Shaun Chamberlin Author & Editor

Dr. David Fleming (1940 – 2010) was a visionary thinker and writer who played significant roles in the genesis of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement, and the New Economics Foundation, as well as chairing the Soil Association. He was also one of the early whistle-blowers on oil depletion and designer of the influential TEQs carbon/energy rationing system. He read Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford, and later earned an MBA and then an MSc and PhD in economics (in 1988). These enabled him to better engage with and confound the mainstream, in support of his true passion and genius: understanding that diverse and mysterious thing “community.” Lean Logic was the work of over thirty years. Shaun Chamberlin has been involved with the Transition Network since its inception, co-founding Transition Town Kingston and authoring the movement’s second book, The Transition Timeline. He was also one of Extinction Rebellion’s first arrestees, chair of the Ecological Land Co-operative, and has spoken at venues ranging from Occupy camps to national parliaments. In exploring the cultural narratives charting society’s course he has written and edited diverse publications, including bringing his late mentor David Fleming's lifework Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It to posthumous publication, and creating from it the paperback Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival, and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy. He is also a consulting scholar at Sterling College, and lead writer of the film The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation? His website is www.darkoptimism.org. Rob Hopkins is a cofounder 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 2012 he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals. Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought and A Good Read, in the French film phenomenon Demain and its sequel Apres Demain, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events. An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins also holds a doctorate degree from the University of Plymouth and has received two honorary doctorates from the University of the West of England and the University of Namur. He is a keen gardener, a founder of New Lion Brewery in Totnes, and a director of Totnes Community Development Society, the group behind Atmos Totnes, an ambitious, community-led development project. He blogs at transtionnetwork.org and robhopkins.net, and you can find him on Twitter at @robintransition.