fellows

Rob Hopkins

Fellow, Community Preparedness

Communities

Rob Hopkins is the originator of the Transition Town concept, which promotes community-driven responses to peak oil that focus on cooperative effort to meet basic needs as sustainably and close to home as possible. In just a few years, his work has inspired an international movement of hundreds of communities and thousands of people pursuing Transition initiatives. A teacher of permaculture and natural building techniques, Rob is co-founder of the Transition Network and author of The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience (2008). Rob is a Trustee of the Soil Association (U.K.), the winner of the 2008 Schumacher Award, and a Fellow of Ashoka International.

videos

Climate Change, Peak Oil & Transition Towns

length: 26:53   credit: Transition Culture

Rob Hopkins talks about Climate Change, Peak Oil and Transition Towns movement in a video presentation that was prepared for the climate seminar, which was organised by the British Council Finland and Dodo in Helsinki May 2010. Excellent introduction to the Transition concept with examples of practical projects.

audio

A World of Transition

length: 58:00   credit: Zoom'd Leadershipdownload

Rob Hopkins, founder of Transition Towns and the Transition Network and a fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, joins ZOOM’D to explore the Transition Movement, a social experiment on a massive scale devoted to the twin challenges and opportunities of peak oil and climate change. Peaking of world oil production presents an unprecedented risk-management problem—and without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be exorbitant. Rob describes the ins and outs of the global grassroots organizing effort taking place, recognizing that if we wait for government to act, it will be too little, too late; if we act as individuals alone, it will be too little; but if we act in communities, it might be just enough, just in time. Join Rob and ZOOM’D host John Schmidt as they describe practicalities of the situation, opportunities involved, and the resilience needed to realize a desirable and sustainable future.

Latest Publications

Some Reflections on ‘The Big Society’….

Rob Hopkins    Jul 06, 2010   

A few people have asked me what my thoughts are on the whole ‘Big Society’ concept being promoted by the new British government. I have attended a couple of events over the last week that have given me space to … >>

Resilience Thinking

Rob Hopkins    Oct 29, 2009   

[Excerpt] Resilience; “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks” ...The term … >>

The Transition Handbook

Rob Hopkins

We live in an oil-dependent world, arriving at this level of dependency in a very short space of time by treating petroleum as if it were in infinite supply. Most of us avoid thinking about what happens when oil runs out (or … >>

press coverage

Hopkins and McKibben in Miller McCune on Transition

Rob Hopkins  

Post Carbon Fellows Rob Hopkins and Bill McKibben are both quoted in this feature on the Transition movement in Miller McCune. From the article: The movement is driven by one simple idea: Rather than hand-wringing and … >>