The Transition Timeline: For a Local, Resilient Future [Paperback]

Shaun Chamberlin (Author), Rob Hopkins (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2009

The Transition Timeline lightens the fear of our uncertain future, providing a map of

what we are facing and the different pathways available to us. It describes four possible scenarios for the UK and world over the next twenty years, ranging from Denial, in which we reap the consequences of failing to acknowledge and respond to our environmental challenges, to the Transition Vision, in which we shift our cultural assumptions to fit our circumstances and move into a more fulfilling, lower energy world.

The practical, realistic details of this Transition Vision are examined in depth, covering key areas such as food, energy, demographics, transport and healthcare, and they provide a sense of context for communities working towards a thriving future. The book also provides a detailed and accessible update on climate change and peak oil and the interactions between them, including their impacts in the UK, present and future.

Use it. Choose your path, and then make that future real with your actions, individually and with your community. As Rob Hopkins outlines in his foreword, there is a rapidly spreading movement addressing these challenges, and it needs you.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this refreshingly real and hopeful book, Shaun Chamberlin lays out the many aspects of the limits to our growth, and highlights the fact that cultural change is likely our only successful path forward. We undoubtedly face serious biological and biophysical constraints that our forebears did not. The Transition Timeline gives us a guide on how to best use science and culture in adapting to our new situation."--Nate Hagens, Editor of The Oil Drum



"Without a vision of what can be, there is no alternative to a future completely constrained by the past. The ideal future set forth herein is not a useless pipe-dream. There is not a single outcome described in The Transition Timeline that could not realistically be achieved IF we all do things beginning now that are entirely within our ability to do.

So here it is: the map and timeline of how to save our world and ourselves. Whether we WILL take up these suggestions as scheduled is a question for the cynics and dreamers to debate. For us realists, the only relevant questions are, Where do we start?, and, Will you join us?"--Richard Heinberg, Senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, and author of eight books, including The Party's Over and Peak Everything



While definitely focused on empowering the community rather than the policy makers, this book is much more than a folksy agenda for comfort in the crisis. It is a serious plan to reconstruct society in the light of ecological and energetic realities, informed by the best evidence about the vortex of forces influencing the global crisis. Chamberlin runs along a knife edge between the harsh realities facing the whole of humanity on the one hand, and hope and pragmatic vision on the other, outlining a pragmatic plan for a society-wide adaptation to the energy descent future. Let's see if we can run along that knife edge; we have nothing to lose."--David Holmgren, co-originator of the Permaculture concept, and author of Future Scenarios



"The Transition Timeline isn't another climate jeremiad, but a map of the course we'll need to take over the coming decade if we are to save our planet, and ourselves. It is a book of hopeful realism, making clear that the future we want remains in our grasp -- but only for a short while longer."--Jamais Cascio, Co-founder of WorldChanging.com and founder of OpenTheFuture.com



"Highly readable and well researched - this book is a hugely valuable contribution to Transition thinking. With grace and wit Shaun Chamberlin ably scopes out the combined dangers of peak oil and climate change and shows us what we can do to avoid their worst impacts. Read it and implement its wisdom if you want to help create a liveable future."--Dr. Stephan Harding, co-ordinator of the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College, and author of Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia



"Shaun Chamberlin ties down the uncertainties about climate, energy, food, water and population, the big scene setters of our future, with no-nonsense authority. What we get with The Transition Timeline is a map of the landscape we have to find a way through. Don't set out without it. You will have a good idea of where you are, and inspiration about where you are going. It is almost as good as getting there."--David Fleming, director of The Lean Economy Connection, and author of Energy and the Common Purpose

About the Author

Shaun Chamberlin is the founder of http://www.darkoptimism.org and has been involved with the Transition Network since its inception. He is also the TEQs Development Director at The Lean Economy Connection and a member of

the Department of Energy and Climate Change's Personal Carbon Allowances Advisory Group, as well as a core member of Transition Town Kingston,UK.

Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition Network. Having successfully created an Energy Descent Plan for Kinsale in Ireland, which was later adopted as policy by the town council, Rob moved to Totnes in Devon and initiated Transition Town Totnes, the first UK town to address the issues of life after peak oil. http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603582002
• ISBN-13: 978-1603582001
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 8.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #451,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Everything but the timeline, May 5, 2009

By 

Cecil Bothwell "Author of "Whale Falls: A... (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Transition Timeline: For a Local, Resilient Future (Paperback)

I had extremely high hopes when I ordered this book and I was quite disappointed. I expected something in the way of suggestions for a community blueprint, even a rough draft, of how my city and county could organize to face post-peak oil and climate change. Something like: Do "A" first because that's the most important, while you plan "B" and scout "C." Instead, I was told that nearly everything will have to change, yesterday, and that I should get my community together to figure it out for ourselves. (There are some suggestions for games and role playing and visioning exercises for one's group to use in the process, which is something, I suppose.)

While author Shawn Chamberlin talks about timelines and projections of declining fuel availability, predictions of temperature rise, the dire consequences of failure to change ... and more -- with excellent graphs and lots of pertinent quotes -- what he does not provide is a transition timeline for a local, resilient future.

That said, if you haven't been paying attention to the issues of global climate change and diminished availability of liquid fuels [where HAVE you been?] you can learn a lot from this volume. Some of Chamberlin's examples are extremely apt: for instance, if you want to get a sense of how much energy you are harnessing when you drive your car ... get out and push it. Technological humans utilize the equivalent of thousands of energy slaves each year and the future world is going to have to run without them.

Chamberlin cites research which indicates that bio-fuels cannot possibly fill the gap (and are already affecting food prices); that solar and wind cannot come online fast enough to pick up the slack; that (fortunately) tapping marginal dirty sources like tar sands are so energy- and water-intensive that they will not be used in vast quantities (and cannot, in any case, be ramped up fast enough to replace sweet crude); that we are, in short, in a hell of a pickle.

Then to cheer us up a bit he notes that the IPCC estimates on warming are extremely conservative and have already been proved wrong as the planet heats up and the arctic melts faster than predicted. To top that off, the IPCC only looks at warming through 2100 and even if we hit their best case goals, the folks in the next century will be in extremely dire trouble. Moreover, even the politicians that "get it" aren't doing much and surely not enough. But, three generations' delay is better than none, and I couldn't agree more with his concluding note: In a situation this perilous I have no choice but to give it my all. Doing less than my best for this planet and its life forms is simply not an ethical option.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Back-casting, May 25, 2009

By 

M. D. Sandeen "mdsandeen" (Lexington, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Transition Timeline: For a Local, Resilient Future (Paperback)

Transition Timelines uses a tool called `back-casting' - telling a story from the perspective of the future.

The book begins with four different versions of the future, depending on how we choose to handle climate change and peak oil. Denial is the first response, investing everything in a technological revolution is another. A third option is to try to deal with peak oil and climate change within existing political and economic frameworks, and then there's the Transition. Each of these scenarios is explained, and then told in retrospect from 2027.

Needless to say, the only option that has a positive outcome is the Transition scenario, which the book then goes on to explore in more detail. A series of chapters addresses energy, transport, health, population, and food, each one ending with another view from 2027 to say how sustainability was achieved. Among the timelines are global agreements, laws passed, local initiatives and cultural shifts, and a way forward is therefore imagined and suggested.
[...]

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Any seeking to change the world and others will relish this approach, November 16, 2009

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Transition Timeline: For a Local, Resilient Future (Paperback)

The Transition Timeline for a Local, Resilient Future offers four possible scenarios for the UK and world over the next twenty years, from that of failing to respond to environmental challenges and putting the blinders on, to shifting cultural assumptions to fit our circumstances and moving to lower-energy requirements. Any seeking to change the world and others will relish this approach.