What of the four scenarios do you think is most likely? Planning for the future is radically different depending on which one comes to pass. For example, if agriculture is possible, then buying land now is a good idea. If it's not possible, then learning urban survival seems like a better idea. Trying to protect my family.

Thanks!

I would like to open up a discussion of the opportunities opened up by the transition to a post-Peak Oil economy.

I would also like to invite people to join our Writers' Circles to Promote Sustainable Development.

Call it "Green Energy" or "Sustainable Development" (SD), whatever.. I also include energy efficiency, resource use efficiency, good "life cycle design" of products, recycling, re-use as well as ecologically viable "life-style changes" in my definition of SD.

I would like to propose the following challenge to members:

We are obviously at a critical point of transition from one form of society to another: a time of troubles, a time of opportunity.

It is up to US - as citizens of our communities, our nations and of the earth - to inflect this transition in a positive direction. Given the alternatives, not to at least TRY is moral dereliction...

I suggest setting up small - community or web based - writers' circles to promote SD. Each group would research and promote SD in its locality using all media outlets possible: letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, community / club / professional association / church newsletters, community or student radio, etc.

Groups should be flexible, dealing with local issues or, alternatively, focusing on a type of green energy (biomass, wind power, etc..). Local circles could assist each other through the internet.

Lets Be Creative!

If interested contact:

hombredelatierra4@gmail.com

David: Thanks for your response to my question about the Michael Lynch Peak Oil piece. Unfortunately, many of us have, and continue to be, slow to wake up to the situation.

Eric Amend,
I think Michael Lynch is a propagandist not interested in a lively and necessary conversation. The following articles show how he and other use their position and status to continually issue misleading statements about Peak Oil and its proponents. He has consistently refused any open debate with leading Peak Oil experts. This is an old an uninteresting debate. The following links to articles at The Oil Drum and Energy Bulletin nicely review the reality that Lynch is distorting.

The degree of uncertainty that does exist about Peak Oil timing is largely due to secret production capacity and reserve data in OPEC countries, most notably in Saudi Arabia. To believe that successive US administrations have not known the real data and kept it secret from lower level policy makers, researchers and the public, is to maintain a remarkably naive view of geopolitical realities.

Communication and Future Scenarios

In “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore pointed out that all of history up to the time of his birth had produced a world population of 2 billion, there were 9 billion in 2007 and there will probably be 15 billion in his life time, rising even faster thereafter.

As this "Future Scenarios" website shows, we billions of Earthlings have more to discuss with each other than ever before, as virtually all important issues are already World issues, and will be ever more urgently so.

The difference between us securing a positive scenario, or suffering a negative one, may well depend on who is included in the discussion of our planetary welfare.

There are currently two contenders for the position of World Language. English is the popular favorite at the moment as more rich people speak it than any other.

Unfortunately, it is much too difficult, time hungry (up to 2000 hrs), and (consequently) unaffordable for most poor people to learn, so it will equip only the rich to participate in global discussion. Rich English-speakers do not necessarily have access to all the information, a corner on the best ideas, or the welfare of the majority at heart, and so this choice makes the lifeboat scenario more likely.

The democratic choice is Esperanto. It takes about 10-20 instructional hours, possibly from a book or free internet course, followed by about 80 hours of practice to be able to use it effectively. I have conversed in Esperanto with refugees in a camp in Benin, West Africa, who had formed a club and taught themselves the language from old books, demonstrating that this language offers affordable participation for all of the World’s people.

Will we insist on our right to make no effort, and exclude the World’s poor from the World community, or will we adopt an affordable language for World affairs, keeping English for domestic use? (Incidentally, this offers the poor a chance to maintain their languages and cultures too, whilst participating in the bigger picture in cheap Esperanto).

Adults can learn online for free or choose from a wide range of learning materials and strategies. Every Australian child could speak Esperanto before the end of primary school, taught by their normal monolingual teachers using a resource called “Talking to the Whole Wide World”. (A side-benefit is the head-start this provides for the learning of other- possibly Asian- languages in high school).

If this makes sense to you, please drop a note to GetUp,at http://www.getup.org.au and tell them you would be interested in a campaign to make Australia a leader in global citizenship (and languages education) by making “Talking to the Whole Wide World” the minimum language entitlement for Australian kids in our developing National Curriculum.

Dear Dave:
I would appreciate any thoughts or comments you might have to Michael Lynch's (a former director for Asian energy and security at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an energy consultant) claim that the Peak Oil claim and science is a bogus(in his 8.25.09 New York Times Oped)? He has fired up a lively and necessary conversation!

Хороший у вас портал, молодцы ребят!

Хороший портал сделали, молодцы!

Как у вас получается такие хороший порталы делать, в чем секрет?

Great explorations
A couple of great books that didn't get a mention
The Little Green Handbook- Ron Neilson
and The Syndicate- Nicholas Hagger
Both professors with many years experience and heaps of data bases
As to religion [atheist is a belief system as well] and all [including philosophical] thought is a total waste of time[time is also a thought and doesn't actually exist] the only exception to the use of thought is when you are doing or creating any other use as no reality
Keep up the great work David
martin

Future Scenarios Comments
Zalan Glen Brazil July 09

Following on from David Holmgren’s vision of the possible future scenarios we have to look forward to, I also see a Vegaculture perspective. The future is dependant on the mix of major forces, and emphasis for change, and just like the present, open to interpretation. It is necessary to provide an additional ingredient into the lifestyle mix.

Assuming that the dominant scientific and anthropological views are correct, with respect to human evolution; then in the physical realm, our life here on earth can be viewed as a big social and cultural growth, a mix with the fruiting dependant on the ingredients, nourishment and time for maturation.

Comments from an esoteric, philosophical and spiritual perspective may see views being expressed which deny the apparent physical evolution. They may suggest we only survive in the illusion of our own making; as a personal or impersonal interpretation of the REAL world, the domain of which we all share. One of which we have either forgotten, or have not yet fully realized; apart from some small number of mystics, yogis and seers.

This provides the setting for what I will call physical and esoteric positions.

History of Physical World –and Four Scenario Options

A. The esoteric position:

It does not matter, we are creatures of our own making. Philosophy and practice of an esoteric nature is already available to all. Just need more converts.

B. The physical position. Science and evolution

(1) Human habitation as forest dwellers, hunters and gatherers
(2) Agrarian farmers and sustainable villages (the permaculture model)
(3) As a world gone crazy with growth for its own sake and a view to technology as a savior (GREY Technology)
(4) As a fine balancing act between Green and Grey with technology and common sense. (GREEN Technology)

These scenarios will play out, all Lifestyles have existed and are either continuing or able to be retrieved with varying degrees of scale and difficulty; however, the dominance lies with GREY presently.

One can see here, there is no separate provision for modification for the introduction of a new way. The analysis makes sense, based on science and history of human habitation.

But, 2 things are clear;

The first is that the esoteric view is not commented on, therefore presumably to be ONLY PART OF THE MIX, this could be seen as a reductionist view, and as an ATHEISTIC position, denial of the other.

The second point is that the four scenarios presented, although not expected to be totally rigorous in their presentation, all deny the position of COMPASSION as a DESIGN objective.

I believe this is a serious omission. Is this because compassion has not been, or only able to be poorly measured scientifically in the physical world? Is it measurable at all?

And is it, just as importantly, because it has traditionally been left out of the mix of design objectives, while we have been going crazy with the GREY growth. Perhaps both have substance.

A Vegaculture view would see a 5th scenario added to the above.

That is the wide scale introduction of a movement towards compassionate living. It would be an important part of the GREEN input, maintaining a level of acceptable technology, while living at peace with our human and animal, brothers and sisters! We don’t know if this will be successful, and it is difficult to see the means of introduction, however, perhaps the idea has some substance.

Maybe this is going to be the quantum leap in imagination, awareness and focus needed, if we are to retain a semblance of our existing progress with the civilization of the world; where a predominant anthropocentric view has led.

Certainly, with the example of the GREEN revolution, giving credence to other ways; the identifiable advantages of trying to include the environment as an entity in our consideration of acceptable lifestyles, indicates that the seeds for ONE OTHER leap of awareness have shown to be viable, than why NOT a second, or third etc, if you have one.

Why not try to advance the means of COMPASSIONATE lifestyles,

RATHER this than wither and die - the GREY scenario,

RATHER this than living on the razors edge, a fine balance with a sense of FEAR and apprehension, lest we do the wrong thing, unknowingly- the GREEN scenario, still in partial denial.

RATHER this than to see the Hunter and Gatherer, the competitor in the race to survive at all costs with the means of protection sapping our resources; as we eke out a living from remnant urban habitation and scraps of natural wilderness; the rule of the Strong over the Weak, the aggressive over the mild.

What does this tell us about our so called human values and humanity? What does this demonstrate about the path we have trod for the last 5000 years of effort and combined will; for all the goodwill to manifest a cultural human landscape with go(o)dly qualities?

RATHER this than to have to revert to a suspected previously sustainable lifestyle, (The Villages which actually proceeded to grow from their own roots!); one containing a scale of living which can be accommodated. SO is this what we should do? Rest on our laurels, accept second best, fly in the face of the science of evolution which has driven us here in the first place? What cliché can we conjure to describe the failure and misery of human habitation, than to have to accept that there were other ways, but we did not have the courage to try them.

Surely it is better to embrace doing the right thing? We are as a society IN COMPASSIONATE DENIAL! FULLSTOP

LOOK at the reasons for cruelty to animals and the provision of animal care in all of the above scenarios and you will find a common denominator, the lack of provision for care of animals. I suggest a seriously large part of the problems we currently face, and will need to endure, are as a direct result of, THE EXCLUSION OF ANIMAL CARE IN OUR DESIGN OF A SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE.

A VEGAN DIET AND LIFESTYLE IS YELLING AT US, TAKE ME, TRY ME, PERSIST WITH ME. BUT WE REFUSE TIO LISTEN.

We already know a vegan diet provides acceptable nourishment.
How many scientific and medical opinions does it take to convince us? The UN, the AMA, the PCRM, the list goes on.

Let’s get real, we really don’t care enough! We are a laissez-faire, pretentious group of consumerist gobblers!

I don’t suggest this is the only way, the solution to our personal and communal problems. But the evidence is absolutely irrefutable and totally overwhelming, the WORLD IS IN DENIAL.

From numerous, well researched perspectives, whether environmental, health, non – violent, resource limitations, we can see a way forward, currently gaining momentum, but in need of assistance. Some of the science indicates this change will bring widespread solutions, and offers a sensible means for rapid withdrawal, from the present chaos.

Was it Socrates who said, ‘a life unexamined is a life not worth living’?

The permaculture perspective is mandatory, because it has already documented the history of our denial; the dominant majority have always pursued an unexamined vegan life.

We are always at a nexus, jump!

hi, congratulations, I've enjoyed reading your website. In it, I miss some concept that may be useful in guessing the future, and it's the ruling elite. I think the future will be shaped by them the same as they shape the present. They have the tools (TV and media) to control and make people think and do whatever they want. I think that concentrated energy (mainly oil) helps them rule the world, and things like permaculture are not of their interest because they would lose power and control of people. That's why I think we can predict our future by guessing the way the ruling elite will preserve its power in an energy tight environment, 'no matter what it takes'.