Shaun Chamberlin

Shaun Chamberlin is an author and activist, based in London, England. He is the author of The Transition Timeline, co-author of several other books including What We Are Fighting For, chair of the Ecological Land Co-operative, and was one of the earliest Extinction Rebellion arrestees.[1][2][3][4]

Shaun Chamberlin
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of York and Schumacher College

He is also known for his collaboration with the late David Fleming, having brought his award-winning lifework Lean Logic to posthumous publication, drawn from it the paperback Surviving the Future, and served as executive producer on Peter William Armstrong's 2019 feature film about Fleming's legacy - The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?[5][6][7]

Biography

Chamberlin studied at Schumacher College in 2006, where his teachers included Rob Hopkins and David Fleming. Hopkins met his future co-founders of the now-global Transition Towns network during the course, and Chamberlin remained a key figure, co-founding Transition Town Kingston before authoring the movement's second book, The Transition Timeline.[8][9][10][11]

He also retained close links with Fleming, and they together advised the UK government's feasibility study into his influential TEQs system for fuel/electricity rationing in the face of climate change.[12][13][14] Shortly after Fleming's death in 2010, an All Party Parliamentary report advocating TEQs, authored by Fleming and Chamberlin and endorsed by twenty MPs, met with a controversial reception both in the UK and internationally.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21] During this period Chamberlin also spent eighteen months as a director of the campaigning organisation Global Justice Now.[22][23]

In 2012 he collaborated with David Graeber, John Holloway, Ann Pettifor and others on What We Are Fighting For: A Radical Collective Manifesto,[24][25] and was also the editor of Mark Boyle's The Moneyless Manifesto. He and Boyle then collaborated towards the realisation of a moneyless community, in partnership with the Ecological Land Co-operative, of which he became chair in 2015.[26][27][28][29]

In 2016, he took a manuscript left by his late mentor David Fleming and edited it for posthumous publication as Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It.[30][31][32][33] This uniquely structured hardback was published alongside the paperback Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy, conceived and created by Chamberlin after Fleming's death, and consisting of content from Lean Logic which he selected and edited into a conventional read-it-front-to-back narrative.[34][35][36]

The twinned books were critically acclaimed, won several awards including first place in the 2017 New York Book Show, and were named in multiple Book of the Year lists.[37][38][39][40][41][42][43] They also gave rise to both Peter William Armstrong's 2019 film The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation? and Sterling College (Vermont)'s $1.5m EcoGather program, including the online course Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time, led by Chamberlin since 2020.[44][45]

Views and Ideas

Chamberlin argues that the key challenge of modernity is responding to what he describes as the dilemma of economic growth - "either we cease growing, and so collapse the economy on which we all depend, or continue to grow until we overwhelm and destroy the ecosystems on which we all depend". He contends that unless we address this, the economy will inevitably continue its ecological destructiveness, but also highlights that such behaviour is demonstrably not merely human nature, since many cultures - especially indigenous cultures - have a long track record of acting otherwise.[46][47]

Accordingly, his writing, political advocacy and participation with activist projects like the Ecological Land Co-operative, Occupy and Extinction Rebellion emphasise the possibilities for living in fulfilling ways that do not support our collective drive towards life on a devastated planet. Drawing on David Fleming's work, he argues that a post-growth rediscovery of culture and community is inevitable, but sees this as only likely after civilisational collapse. He was an early exponent of this 'post-doom' perspective, working alongside groups like the Dark Mountain Project.[48][49][50][51]

He also frequently addresses psychological and spiritual topics such as grief and despair in the face of our collective predicament.[52] He is noted for coining the widely-adopted term 'Dark Optimism', which The Guardian's Anne Karpf has characterised as "facing dark truths while believing unwaveringly in human potential", and which inspired EXPO 1: Dark Optimism at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 2013, featuring artists including Ansel Adams, Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes, Olafur Eliasson and Adrián Villar Rojas.[53][54][55][56][57][58]

Books

Author:

Co-author:

Editor:

Audiobook narrator:

Films

Executive producer:

References
  1. Google Scholar profile for Shaun Chamberlin
  2. Why I’m Rebelling against Extinction (wait, should that really need explaining..?), Dark Optimism, 18 November 2018
  3. "Getting a Grip", Paul Allen, Resurgence, Sept/Oct 2009
  4. Sterling College profile for Shaun Chamberlin
  5. "Lean Logic and Surviving the Future", Mud City Press, 26 December 2016
  6. "A Clash of Paradigms", Eric Utne, The Utne Reader, 6 September 2017
  7. Fleming Policy Centre announcement of film project, 1 August 2017
  8. "The Transition Timeline: for a local, resilient future", Patrick Whitefield, Permaculture, 15 May 2009
  9. Chamberlin's Transition Timeline critiqued in Derrick Jensen's book Deep Green Resistance
  10. Chamberlin's Transition Timeline approvingly cited in Harry F. Dahms' book Nature, Knowledge and Negation
  11. Kingston Green Guardian Awards: Report on awards from the local newspaper and council for both Chamberlin and his 'Transition Town Kingston', 2010
  12. Chamberlin shortlisted for the Sheila McKechnie Foundation Environmental Campaigner Award for his work on TEQs, Sheila McKechnie Foundation, 2008
  13. "Reconciling scientific reality with realpolitik", peer-reviewed paper in Carbon Management academic journal, 16 April 2015. Includes history, coverage and impact of the TEQs system
  14. Transition Free Press, feature interview with Chamberlin, Autumn 2012
  15. Caroline Lucas MP speaks in response to Chamberlin at the report's launch, Houses of Parliament, 18 January 2011
  16. "Fuel Rationing in U.K. Needed by 2020 to Cut CO2 Emissions, Lawmakers Say", Alex Morales, Bloomberg News, 18 January 2011
  17. "Driver Fury at Petrol Ration Plan", Natalie Chalk, Daily Express, 24 January 2011
  18. "Prepare for the return of rationing", Danny Fortson, The Times, 23 January 2011
  19. "Brits Ponder Fuel Rationing", Eben Harrell, TIME magazine, 18 January 2011
  20. "British lawmakers propose energy rationing", Financial Times, 18 January 2011
  21. Chamberlin interview on report launch, BBC Radio 5 Live, "Wake Up to Money", 18 January 2011
  22. "Obituary for David Fleming", Shaun Chamberlin, The Ecologist, 21 December 2010
  23. "Living Without Oil" course, The Open University, contributor profile: Shaun Chamberlin
  24. What We Are Fighting For shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing
  25. Dark Optimism: Shaun Chamberlin profile
  26. "Greenham Reach: The families trying to prove that compact, ecological farms can make a living", Jamie Merrill, The Independent, 23 May 2015
  27. "Planning victory for smallholders", Michael Wale, Smallholder, 23 May 2015
  28. "The Law of the Land", Shaun Chamberlin, STIR, Spring 2015
  29. Extract from Mark Boyle's The Moneyless Manifesto, discussing relationship with Chamberlin
  30. "Editor's Picks for February", Choice, James Millhorn, 16 February 2017
  31. "The late Dr. David Fleming - Community, Place and Play", 13 October 2016
  32. Chamberlin's preface to Lean Logic
  33. Chamberlin and Sir Jonathon Porritt discuss economic collapse at a launch event for Lean Logic
  34. Chamberlin interview: Surviving the Aftermath of the Market Economy, Peak Prosperity, 8 January 2017
  35. "For Hallowe’en this year, I’m dressing as the economy", Shaun Chamberlin, openDemocracy, 26 October 2016
  36. Symposium held by Sterling College, Vermont, exploring the impact and implications of the book, 1 December 2017
  37. "Lean Logic and Surviving the Future", Mark Garavan, Feasta, 14 January 2017
  38. "Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It", The Royal Geographical Society, 5 December 2016
  39. "Surviving the Future", Bollier.org, 13 June 2017
  40. Books of the Year 2016, Times Higher Education, 22 December 2016
  41. Fleming Policy Centre, collection of medals/awards won by Lean Logic and Surviving the Future
  42. "Environmentalism used to be about defending the wild – not any more", Mark Boyle, The Guardian, 22 May 2017
  43. The six best sustainability books of 2016, Greenbiz, 31 December 2016
  44. Sterling College Receives $1.5 Million Grant to Launch EcoGather
  45. "Sterling College shares big ideas around the world", The Times Argus, Sarah Galbraith, 23 May 2020
  46. "The Sequel: Life After Economic Growth", Tikkun, 15 November 2018
  47. "Humanity – not just a virus with shoes", Dark Optimism, 6 August 2019
  48. "Heroes and villains in Copenhagen, and beyond", Dark Optimism, 5 January 2010
  49. "The secret truth behind environmentalists’ favourite argument", Dark Optimism, 20 January 2013
  50. "OccupyTransition, or ‘this Halloween I dressed as the economy’", Dark Optimism, 5 November 2011
  51. "A Post-Doom Conversation, with Michael Dowd", opening interview for PostDoom.com, 22 August 2019
  52. "Shaun Chamberlin on ‘Dark Optimism’ and the power of grief", Interview for the Kosmos Journal, October 2014
  53. Dark Optimism discussed in Engaging with Climate Change: Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Sally Weintrobe ed., 2012
  54. "Climate Change: You Can't Ignore It", Anne Karpf, The Guardian, 30 November 2012
  55. "Harnessing our Dark Optimism", Anna Fahey, Sightline Institute, 7 May 2013
  56. Museum of Modern Art press release for EXPO 1, 8 March 2013
  57. "Post Human", Benoit Lamy de la Chapelle, O2, Issue 75
  58. "The Natural World: Here, It’s Had Work", The New York Times, Ken Johnson, 30 May 2013
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