Letting the ideas flow in Surry Hills

A really interesting meeting in the heartland of Surry Hills last night. The Digital Eskimo set up in itself is inspiring enough, and hat's off to Dave Gravina who's visionary committment to living local and low carbon is in evidence everywhere at the Digital Eskimo offices. The conversation was equally inspiring. Gareth Johnston, with the Live Local brief has a fascinating transition-cum-relocalisation-cum-everything challenge and we gave that topic a good work-out - (hopefully with some take-away ideas for Gareth!). One pervasive thread of the discussion was that the way through isn't all online and it isn't all neighbourhood face-to-face - it eventually has to be both. (This continues - click read more below)

Tony Fry was visiting Dave and they both generously spent some time with us. Tony is a Professor at the Griffith University (Qld) College of Art and his curriculum is known as the "Design Futures Program" - and its actually what it says - using design philosphies and principles to design "futures" for societies, nations and in fact the planet.  Now, how Transitional is that? - and how Permacultural too in the sense of combining systems thinking and design principles? Tony spoke of various projects he and his students are involved with  - in rural Queensland, in East Timor, and globally. The fascinating theme of his work is the "time-line" question. Tony talks of sea-level rises continuing for 400 years from now; of the need to move entire major cities (most of which, globally, are located near the seaboard) to more habitable locations (as they have had to do over the thousands of years of human settlement during which climate change has been a constant issue), and of the cultural and personal 'shifts' that will be needed as we (or our future generations) deal with these climate realities. The realities of the present were also discussed . It is already happening in Australia's rural communities - a sobering thought.

Through all this discussion we returned frequently to the real differences between living inner-city (where we can walk or cycle pretty well anywhere to whatever we need or want) and living in the sprawling west, north west, south west, north and south corridors of our large urban area. There are very different transport, energy, economic and cultural issues in our very different inner and outer areas. Transition solutions need to be relevant to the realities of the local area wherever they are. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions.