My long term, in depth research has persuaded me that a low energy economy is almost certainly inevitable in the near-ish future. Such a low energy economy will result from two major factors -- a decrease in energy availability as fossil fuels become more scarce and deliberate decarbonization efforts. Renewable energy can't possibly replace the 84% of global energy which is fossil energy use in the relevant time frame (relevant from both standpoints, resource scarcity [and price] and deliberate, voluntary decarbonization. The relevant time frame is the ten year period we're presently in. Every change which matters will have to occur in that time frame -- at least to a vast extent.
My research has also revealed to my satisfaction that a low carbon economy will not be an urban economy. At least not to the extent of urbanization which we now have. It will be an increasingly rural economy, with smaller towns and villages rather than vast urban areas without much access to land within walking and bicycling distance. Urban economies are luxury dependent economies, not needs based economies. As GDP and GWP inevitably contracts (somewhat dramatically) in a low energy intensity economy, people will not be spending on non-necessary goods and services. So jobs in cities will become increasingly scarce. Many will have no choice but to leave the cities for smaller towns and villages with ample nearby land for food growing. Food growing at the local scale will be the primary economic activity of a majority of people in the not-so-far future. That and attending to basic needs like shelter, shoes, clothing, medicine/health care.
Cities will not disappear, but they will largely empty out -- because they will not be economically viable. Smallter towns, villages and rural areas enable what I call "community self-provisioning" of basic needs, such as food. Self-provisioning is usually understood in terms of a family or household provisioning their own food (the emphasis is on food, generally) through gardening, small farming, fishing, foraging, hunting.... Obviously, all of this is outside of a money economy. Well, this is how sensible people in the future will organize around food -- outside of a money economy. But, increasingly, this cooperative non-market sharing will include whole village-scaled neighborhoods, not just households and families. Everyone (all who are able bodied) contributes in some way to community self-provisioning. All share what is produced into the community, without need for turning food into a commodity for sale in a market. Food becomes (mostly) gift, not a market "good" for sale.
Those who love cities can choose, for a while, to try and make cities which are more ecologically and socially functional. This will be a severe challenge as cities begin to empty out and the economies which have held them together begin to fray around the edges. There are things in and about cities worth preserving. But future cities will be very, very different from current cities. This is not a guess. It's as near to a fact as we can get. This is because industrial civilization cannot possibly be sustained. Some parts of it can be sustained, enough to provide bicycles, shovels, basic hand tools, cookware. Necessary items. Not a lot of expensive luxuries.
This is the conceptual framework we will require if we are to respond to the challenges ahead, which are coming very soon indeed.
Call me a doubting Thomas, but I am suspicious of the conceit that a social "movement of movements" drawing on the same kind of decentralized model of economic "Brownian motion" as the one that forms the basis of capitalism itself can somehow overcome the very problems as the latter produced by its own spontaneous operations in the first place.
Hi Patrick,
Re: the military, it has a huge impact on our environment which is never talked about. Here's an article about that. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/10/pentagon-climate-change-neta-crawford-book/
My long term, in depth research has persuaded me that a low energy economy is almost certainly inevitable in the near-ish future. Such a low energy economy will result from two major factors -- a decrease in energy availability as fossil fuels become more scarce and deliberate decarbonization efforts. Renewable energy can't possibly replace the 84% of global energy which is fossil energy use in the relevant time frame (relevant from both standpoints, resource scarcity [and price] and deliberate, voluntary decarbonization. The relevant time frame is the ten year period we're presently in. Every change which matters will have to occur in that time frame -- at least to a vast extent.
My research has also revealed to my satisfaction that a low carbon economy will not be an urban economy. At least not to the extent of urbanization which we now have. It will be an increasingly rural economy, with smaller towns and villages rather than vast urban areas without much access to land within walking and bicycling distance. Urban economies are luxury dependent economies, not needs based economies. As GDP and GWP inevitably contracts (somewhat dramatically) in a low energy intensity economy, people will not be spending on non-necessary goods and services. So jobs in cities will become increasingly scarce. Many will have no choice but to leave the cities for smaller towns and villages with ample nearby land for food growing. Food growing at the local scale will be the primary economic activity of a majority of people in the not-so-far future. That and attending to basic needs like shelter, shoes, clothing, medicine/health care.
Cities will not disappear, but they will largely empty out -- because they will not be economically viable. Smallter towns, villages and rural areas enable what I call "community self-provisioning" of basic needs, such as food. Self-provisioning is usually understood in terms of a family or household provisioning their own food (the emphasis is on food, generally) through gardening, small farming, fishing, foraging, hunting.... Obviously, all of this is outside of a money economy. Well, this is how sensible people in the future will organize around food -- outside of a money economy. But, increasingly, this cooperative non-market sharing will include whole village-scaled neighborhoods, not just households and families. Everyone (all who are able bodied) contributes in some way to community self-provisioning. All share what is produced into the community, without need for turning food into a commodity for sale in a market. Food becomes (mostly) gift, not a market "good" for sale.
Those who love cities can choose, for a while, to try and make cities which are more ecologically and socially functional. This will be a severe challenge as cities begin to empty out and the economies which have held them together begin to fray around the edges. There are things in and about cities worth preserving. But future cities will be very, very different from current cities. This is not a guess. It's as near to a fact as we can get. This is because industrial civilization cannot possibly be sustained. Some parts of it can be sustained, enough to provide bicycles, shovels, basic hand tools, cookware. Necessary items. Not a lot of expensive luxuries.
This is the conceptual framework we will require if we are to respond to the challenges ahead, which are coming very soon indeed.
Call me a doubting Thomas, but I am suspicious of the conceit that a social "movement of movements" drawing on the same kind of decentralized model of economic "Brownian motion" as the one that forms the basis of capitalism itself can somehow overcome the very problems as the latter produced by its own spontaneous operations in the first place.