infinity". Hence, abiotic oil.

Quote
RobHopkins
Another top piece of Google research from Corboy there... that thread hasn't been updated since mid 2007....
Rob

And how does that invalidates the discussion on it? I can see why you probably aren't too thrilled with the "Big Whoosh" video still being out there.

(not sure if this will embed correctly, but it's worth a try)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=SXBJGUoNV1o

As for the discussion there, what is being brought up is the notion that contrary to the "Step 11" of "Let it go where it wants to go", Transition now has a governing board (unelected) consisting of yourself and two other folks. Is that something that was true in 2007, but is no longer true?

"For information, I'm on the Initiating Group of Transition Easton in Bristol and was on the Project Team of Transition Bristol until I resigned earlier this year.

I attended part of a national Transition strategy day in Bristol last week. During his introduction to the meeting, Peter Lipman, chair of Transition nationally and on the Steering Group of Transition Bristol, said something along these line (not exact words):

"We're no longer referring to ourselves [the core team centred on Rob Hopkins, Peter Lipman & Ben Brangwyn] as the "national Transition network" because of what that implies. People will form their own networks. We're now calling ourselves the "Transition Initiating Group? (The TIG). We've formed a Board of Trustees. Some of us feel we've got an important role to play and that's non-negotiable.?

Note the use of the term "non-negotiable".

So why do I find this scary? Transition was Rob Hopkins? idea. Surely it would not be fair for the movement to decide to unseat him and other founders if they wanted to. (It was proudly noted at the meeting that Transition is now being referred to as a "movement".)

Among the principles of the 12 steps of the Transition model are that the Initiating Group plans for it's own demise from the outset and 'let it go where it wants to go'.

In this context the fact that the Initiating Group, whether of the national network, a city hub like Bristol or a neighbourhood like Easton, is self-appointed and not especially qualified is a practical and temporary arrangement while an initiative is in its infancy.

How can the "non-negotiable" membership of a permanent TIG sit with this?

(All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.) "



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2010 12:50AM by shakti.