Transition St Albans began in January, and as it’s my home town, I’ve been helping out. I’ve been tracking our progress in a series of articles, which began here and continues here.
We held our first public meeting last week, which went very well. Here’s my flyer.
As you may be aware, bee populations across the world have been in freefall over the last couple of years. The West Coast of the US has lost 70% of its bees, the East Coast 60%. British bees succumbed a little later, and last year 1 in 3 bees vanished.
The disappearances are known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and it is a mysterious phenomenon – bees just disappear, sometimes overnight, leaving the queen bee and the larvae alone. The worker bees are gone, and nobody is sure where they go or why.
It’s 07:49am and I’m standing on an escalator, flanked on both sides by streaming commuters and flashing LCD screens. Easyjet suggest I go skiing. Armani want me to know that their new mobile phone has ‘night effect’, whatever that might be. I deserve more TV channels, and Virgin would love to supply them to me. I am barely an hour into my day, and already I have seen dozens of these visions of commodified happiness. Where, in all this buzz of hype, is the promise of real life?
The consumer dream is, in essence, the promise that happiness will come to us through our consumer choices. I will be a more fulfilled person if I have a larger house, a faster car, and newer clothes. I will feel better about myself, and others will like me more.
Been doing a bit of design work for a change, with this flyer for the Breathe Conference 2009.
Click here for the conference details.
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