Great storytelling, permaculture wisdom, and social marketing! This bright Brit has found a way for people worried about environmental apocalypse to invest their efforts in ongoing collective action that ends up looking like a party.

We live in an oil-dependent world, having arrived 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 becomes prohibitively expensive), but The Transition Handbook shows how the inevitable changes ahead can lead to the rebirth of local communities that will grow more of their own food, generate their own power, and build their own houses using local materials. They can also encourage the development of local currencies to keep money “local.”

There are now many “transition towns” around the world. They provide valuable experience and lessons-learned. Communities are taking matters into their own hands and acting locally. Within peak oil and climate change is the potential for the greatest economic, social, and cultural renaissance we have ever seen. And as this book shows, the “how-to” can be fun.

If your town is not yet a Transition Town, this upbeat guide offers you the tools for starting the process.

“Rob Hopkins is the Gentle Giant of the green movement, and his timely and hugely important book reveals a fresh and empowering approach that will help us transition into a materially leaner but inwardly richer human experience. Full of reliable, readable, far-reaching scholarship, and warmhearted practical advice on how to instigate transition culture wherever you are, this book will energize and regenerate your commitment to place, community and simple living.” —Stephan Harding, author of Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia

Also by Rob Hopkins are The Power of Just Doing Stuff and The Transition Companion: Making Your Community More Resilient in Uncertain Times

For more info on “exploring the head, heart, and hands of energy descent,” visit www.transitionculture.org.