The Oil Drum

"Can we rely on it that a ‘turning around' will be accomplished by enough people quickly enough to save the modern world? This question is often asked, but whatever answer is given to it will mislead. The answer "yes" would lead to complacency; the answer "no" to despair. It is desirable to leave these perplexities behind us and get down to work." E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful

I would rather have titled this essay "Where the Hoe Meets the Soil" but that phrase is not part of our cultural lexicon, which is itself a symptom of the problem I am working to address. Setting aside any prolonged discussion of whether or what about the modern world should be saved, this essay is primarily about what it means to "get down to work" as Schumacher puts it. But very quickly, to me saving the modern world means setting a goal for the human economy to be properly scaled relative to the global ecology, and maintaining a sufficiency of social stability necessary to manage a transition.

(*Note - This is a guest post by Jason Bradford, Phd in Biology and friend of TOD. In this post Jason writes on the important topic of relocalization within the broader context of ecological economics. Not only are these topics he cares about, but he is actively implementing these principles as the founder of Willits Economic Localization (WELL) in Willits, CA - Thanks for living by example Jason).

Here are a few of my predictions: Many trends of the last century or more, made possible by cheap and abundant energy sources, are going to be reversed. These trends include population growth, centralization of political and economic power, vastly increased quantity of global trade, and mass tourism. But what does that mean?