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Surviving a reduction in social complexity
Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
The literature on societal collapse has expanded in timely fashion in the past couple of years, with the publication of Jared Diamond’s best-selling Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed; Thomas Homer-Dixon’s widely praised The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization; John Michael Greer’s illuminating The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age; and Dmitri Orlov’s hugely entertaining Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects.
All of these stand on the shoulders of Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies, published back in 1988 and still the standard work on the subject.
Tainter describes the development of societal complexity as a strategy for solving problems (too many people, not enough food, warlike neighbors, changing climate, and so on). But investments in complexity yield diminishing returns, so eventually the strategy always fails and the society must simplify again. This simplification typically manifests as political and economic crisis, abandonment of urban centers, declining population, or war.
Complexity costs energy, and so complexity emerges only in societies that have energy to spare: at a minimum, agricultural surpluses, but better yet forests to cut or fossil fuels to mine or pump. One of the reasons that returns on complexity begin to decline is that growth in exploitation of energy sources cannot be sustained: soils erode, forests disappear, or—could it really happen?—fossil fuels deplete.
(17 December 2008)
Change, but at what price?
John Vidal, Guardian
After 2008 started with panic over food prices, the world seemed to be waking up to global warming. But then the recession hit
The big, still unanswered question of 2008 was how far the financial, food and ecological crises were linked. The best evidence may come from a 1972 study. A group of economists and ecologists were commissioned to predict the consequences of a rapidly growing world population, rapid industrialisation in developing countries, and growing pollution. Their famous book, Limits to Growth, predicted widespread and growing hunger, oil shortages, and ecological and economic collapse by the mid-21st century if countries did not rethink economic growth.
… Whether the world weans itself off oil and fossil fuels will probably determine global sustainability over the next 20 years. Low oil prices traditionally push energy efficiency off the policy agenda. Economic recessions have punctured green economic bubbles in the past. When times are tight, the wisdom goes, no one invests in new or risky technologies, and countries stick to cheap and dirty energy.
… A more optimistic group of people say the recession may not only check unsustainable growth but also provide breathing space for the world to move to more sensible policies. Governments, said leading greens, have a historic opportunity to “climate proof” their economies in response to economic troubles. Obama and Gordon Brown both said that millions of jobs could be created in green building, wind power, solar thermal and other green technologies.
… The consensus is that 2008 was volatile and dangerously unpredictable. But if governments don’t change, it may come to be seen as a calm before the storm.
(17 December 2008)
David Holmgren on Permaculture, Business, Resilience and Transition
Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture
A while ago now I had a conversation with David Holmgren about how his 12 principles of permaculture might apply to business. It was just an initial exploration, but there was a great deal of useful stuff in it, and prompted by an article by Stefan Geyer in the latest Permaculture Activist magazine (wonderful as ever), who made reference to it, I thought it was time to put it out there for discussion. I hope you find it useful. The images are from the Permaculture Principles site, the best place to find out more about these principles. They have also produced a great diary and calendar which I’ll review tomorrow…
I have presented it in the following format; each principles opens with the title, Holmgren’s graphic and the ‘in a nutshell’ saying for each one, then in bold is the succinct summary of the principle from “The Transition Handbook”, and then my notes from my conversation with David.
General thoughts: in many ways business is already ahead of the rest of us in terms of some of the thinking approaches that are required for energy descent. They are used to thinking ‘lean’ and getting the most out of things. The shift will be from merely prioritising output to thinking more widely. These principles offer a good lens through which to look at how to build resilience for business.
(18 December 2008)
