Rob Hopkins Of Transition Network And Transition Town Totnes: Practicing eco-visualizations to go "From what is to what if" (podcast interview)
Rob Hopkins (@robintransition) is a co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network and the author of From What Is to What If?, The Power of Just Doing Stuff, The Transition Handbook, and The Transition Companion.
In this podcast episode, Rob sheds light on how we can intentionally exercise our imaginations and create visions for what we wish for the near and distant future; what transition towns are and how they've been working towards decarbonization in each of their own culturally and bioregionally appropriate ways; and more.`
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Rob and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Yarrow by Kim Anderson
“When you have an economy that’s focused on pleasure, which is short-lived, you get more addiction and depression emerging as a result.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological regeneration, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app, and support Green Dreamer on Patreon so we can keep the show going and accessible to all!
On why corporatists may be opposed to community resilience:
"If communities have too much power, from their perspectives, they'd say, 'I think we have enough Starbucks now. And if you're going to build houses in our town, they need to be affordable and they need to be logical homes. And actually, we don't want this, we want that.'
Growth-based capitalism doesn't really like communities, towns, and cities that have too much self-control or self-determination. That's something profoundly undesirable, I suspect."
On creating a compelling narrative to fuel positive change:
"You have to have, at the heart of a movement that's going to achieve its aims, a powerful, compelling narrative.
Central to the work that I do—whether it's writing, filmmaking, or giving talks—is attempting to cultivate longing in people, through visualization practices, for the kind of world they wish to realize for the future.
I've never done that exercise and have people end up saying, 'I dreamt that there was a much bigger shopping mall where I live, and I had this great car and a really amazing phone.' That doesn't happen.
We have an economy that's all about immediate short-term pleasure. Things like chocolate cake spark quick bursts of dopamine—you can sell that to people. You can sell pleasure to people.
When you have an economy that's focused on pleasure—which is short-lived—you get more addiction and depression emerging as a result. What this visualization exercise does is it vaults over the top of that and gets you into contentment. People think: ‘What would make me happy? How would I be content? What's a future in which I would be content?’"
Final words of wisdom:
"Do stuff! Don't be an observer; don't be a passenger. This is not a time to just sit back and hope that people in control know what they're doing, because at this stage, we absolutely and comprehensively know that they have no idea what they're doing.
Believe in yourself. Believe in what you're coming up with. And believe that this is an extraordinary time in history and that anything is possible."
