Transition Timeline interview

by Shaun Chamberlin | Jun 30, 2009 | All Posts, Articles

Originally published in the Summer 2009 issue of Clean Slate - The Practical Journal of Sustainable Living

A PDF of the full illustrated article can be found here

Blanche Cameron: What caused this book, The Transition Timeline, to come about?

Shaun Chamberlin: Primarily that Transition communities were asking for support. They were trying to form positive visions of the future for their communities, but were finding it a little foggy looking twenty years ahead, particularly with regard to the bigger trends and policy decisions around climate change, peak oil, food supply and the like. There was also a need to really make Transition's vision of a resilient, satisfying future as tangible and fleshed out as possible.

BC: You talk in the book about four stories of the future: Denial, Hitting the Wall, The Impossible Dream and The Transition Vision. Where do we find those narratives in the UK at the moment?

SC: A good example of 'Denial' would be most government planning documents. Apocalyptic 'Hitting the Wall' scenarios are seen in many films, such as the recent Age of Stupid, 'The Impossible Dream' might be Star Trek, with its unlimited technological fixes, and the Transition Vision...well, the closest existing analogy Rob Hopkins could come up with was Wallace and Gromit!

What we need is for this positive, realistic vision to find a central place in the popular mindset, to really get people out of bed in the morning. The Age of Stupid has done a great job of showing how bad things could become, but we also need to set out the desirable, practical alternatives. We want to see these ideas spreading into films, soap operas and throughout popular culture.