Shaun Chamberlin

was involved with the Transition Towns network from its inception, co-founding Transition Town Kingston and authoring the movement’s second book, The Transition Timeline, back in 2009.

In exploring the cultural narratives charting society’s course, he has since been one of Extinction Rebellion’s first arrestees, chair of the Ecological Land Co-operative, a director of the campaigning organisation Global Justice Now and (for his sins) an advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.

He’s also acted as executive producer on the 2020 film The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?, spoken at venues from Occupy camps to Parliaments, and written and edited diverse publications, including conceiving and creating the popular book Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival, and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy from the work of his late mentor David Fleming.

All of which led us to offer him a role as an EcoGather consulting scholar, developing and leading our powerfully unique Surviving the Future program, which launched in 2020.

Nonetheless, we suspect he’s still happiest when putting the theory into practice — and his feet up — over a Guinness with his best mate Mark Boyle and whoever’s pitched up at their place, as two of the six custodians of legendary free pub ‘The Happy Pig‘!

More on all of the above at his darkoptimism.org