Power Play

For someone who believes that world oil supplies are about to begin an inexorable decline, possibly dragging down civil society in the process, Rob Hopkins is a rather cheery fellow. Hopkins, a 40-year-old doctoral student at Plymouth University in the United Kingdom, is the founder of the Transition movement, which encourages people to wean their neighborhoods, communities, and towns off oil and nudge them onto a path of self-sufficiency in an increasingly energy-scarce world.


There are now about eighty official Transition Towns, mainly in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. Here in the United States, there are three, all recent converts to the cause: Boulder, Colorado; Sandpoint, Idaho; and Ketchum, Idaho. Hopkins details the various strategies for starting a Transition Town in The Transition Handbook (Chelsea Green Publishing), which arrives at bookstores this month. His message: The end of oil doesn