As so many are keen to point out we can build a new future. Sustainable buildings (high thermal mass, airtight construction and heat recovery ventilation) We can design communities intelligently and avoid the need to consume as much energy in the first place. Things are looking bad now but 5 - 10 years down the line they could very easily be infinatly worse, thats why its so important to make this a big issue. We need a way to reform our economies that takes into account energy, emissions, health and hapiness. The bigggest health issue in the 'civilised' world is obesity. With a better diet and excercise many health benefits would come. This issues ties up so many others and gives us an oppotunity to work out so many things in hopefully a short space of time. Video conferencing, teleworking and web 2.0 allow ideas to spread so fast to so many people.

Does 'waking up' (to use the matrix analogy) more people actually speed us towards economic problems as they no longer take part in the race? As good as the ELP plan is would it cause problems if implemented by many people on a short time scale. Low skilled local jobs are going to be a big area, I see large groups of volunteers tending to farm land, renivating large housing into multi person housing, teaching and caring for children as jobs and travel are likely to be harder to come by. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we can build strong local economies where everyone plays a part especially the pub land lord :)

Population decline could be managed without a lot of excess deaths, if we lived in a rational world and could employ a little foresight.