This week Ed Milliband launched the UK government’s Low Carbon Transition Plan and on balance I think it could have been a lot worse.

At 228 pages it’s a weighty tome but thankfully you don’t have to trawl though it all as Transition’s own Rob Hopkins has done that for you in his excellent summary of the plan.

In it he delivers a balanced view giving credit where it’s due but also criticising the poor bits such as the pretty much business as usual approach to farming and an unwillingness to use the term peak-oil (the ‘P word’ as Rob puts it). Overall he gives it 6/10 which seems fair and also tips his hat to Mr Milliband for what is a relatively forward thinking plan delivered under what are obviously difficult political circumstances.

There are some great comments too such as those from Shane Hughes where he writes:

Now people who have already chosen this ultimately more rewarding, sustainable and resilient lifestyle, often find themselves out of kilter with the rest of society….. and so it could be said that they’re in a phase of commitment and to a certain extent sacrifice, giving up stuff from the old world but not quite receiving the full beauty and rewards inherent within our growing vision and understanding of the new world. Moreover, their/our friends and family, more often than not, think we’re a little mad or masochistic and could never imagine themselves following such a sacrificial path. So for many the reality of this new world life style, seemingly has no place in the current mainstream.

Imagine me nodding my head vigorously about now. He goes on to say:

Now this is where I see that you, I, us, we come in. As individuals we can only change the little we have control over but as part of a community we start to feel empowered create deeper changes in our own life, go that step further and make ever larger commitments. We also start to have aspirations, influence and action that change our communities as a whole so that our communities are more in kilter with our preferred new way of living.  As more and more individual people become more and more communities and those communities become an ever stronger global network that are shifting their lifestyle and influencing their community as a whole and not just their technologies, the government starts to have a mandate to promote different ways of living, not just new green techy ways of doing the same stuff. i.e business as usual just a bit greener.

Great stuff.