What other people think

Professor Peter Guthrie, Head of the Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Cambridge

I have just completed a three day role play with my MPhil students on the proposals for the Northwest Cambridge site. This scheme has the potential for Cambridge to demonstrate how sustainable lifestyles can be stimulated through design of new settlements, and would be an ideal backdrop for a short story. I think the whole idea of a short story competition is excellent. The messages of sustainability are complex and difficult to convey simply; the use of short story telling is an elegant way of making some important points in an accessible way.

Paul Robinson from Waterland Organics
supplier of organic vegetables and plants from his farm in Lode has a host of ideas for how things might be different in 2050

.. For example, tractors could be powered by gas created on farm by gasification units fed by wood grown as rotational coppices around the edges of fields. The trees would also provide wind breaks and extend the growing season. Green manure crops could be grazed by domesticated kangaroos. Pigeons and rabbits could be hunted too. There will be special summer camps for young people come to help with the harvest, with weekend music festivals and other entertainment. We could transport food into the city partly by solar powered boats, and partly on electric vehicles like milk floats. The packaging, made from coppiced willow could be brought back to the farm for re-use...

David Howarth MP

This competition is an excellent way to encourage young people to think about the devastating effects of climate change and how life must change to secure their futures.
There is a great deal of young talent in Cambridge and I am sure this competition will prove a highly successful showcase for some interesting writing.
I wish Transition Cambridge every success with this idea and look forward to hearing about some of the entries.

Ideas from members of Transition Cambridge

If most of the food in the shops was produced locally, sustainably and without cruelty, then I wouldn't have to spend so long shopping trying to decode the labels to work out where things came from and how they were produced.

Hopefully we will have batteries which can store enough energy, so that electric cars will have a better range

Wouldn't it be better if all those containers going along the A14 on lorries went by train instead.

Perhaps if we can't rush around in our cars so much we will feel less pressured to use 110% of the day doing things that don't really matter, and we'll all be less stressed and healthier.