Customer Reviews

this is a succinct exploration of the twin effects of climate change and peak oil and how our future might unfold Review by Maddy Harland, editor Permaculture magazine

Review

Based on the ongoing website futurescenarios.org, this is a succinct exploration of the twin effects of climate change and peak oil and how our future might unfold. Written by the co-originator of the permaculture concept, David Holmgren’s first job is to place energy descent (the inevitable and irreversible decline of fossil fuel reserves) into a historical context.

David’s book is replete with historical, economic, ecological and cultural references, and observations on the role of permaculture in all but the Brown Tech scenario. It is a succinct, pithy and sometimes uncomfortable read. The message is that grassroot activists can steer the future. David urges us to take the ‘mixed pieces of myriad broken traditional cultures of the world and the novel and shining bits of unravelling industrial modernity’ and create a planned energy-descent future. He calls us to be part of nature’s striving for the next evolutionary way and asks us to imagine that both our descendants and our ancestors are watching. So after a powerfully succinct analysis of possible future scenarios, David is indeed encouraging us all to dream and then to commit to concrete projects and actions.
(Posted on 15/07/2010)