Energy transition: the end of an idea

Pretty much the last nail in the coffin for the idea that there’s going to be a smooth transition out of fossil fuels and into renewables that can rescue the existing high-energy global economy in anything like its present form comes courtesy of Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and his 2024 book More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy.

Letter From The Farm | All In A Day’s Tree Planting

We’re back with Martino Newcombe in the West of Ireland, where he reflects on a winter’s day of planting a shelter belt of native tree species. Not on his farm, but on that of his neighbour, a retired farmer, with the help of another neighbour – echoing the traditional Irish practice of helping each other out that is known as “meitheal”.

The West, Rewritten

Imagine a Europe that stops measuring its virtue by comparison and starts measuring it by consequence. That actually asks “Who do we harm? And how do we stop?” That does not seek to escape its past, but commits to repairing its present.

Business in the Age of Overshoot

Perhaps more of us can look for the joyfully modest people in our lives, learning what we can from them instead of from the malignantly selfish, algorithm-drive madness running rampant today. That seems like genuine progress, however slowly it is made.