Chris Rhodes @ Swindon LitFest 15 May 2013
Channel: SimonDotException
Date: 2013-05-19

Chris Rhodes, a former professor of chemistry, now an independent consultant and chair of Transition Reading, was the speaker at SCAN's event at this year's Swindon Festival of Literature. The slides of Prof Rhodes' presentation can be viewed at http://www.swindonclimate.org.uk/files/20130515Rhodes/Universities%20in%20a%20Changing%20Climate%20From%20Shambles%20to%20Resilience.ppt

World wide resources are being used up: oil, gas, coal, metals, phosphorus, and freshwater. Moreover, humanity is performing the greatest geo-engineering experiment in history, by urging climate change through inexorable emissions of carbon, while rapidly destroying the soil on which we rely to produce almost all our food.

Prof Rhodes offers "growing our way to hope", where growth is possible, not globally, but locally. Through methods of permaculture, we can provide much of our own food and materials on the local scale, and with greatly reduced inputs of fertilizers and freshwater, while rebuilding the soil from carbon in the atmosphere.

Key to this adaptation is "Transition Education" -- at the levels of schools, colleges and universities. Rather than 50% of our young becoming "graduates", the reality is that we need more electricians, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, farmers, gardeners and bricklayers.