like any political group, Transition has diversity of values and beliefs. But Transition is almost entirely ‘green meme’ in Spiral Dynamics language although Spiral Dynamics is worthless in my opinion- even Wilber doesn’t use it any more- but you get what I mean (btw check out Esbjorn-Hargen and Zimmerman’s Integral Ecology if you haven’t yet- the only integral theory worth reading since SES- and Wilber himself is not useful on ecology.)

I agree of course on valuing different perspectives, and speaking to different people, but my point is that in my experience, this is helped not hindered by being frank about our own beliefs. ‘This is my truth, tell me yours’. Being slippery or vague about this is not helpful- and yes, that is what we’re talking about in my opinion.

This notion that Transition is non-partisan, bilateral, and non-political is a misleading idea propogated by Hopkins and others- for understandable reasons. Transition is a radical, bottom-up political program for transforming energy, infrastructure and food production, in oppositional relation to the status quo- with a political strategy of triangulation to make it more likely to succeed. This is entirely understandable and reasonable, but let’s call it what it is. Any openness to other points of view seems strategic- real openness means willingness to change ideas and that does not seem to happen easily with Transition! Both a strength and a weakness of the movement, although I accept of course as Rob says that there is diversity of views within Transition- as there is in any activist group, political party or campaigning organisation.

Anyway, if hat-swapping does prove to be an effective long-term strategy to further Transition’s aims then more power to you, although appropriate behaviour and communication for different audiences is just common sense- as long as the core message is communicated with integrity. Maybe it’s just not for me, but let a thousand flowers bloom.

However, enough of my personal gripes against council stupidity – despite this, I’m still fully committed to doing my environmental bit, (I have my beloved car to atone for) and recently met a woman from an organisation who helps people identify bits of land and come to an agreement with the owner of the unused land to allow the community to cultivate it. I’m dying to get growing on the unused land behind my tenement in Govanhill, but can’t remember the name of the organisation, and I thought you might know? It’s a land swop scheme – the individual or community uses the land, the owner gets part of the produce or similar bartar. And there at least 3 more unused gardens out there, it’s almost enough for a community farm……

Hoping you can help, and many thanks for doing all the work digging up the nonsense that is council policy and PR that keeps lazy folk like me informed!

Rees