A few of us from Transition Tooting made it up to the New Economics Foundation’s Bigger Picture festival of interdependence on Saturday (although overwhelming numbers did leave others standing in a lengthy queue or giving up all together).  Highlights for me were: hearing Jeremey Leggett and Juliet Davenport giving both the harsh reality and the currently untapped potential for us to survive life after oil, visiting the Ministry of Trying to Do Something about it and receiving my carbon ration book, and of course hearing our own Lucy Neal on a panel investigation of whether Art can save the Earth.  In support of the key role art can play Lucy quoted Brian Eno … “Humans are capable of a unique trick, creating realities by first imagining them, by experiencing them in their minds. As soon as we sense the possibility of a more desirable world, we begin behaving differently, as though that world is starting to come into existence, as though, in our mind’s eye, we are already there. The dream becomes an invisible force which pulls us forward. By this process it begins to come true. The act of imagining somehow makes it real….And what is possible in art becomes thinkable in life.”
Time to get imaginging some new realities..

Talking of which – I’m already half way through NEF’s new publication, The Great Transition – Tales of How it Turned Out Right – described as the first comprehensive blueprint for an economy based on stability, prosperity, fairness, sustainability and well-being.  Some of the ideas – like valuing products on the basis of the environment are already being tackled in other countries such as Sweden.  Interesting how ‘Transition’ seems to be the go-to word these days to describe the changes we are going through.

Meanwhile on the Peak Oil front a great (though depressing) summary of where we are by Ashley Seager here in the Guardian on Monday.