Introduction
1. Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows, and William Behrens III, Limits to Growth. (New York, Signet, 1972)
2. Ugo Bardi, “Cassandra’s Curse: How ‘The Limits to Growth’ Was Demonized,” The Oil Drum, posted March 9, 2008, europe.theoildrum.com/node/3551.
3. Graham Turner, “A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality,” CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, June 2008.
4. Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2004); Sam Foucher, “Ecological Footprint, Energy Consumption, and the Looming Collapse,” posted May 16, 2007, theoildrum.com/node/2534.
5. According to the Federal Reserve, total commercial debt in the US is about $36 trillion. If the average interest on this debt is 3 percent, probably a very low estimate, then we owe in interest about $1 trillion per year. That’s over 6 percent of GNP. If GNP grows at 3 percent, then recipients of interest get all new income plus 3 percent of the old income, until eventually they end up with everything. It takes a lot of growth just to enable repayment of interest.
6. Growth had actually begun in Britain around 1500 as a result of colonialism (an early form of globalization), intensification of agriculture, division of labor, and the adoption of more wind and water power. However, it proceeded at a comparatively slow pace until the adoption of coal-fired machinery in the late 18th century. During the 20th century, global growth averaged about 3 percent per annum. See Stephen Broadberry et al., “British Economic Growth, 1270–1870,” University of Warwick, UK, published online December 6, 2010.
7. “GDP United States (Recent History),” Data360.org, data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=353&page=3&count=100.
8. “‘Great Recession’ Over, Research Group Says,” msnbc.msn.com, posted September 20, 2010.
9. Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, “The Aftermath of Financial Crises,” (presented at the meeting of the American Economic Association, San Francisco, CA, January 3, 2009).
10. In philosophy this is called the problem of induction. One cannot infer that a series of events will happen in the future just as they have in past. For example, if all the swans I’ve ever seen are white, I may conclude that all swans are white. However, consistently seeing white swans does not prove that all swans are white; it only adds to a series of observations. The inductive conclusion that all swans are white is proven wrong with the discovery of even one black swan. Nassem Talib’s book Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable explores this topic in-depth (New York: Random House, 2007).
11. In inflation-adjusted dollars. The amount of energy, in British Thermal Units, required to produce a dollar of GDP dropped from close to 20,000 Btu per dollar in 1949 to 8,500 Btu in 2008. Source: US Department of Energy.
12. Praveen Ganta, “US Economic Energy Efficiency: 1950–2008,” Seeking Alpha, posted January 10,2010.
13. See Alan Hastings, Population Biology (New York: Springer, 1996), and William Cat-ton, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982).
14. Colin Campbell, “Colin Campbell Predicts Credit Crunch Due to Peak Oil 2005,” YouTube video, posted October 16, 2008, youtube.com/watch?v=lDNMjV6sumQ&feature=related.
15. The Peak Oil scenario is laid out in more detail in my book The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2003).
16. Richard Heinberg, “Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?” Energy Bulletin, posted August 6, 2009, energybulletin.net/node/49798.
17. Gail the Actuary, “What Peaked at the Same Time as Oil Prices? Lots of Things,” The Oil Drum, posted October 9, 2009, theoildrum.com/node/5853.
18. Joe Keohane, “The Guy Who Called the Big One? Don’t Listen to Him: Inside the Paradox of Forecasting,” boston.com, posted January 9, 2011.
19. David Murphy, “Lucky Economists, Unlucky Scientists?” The Oil Drum, posted January 14, 2011, theoildrum.com/node/7343.
Chapter One
1. See Marvin Harris and Orna Johnson, Cultural Anthropology (Boston: –Allyn & Bacon, 2006), pp. 98–107. See also Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, transl. I. Cunnison (New York: Norton, 2000), and David Graeber, Toward an Anthropology of Value (New York: Palgrave, 2001).
2. Elman R. Service, The Hunters (New York: Prentice Hall, 1966), pp. 14–21.
3. Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 436.
4. This story is told at greater length in, for example, Jack Weatherford, The History of Money (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998).
5. Mark Anielski, “Fertile obfuscation: Making money whilst eroding living capital” (Pembina Institute, 2000); Michael Rowbathom, The Grip of Death: A Study of Modern Money, Debt Slavery, and Destructive Economics (New York: Jon Carpenter, 1998).
6. Tim Parks, Medici Money (New York: Norton, 2005), p. 13.
7. The history of economics is told entertainingly and in more detail in lectures by Australian economist Steve Keen, notes for which are available at debunkingeconomics.com/Lectures/Index.htm#HET.
8. See Steve Keen, Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences (London: Zed Books, 2002).
9. John Stuart Mill. Quoted in Brian Czech, Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), p. 93.
10. This paragraph is based on historical analysis and insights from Herman Daly and John Cobb. See Herman Daly and John Cobb, For the Common Good (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), pp. 97–120.
11. For a further discussion of this point see Daly and Cobb, op. cit.
12. A periodically updated discussion of the business cycle from various points of view is available at Wikipedia.
13. Though not according to economists who subscribe to the Elliott Wave theory. See A. J. Frost and Robert Prechter, Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior (Gainesville, GA: New Classics Library, 2006).
14. This appears to be the opposite of what is happening now — money is tight but interest rates are low. The current situation exists because the Federal Reserve is deliberately keeping interest rates low to stimulate economic activity.
15. See Bruce Jansson, The Sixteen-Trillion-Dollar Mistake (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).
16. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two forms of investment shows up in demand curves. Speculative demand increases as prices rise. Investment demand decreases as prices of the capital being invested in rise. The notion of market equilibrium is based on negative feedback loops, while speculation creates positive feedback loops.
17. Charles McKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841, various editions).
18. It is useful to distinguish among hedge, speculative, and ponzi finance. Hedge: investors have money to repay both capital and interest on the loan. Speculative: investors can only pay interest and count on rising values or new loans to pay capital (example: subprime, interest-only loans). Ponzi: investors cannot even pay interest, and count on rising values to repay both capital and interest (example: subprime loans in which interest is added to capital).
19. Investments that systematically generate returns higher than economic growth are impossible to sustain in the long run, as investors would eventually come to own all wealth.
Chapter Two
1. Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail (New York: Viking, 2009); Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis (New York: Portfolio, 2010); Charles Ferguson, “Inside Job”, documentary movie, Sony Pictures Classics, 2010.
2. William Greider, “The Education of David Stockman,” Atlantic Magazine, December, 1981.
3. Both the president and Congress pledged to put in place new regulations that would make the recurrence of such a fiasco impossible. The result was a mild rewrite of laws; according to Christine Harper of Bloomberg, “Lawmakers spurned changes that would wall off deposit-taking banks from riskier trading. They declined to limit the size of lenders or ban any form of derivatives. Higher capital and liquidity requirements agreed to by regulators worldwide have been delayed for years to aid economic recovery.” Christine Harper, “Out of Lehman’s Ashes Wall Street Gets Most of What It Wants,” Bloomberg Businessweek, January 5, 2011.
4. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, preliminary report, February 2011, fcic.gov.
5. The term “Giant Pool of Money” became the title of an award-winning episode of the NPR radio show This American Life which originally aired on May 9, 2008.
6. James B. Stewart, “Eight Days: the battle to save the American financial system”, The New Yorker magazine, September 21, 2009.
7. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, preliminary report, February 2011, fcic.gov.
8. Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, fcic.law.stanford.edu.
9. “The global housing boom.” The Economist, June 16 2005.
10. See for example Harry S. Dent, The Great Depression Ahead (New York: Free Press, 2009), pp. 132–133.
11. Dowell Myers and SungHo Ryu, “Aging baby boomers and the generational housing bubble: Foresight and mitigation of an epic transition” (2007). Journal of American Planning Association, 74:1, pp. 17–33.
12. Michael Kumhof and Romain Rancière, “Inequality, Leverage and Crises,” IMF Working Paper (2010), imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2010/wp10268.pdf.
13. US Department of the Treasury, TreasuryDirect, “Historical Debt Outstanding, 2000– 2010,” treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd.htm.
14. Congressional Budget Office, Report to the Joint Committee on Taxation, March 5, 2010.
15. Congressional Budget Office, “Monthly Budget Review,” October 7, 2010.
16. James Galbraith, “Why We Don’t Need to Pay Down the National Debt.” The Atlantic, 9/21/2010theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/09/why-we-dont-need-to-pay-down-the-national-debt/63273.
17. For a perspective on why US government debt may not face limits anytime soon, as long as the economy returns to growth, see James K. Galbraith, “Casting Light on ‘The Moment of Truth,’” The Huffington Post, posted December 3, 2010.
18. Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009).
19. See Paul Krugman, “The burden of debt,” New Y Times. 4/28/2009. krugman.blogs. nytimes.com/2009/08/28/the-burden-of-debt/; Daniel Berger, “The Deficit: Size Doesn’t Matter” (2009). Roosevelt Institute. rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/deficit-size-doesn-t-matter.
20. Michael J. Panzner, Financial Armageddon (New York: Kaplan Publishing, 2008), p. 45.
21. Ellen Hodgson Brown, The Web of Debt (Boxboro MA: Third Millenium Press, 2010), p. 197.
22. McKinsey & Co., “Debt and Deleveraging: The Global Credit Bubble and Its Economic Consequences” (2010), mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/debt_and_deleveraging/index.asp.
23. Herman Daly, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (Boston: Beacon, 1997).
24. CNN Money.com, “Bailout Tracker,” money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/bailouttracker/index.html.
25. Christian Broda and Jonathan Parker, “The impact of 2008 tax rebates on consumer spending: preliminary evidence” (6/29/2008). insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/the_impact_of_the_2008_tax_rebates_on_consumer_spending.
26. See, for example, heritage.org/research/reports/2010/01/why-government-spending-does-not-stimulate-economic-growth-answering-the-critics.
27. Pam Martens, “The Tax-Payers’ Tab: a Cool $9 Trillion and Then Some,” Counterpunch, posted December 20, 2010.
28. For example, see Vox Day, The Return of the Great Depression (Los Angeles: WND Books, 2009).
29. “QE2: More Effective Than QE1,” International Business Times, posted November 7, 2010.
30. Henny Sender, “Spectre of Deflation Kills the Mood at Jackson Hole,” Financial Times, September 13, 2010.
31. L. Randall Wray, “Why Mortgage-Backed Securities Aren’t (Backed by Securities): How MERS Toasted the Banks,” The Huffington Post, posted December 30, 2010; Yasha Levine, “Dude, Where’s My Mortgage? How an Obscure Outfit Called MERS Is Subverting Our Entire System of Property Rights,” AlterNet.org, posted December 16, 2010.
32. One of the most prominent inflationists is investor Jim Rogers; see, for example, “Jim Rogers Says Hyperinflation Will Consume Us,” allthingsjimrogers.com/2009/03/12/–jim-rogers-says-hyperinflation-will-consume-us.
33. See, for example, John Williams, shadowstats.com/article/hyperinflation-2010.
34. See, for example, Nicole Foss, theautomaticearth.blogspot.com; also Harry S. Dent, Jr., The Great Depression Ahead (New York: Free Press, 2009).
35. See, for example, Nicole Foss (“Stoneleigh”), “The Unbearable Mightiness of Deflation.” theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-5-2009-unbearable-mightiness-of.html.
36. This is the position of Nicole Foss; see “Stoneleigh Takes on John Williams,” theauto maticearth.blogspot.com/2010/08/august-8-2010-stoneleigh-takes-on-john.html.
Chapter Three
1. There are now many books on Peak Oil, among which some of the best are: Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005); Matthew R. Simmons, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (New York: Wiley, 2005); Paul Roberts, The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004); Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2005). Two websites offer daily updated links to articles relevant to Peak Oil: EnergyBulletin.net and TheOilDrum.com. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, with chapters in many countries, convenes annual conferences for the discussion of new data relevant to oil depletion and our energy future.
2. “...[In 2035] Global oil production reaches 96 mb/d, the balance of 3 mb/d coming from processing gains. Crude oil output reaches an undulating plateau of around 68–69 mb/d by 2020, but never regains its all-time peak of 70 mb/d reached in 2006, while production of natural gas liquids (NGLs) and unconventional oil grows strongly.” International Energy Agency, “Executive Summary,” World Energy Outlook 2010 (Paris: OECD/IEA, 2010), p. 6; Also see the graph “World oil production by type in the New Policies Scenario,” IEA, “Key Graphs,” World Energy Outlook 2010, worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2010/key_graphs.pdf.
3. Kjell Aleklett, “Spin Slips Off Production Numbers — World Energy Outlook 2010 Is a Cry For Help,” Aleklett’s Energy Post, posted November 11, 2010.
4. Jeremy Gilbert, “No We Can’t: Uncertainty, Technology, and Risk,” presented at the ASPO-USA 2010 Peak Oil Conference, Washington, DC, October 9, 2010.
5. Jessica Bachman, “Special Report: Oil and Ice: Worse Than the Gulf Spill?” Reuters.com, posted November 8, 2010.
6. Charles Maxwell, quoted in Wallace Forbes, “Bracing For Peak Oil Production by Decade’s End,” Forbes.com, posted September 13, 2010; Eoin O’Carroll, “Pickens: Oil Production Has Peaked,” The Christian Science Monitor, posted June 18, 2008.
7. Clint Smith, “New Zealand Parliament Peak Oil Report: The Next Oil Shock?” Energy Bulletin, posted October 1, 2010, energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-14/next-oil-shock; Stefan Schultz, “Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis,” Spiegel Online, posted September 1, 2010; UK Industry study; US Joint Forces Command, The Joint Operating Environment 2010 (Suffolk, VA: USJFCOM, 2010).
8. See, for example, peakoil.net/headline-news/toyota-we-must-address-the-inevitability-of-peak-oil.
9. Ben German, “The Other Peak Oil: Demand From Developed World Falling,” Scientific American. October 13, 2009.
10. Robert L. Hirsch, Roger Bezdek, and Robert Wendling, “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management,” a report for the US Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, February 2005; Stefan Schultz, “Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis,” Spiegel Online, posted September 1, 2010.
11. Michael Klare, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Petroleum Dependency (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2004); Michael Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2008).
12. Jeffrey Brown and Sam Foucher, “Peak Oil Versus Peak Exports,” Energy Bulletin, posted October 18, 2010, energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-18/peak-oil-versus-peak-exports; Gail the Actuary, “Verifying the Export Land Model — A Different Approach,” The Oil Drum, posted October 1, 2010, theoildrum.com/node/7007#more.
13. Thanks to Nate Hagens for this insight.
14. Buttonwood, “Engine Trouble: A Rise in the Cost of Extracting Energy Will Hit Productivity,” The Economist, October 1, 2010.
15. Tadeusz W. Patzek and Gregory D. Croft, “A Global Coal Production Forecast with Multi-Hubbert Cycle Analysis,” Energy 35 (2010), pp. 3109–3122; S. H. Mohr and G. M. Evans, “Forecasting Coal Production Until 2100,” Fuel 88 (2009), pp. 2059–2067.
16. Richard Heinberg and David Fridley, “The End of Cheap Coal,” Nature 468 (November 18, 2010), pp. 367–369.
17. Recent US Geological Survey assessments of some of the most important mining regions show rapid depletion of accessible reserves. US Geological Survey, Coal Reserves of the Matewan Quadrangle, Kentucky — A Coal Recoverability Study, US Bureau of Mines Circular 9355, pubs.usgs.gov/usbmic/ic-9355/C9355.htm ; James Luppens et al., Assessment of Coal Geology, Resources, and Reserves in the Gillette Coalfield, Powder River Basin, Wyoming, USGS Open-File Report 2008–1202, 2008, pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1202/.
18. Zaipu Tao and Mingyu Li, “What Is the Limit of Chinese Coal Supplies — A STELLA Model of Hubbert Peak,” Energy Policy 35, no.6 (June, 2007), pp. 3145–3154; WorleyPar-sons et al., Strategic Analysis of the Global Status of Carbon Capture and Storage (Global CCS Institute, 2009).
19. Christopher Schenk and Richard Pollastro, Natural Gas Production in the United States, US Geological Survey Fact Sheet FS-0113-01, January 2002, pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0113-01/.
20. Gail the Actuary, “Arthur Berman Talks About Shale Gas,” The Oil Drum, posted July 28, 2010, theoildrum.com/node/6785.
21. A report by David Hughes on the future of unconventional natural gas will be published in May 2011 by Post Carbon Institute.
22. Richard Heinberg, Searching for a Miracle: Net Energy Limits and the Fate of Industrial Societies (International Forum on Globalization and Post Carbon Institute, 2009).
23. This conclusion is supported by P. Moriarty and D. Honnery, “What Energy Levels Can the Earth Sustain?” Energy Policy 37, no. 7 (July, 2009), pp. 2469–2474. Abstract: “Several official reports on future global primary energy production and use develop scenarios which suggest that the high energy growth rates of the 20th century will continue unabated until 2050 and even beyond. In this paper we examine whether any combination of fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy sources can deliver such levels of primary energy — around 1000 EJ in 2050. We find that too much emphasis has been placed on whether or not reserves in the case of fossil and nuclear energy, or technical potential in the case of renewable energy, can support the levels of energy use forecast. In contrast, our analysis stresses the crucial importance of the interaction of technical potentials for annual production with environmental factors, social, political, and economic concerns and limited time frames for implementation, in heavily constraining the real energy options for the future. Together, these constraints suggest that future energy consumption will be significantly lower than the present level.”
24. Heinberg, Searching for a Miracle.
25. Heinberg, Searching for a Miracle, chapter 3.
26. This conclusion is largely supported by James H. Brown et al., “Energetic Limits to Growth,” Bioscience 61, no.1 (January 2011), pp. 19–26: “The bottom line is that an enormous increase in energy supply will be required to meet the demands of projected population growth and lift the developing world out of poverty without jeopardizing current standards of living in the most developed countries. And the possibilities for substantially increasing energy supplies are highly uncertain. Moreover, the nonlinear, complex nature of the global economy raises the possibility that energy shortages might trigger massive socioeconomic disruption.”
27.N ate Hagens, “Applying Time to Energy Analysis,” The Oil Drum, posted December 13, 2010, theoildrum.com/node/7147#more.
28. Charles A. S. Hall, “Provisional Results from EROI Assessments,” The Oil Drum, posted April 8, 2008, theoildrum.com/node/3810.
29. “Drowning in Oil,” The Economist, March 4, 1999.
30. International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 1998 (Paris: IEA Publications, 1998), p. 78.
31. Chris Nelder, “World Will Soon Face an Oil Supply Crunch,” Energy & Capital, posted September 18, 2009.
32. Richard Heinberg, “Goldilocks and the Three Fuels,” Reuters, posted February 18, 2010.
33. James Hamilton, Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, March 2009.
34. Joe Cortright, “Driven to the Brink: How the Gas Price Spike Popped the Housing Bubble and Devalued the Suburbs,” White Paper, CEOs for Cities, 2008, ceosforcities.org.
35. Jad Mouawad, “For OPEC, Current Oil Price Is Just Right,” The New York Times, September 9, 2009.
36. Jon Talton, “With Oil Prices Around $90, Recovery is Over a Barrel,” The Seattle Times, December 9, 2010; David Murphy, “Further Evidence of the Influence of Energy on the US Economy,” The Oil Drum, posted April 16, 2009, netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/5304; Jeff Rubin, “We Have Run Out of Oil We Can Afford to Burn,” The Globe and Mail, October 6, 2010; “Oil Price is Risk to Economic Recovery, Says IEA,” BBC News, posted January 5, 2011; Derek Thompson, “How Oil Could Kill the Recovery,” The Atlantic, posted January 6, 2011.
37. Cameron Leckie, “Economic Growth: A Zero Sum Game,” On Line Opinion, posted November 25, 2010.
38. Carey W. King, “Energy Intensity Ratios as Net Energy Measures of United States Energy Production and Expenditures,” Environmental Research Letters 5 (October to December 2010).
39. Recent reports warn that groundwater is depleting at increasing rates “Groundwater Depletion Rate Accelerating Worldwide,” Science Daily, posted September 23, 2010; and that the world’s rivers are in a “crisis state.” World’s Rivers in ‘Crisis State’, Report Finds,” Science Daily, posted October 1, 2010. The situation in many areas is grim and worsening. Robert F. Worth, “Earth is Parched Where Syrian Farms Thrived,” The New York Times, October 13, 2010. For an excellent overview of the situation, see Sandra Postel, “Water: Adapting to a New Normal” in The Post Carbon Reader, Richard Hein-berg and Daniel Lerch, eds. (Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media and the Post Carbon Institute, 2010); see also Peter H. Gleick and Meena Palaniappan, “Peak Water Limits to Freshwater Withdrawal and Use,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 107, no.25 (June 22, 2010), pp. 11155–11162.
40. United Nations Environment Program, Global Environment Outlook 4 (Malta: Progress Press Ltd., 2007).
41. Yoshihide Wada et al., “Global Depletion of Groundwater Resources,” Geophysical Research Letters 37 (October 26, 2010).
42. Felicity Barringer, “Rising Seas and the Groundwater Equation,” Green: A Blog About Energy and the Environment, The New York Times, posted November 2, 2010.
43. Tim P. Barnett and David W. Pierce, “When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?” Water Resources Research 44 (March 29, 2008).
44.N ational Energy Technology Laboratory, Innovations for Existing Plants Program, “Water-Energy Interface,” netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/–ewr/water/power-gen.html.
45. “The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change famously predicted [the Himalayan glaciers] could disappear as soon as 2035. It turns out that guesstimate was based on misquoting a researcher in a 1999 news article — not a result from any kind of peer-reviewed scientific study. The incident reflects a breakdown in the IPCC process but it doesn’t undercut the reality that glacier loss, particularly in what are technically tropical regions such as the Andes and Himalayas, continues to accelerate in the 21st century. Though they likely won’t disappear entirely for centuries, losing the glaciers will eventually be bad news for the billions around the world who rely on meltwater to survive.” David Biello, “How Fast Are the Himalayan Glaciers Melting?” Scientific American podcast, posted January 21, 2010, scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=how-fast-are-himalayan-glaciers-mel-10-01-21. Actual melt rates are a matter of ongoing study, but there is general agreement that, on the whole, the glaciers are retreating rapidly. In the Indian Himalaya, the Chhota Shigri Glacier has retreated 12 percent in the past 13 years and the iconic Gangotri Glacier, where the River Ganga originates, has retreated 12 percent in the past 16 years. See Richard S. Williams, Jr., and Jane G. Ferrigno, eds., Glaciers of Asia, US Geological Survey Professional Paper 1386–F (Washington, DC: US GPO, 2010), online at pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1386f/.
46. “Desperate Water Shortage in Somaliland,” Inside Somalia, posted August 4, 2009.
47. N ancy L. Barber, “Summary of Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005,” US Geological Survey, 2009, water.usgs.gov/watuse/.
48. Kevin F. Dennehy, High Plains Regional Groundwater Study, U. S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet FS-091-00, 2000, co.water.usgs.gov/nawqa/hpgw/PUBS.html.
49. Paul D. Ryder, “High Plains Aquifer,” in Groundwater Atlas of the United States: Oklahoma, Texas, US Geological Survey publication HA 730-E, 1996, pubs.usgs.gov/ha/ha730/index.html.
50. Barber, “Summary of Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005.”
51. “Industrial-Agricultural Water End-Use Efficiency,” California Energy Commission website, energy.ca.gov/research/iaw/industry/water.html.
52. “Membrane Desalination Power Usage Put in Perspective,” American Membrane Technology Association, April 2009, amtaorg.com/amta_media/–pdfs/7_MembraneDesalinationPowerUsagePutInPerspective.pdf.
53. Jeremy Miller, “California Drought is No Problem for Kern County Oil Producers,” Circle of Blue, posted August 24, 2010.
54. Barber, “Summary of Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005.”
55. Peter Boaz and Matthew O. Berger, “Rising Energy Demand Hits Water Scarcity ‘Choke Point’,” IPSNews.net, posted September 22, 2010, ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52939.
56. “Ethiopia and Egypt Dispute the Nile,” BBC News, posted February 24, 2005.
57. Alistair Lyon, “Arab World to Face Severe Water Scarcity By 2015,” Ottawa Citizen, November 4, 2010.
58. In his book, Dirt, David Montgomery makes a powerful case that soil erosion was a major cause of the Roman economy’s decline. David Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007).
59. T. Beach et al., “Impacts of the Ancient Maya on Soils and Soil Erosion in the Central Maya Lowlands,” Catena 65, no.2 (February 28, 2006), pp. 166–178.
60. Richard Heinberg and Michael Blomford, The Food and Farming Transition, Post Carbon Institute, 2009, available online postcarbon.org/report/41306-the-food-and-farming-transition-toward.
61. Jonathan Foley, “The Other Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis in Global Land Use,” environment 360, posted October 5, 2009.
62. “World Fertilizer Consumption,” spreadsheet for “Food and Agriculture,” Earth Policy Institute Data Center, posted January 12, 2011, earth-policy.org/data_center/C24; Robert J. Diaz et al., “Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems,” Science 321, no.926 (2008).
63. David Tilman et al., “Agricultural Sustainability and Intensive Production Practices,” Nature 418 (August 8, 2002), pp. 671–677.
64. Scott Kilman and Liam Pleven, “Harvest Shocker Rattles Wall Street,” The Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2010.
65. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Protect and Produce: Restoring the Land,” in Dimensions of Need — An Atlas of Food and Agriculture (Rome: FAO, 1995); Leo Horrigan, Robert S. Lawrence, and Polly Walker, “How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture,” Environmental Health Perspectives 110, no.5 (May, 2002).
66. Patrick Déry and Bart Anderson, “Peak Phosphorus,” The Oil Drum, posted August 17, 2007, theoildrum.com/node/2882.
67. Patrick Déry, Pérenniser l’agriculture, Mémoire pour la Commission Sur l’Avenir de l’Agriculture du Québec, GREB, April 2007.
68. Juliet Eilperin, “World’s Fish Supply Running Out, Researchers Warn,” The Washington Post, November 3, 2006.
69. Corinne Podger, “Depleting Fish Stocks,” BBC World Service, posted August 29, 2000.
70. Julian Cribb, The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010).
71. R. D. Howard, J. A. DeWoody, and W. M. Muir, “Transgenic Male Mating Advantage Provides Opportunity for Trojan Gene Effect in Fish,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 101, no.9 (February 19, 2004), pp. 2934– 2938.
72. Darrel Good, “Corn and Soybean Supplies to Remain Tight for Another Year?” University of Illinois, ACES News, posted Janury 24, 2011.
73. Lester Brown, “The Great Food Crisis of 2011,” Foreign Policy, posted January 10, 2011.
74. A Rock and a Hard Place: Peak Phosphorus and the Threat to our Food Security (Bristol UK: Soil Association, 2010).
75. Recent analysis suggests that we may hit “peak” phosphate as early as 2033, after which supplies will become increasingly scarce and more expensive. Dana Cordell, Jan-Olof Drangert, and Stuart White, “The Story of Phosphorus: Global Food Security and Food for Thought,” Global Environmental Change 19, no.2 (May 2009), pp. 292–305.
76. “New Threat to Global Food Security as Phosphate Supplies Become Increasingly Scarce,” Soil Association, posted November 29, 2010.
77. Brian Palmer, “Has the Earth Run Out of Any Natural Resources?,” Slate, posted October 10, 2010.
78. Craig Clugston, “Increasing Global Nonrenewable Natural Resource Scarcity — An Analysis,” Energy Bulletin, posted April 6, 2010.
79. James Kanter, “Europe Sounds Alarm on Minerals Shortage,” Green: A Blog About Energy and the Environment, The New York Times, posted June 16, 2010; Damien Gurco et al., Peak Minerals in Australia: A Review of Changing Impacts and Benefits, (Australia Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization, March 2010); David Cohen, “Earth’s Natural Wealth: An Audit,” New Scientist 2605 (May 23, 2007), pp. 34–41; Michael Moyer, “How Much Is Left?,” Scientific American online, multimedia presentation, posted August 24, 2010.
80. Thomas D. Kelly and Grecia R. Matos, “Historical Statistics for Mineral and Material Commodities in the United States,” United States Geological Survey, Data Series 140, 2010, minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/.
81. Peter Goodchild, “Depletion of Key Resources: Facts at Your Fingertips,” Culture Change, posted January 27, 2010.
82. R. B. Gordon, M. Bertram, and T. E. Graedel, “Metal Stocks and Sustainability,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, no.5 (January 31, 2006), p. 1209.
83. Walter Youngquist, Geodestinies: The Inevitable Control of Earth Resources Over Nations and Individuals (Portland OR: National Book Company, 1997).
84. Julian Phillips, Goldforecaster, goldforecaster.com.
85. Office of Policy and International Affairs, Critical Materials Strategy, US Department of Energy, December, 2010.
86. David Cohen, “Earth’s Natural Wealth: An Audit,” New Scientist 2605 (May 23, 2007).
87. Emma Woollacott, “Shortage of Alternative Energy Minerals Will Trigger Trade Wars,” TGDaily, posted November 1, 2010.
88. Cohen, “Earth’s Natural Wealth,” New Scientist.
89. “State Palladium Stockpile Nears Depletion,” The Moscow Times, October 11, 2010.
90. Thomas Seltmann, “Nuclear Power: The Beginning of the End,” Sun & Wind Energy (Energy Watch Group, November 2009).
91. “Peak Everything,” Wired.com, wired.com/inspiredbyyou/2010/10/peak-everything/?ibypid=13.
92. Aeldric, “The Networking of Resource Production: Do the Networks Give Us Warnings When They Are About to Fail?,” The Oil Drum, posted September 22, 2010, anz.theoildrum.com/node/6974#more.
93. Paul Crutzen, “The ‘Anthropocene’,” in Earth System Science in the Anthropocene: Emerging Issues and Problems, Eckart Ehlers and Thomas Krafft, eds. (New York: Springer, 2006).
94. Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies, New Studies in Archaeology, (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
95. Graeme Wearden, “BP oil spill costs to hit $40bn,” Guardian.co.uk, posted November 2, 2010.
96. “Pakistan Flood-Related Losses to Reach 43 Billion Dollars,” Earth Times, posted September 1, 2010; “Report: Wildfires, Drought Costing Russia $15 Billion,” Voice of America News.com, posted August 10, 2010.
97. The following source lists total costs of natural disasters for the year at $109 billion, but this does not include the $40 billion Deepwater Horizon spill. Pat Speer, “Natural Disasters Cost $109 Billion in 2010,” Insurance Networking News, posted January 24, 2011.
98. Subhankar Banarjee, “5 Mining Projects That Could Devastate the Entire Planet,” AlterNet, posted November 16, 2010.
99. John Carey, “Calculating the True Cost of Global Climate Change,” environment360, posted January 6, 2011.
100. “Stern Review: Unfavorable Critical Response,” Wikipedia, accessed January, 2011.
101. Two other strategies include capturing and sequestering the carbon from fossil fuel combustion, and capturing and sequestering atmospheric carbon. Currently human efforts along these lines (ignoring, for the moment, the natural ongoing carbon capturing processes in soils, forests, and oceans) are making only an insignificant difference in the rate of growth in atmospheric greenhouse gases.
102. Heinberg, Searching for a Miracle.
103. Juliette Jowit, “One in Five Plant Species Face Extinction,” The Guardian, September 29, 2010.
104. Frank Stephenson, “A Tale of Taxol,” Florida State University, Research in Review, rinr.fsu.edu/fall2002/taxol.html.
105. Jonathan Watts, “Biodiversity Loss Seen As Greater Financial Risk Than Terrorism,” The Guardian, October 27, 2010.
106. Richard Black, “Plankton Decline Across Oceans As Waters Warm,” BBC News, posted July 28, 2010.
107. Peter Tatchell, “The Oxygen Crisis,” The Guardian, August 13, 2008.
108. Matt Chorley, “$5,000,000,000,000: The Cost Each Year of Vanishing Rainforest,” The Independent, October 3, 2010.
109. Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne et al., “Untangling the Environmentalist’s Paradox: Why is Human Well-being Increasing as Ecosystem Services Degrade?” Bioscience 60, 8 (September 2010), pp. 576–589.
110. Jim, “Desdemona at 2: The Environmentalist’s Paradox,” Desdemona Despair, posted December 2, 2010.
111. European Environment Agency, European Environment State and Outlook Report 2010 (Denmark: EEA, 2010).
112. Mark Kinver, “Growing Demand for Resources ‘Threatens EU Economy’,” BBC News, posted November 30, 2010.
113. Nafeez Ahmed, “Study: Global Warming, Energy Shortages, Food Scarcity and Recession Could Cause Industrial ‘Failure’ in 10 Years,” OpEdNews.com, posted October 5, 2010.
114. Ahmed, “Study: Global Warming, Energy Shortages, Food Scarcity and Recession.”
Chapter Four
1. See H. C. Barnett and C. Morse, Scarcity and Growth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963).
2. For an excellent discussion of whether the shift from cheap conventional oil to expensive non-conventional liquid fuels constitutes “substitution” in the economic sense, see David Murphy, “Does Peak Oil Even Matter?,” The Oil Drum, December 17, 2010, theoildrum.com/node/7246#more.
3. Environmental Protection Agency, Biofuels and the Environment: The First Triennial Report to Congress, Draft Report EPA/600/R-10/183A, January 28, 2011.
4. David Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek, “Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass and Wood; Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower,” Natural Resources Research 14, no.1 (March 2005).
5. Hosein Shapouri, James Duffield, and Michael Wang, “The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update,” US Department of Agriculture, Office of Energy Policy and New Uses, Report No. 813, 2002.
6. David Pimental and Tad Patzek, “Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass and Wood: Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower,” Natural Resources Research 14, no.1 (March 2005); Adam Liska et al., “Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn Ethanol,” J. Industrial Ecology, 13, no.1 (2009); Jason Hill et al., “Environmental, Economic, and Energetic Costs and Benefits of Biodiesel and Ethanol Biofuels,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (July 25, 2006). A recent paper by David Murphy on ethanol (Murphy et al., “New Perspectives on the Energy Return on (Energy) Investment (EROI) of Corn Ethanol,” Environment, Development and Sustainability 13:179–202, 2011) calculates the 95 percent confidence interval surrounding the various estimates of EROEI of corn ethanol that are found in the literature. The results are that the EROEI = 1.01 ± 0.2. Therefore we cannot say, with any certainty, that the EROEI of corn ethanol is above 1.
7. Charles A. S. Hall and the “EROI Study Team,” “Provisional Results from EROI Assessments,” The Oil Drum, posted April 8, 2008, theoildrum.com/node/3810.
8. “New Forecast Warns Oil Will Run Dry Before Substitutes Roll Out,” UC Davis News Service, posted November 9, 2010; Helen Knight, “Green Machine: Markets Hint at 100-Year Energy Gap,” New Scientist online, posted November 11, 2010.
9. Kurt Zenz House, “The Limits of Energy Storage Technology,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 20, 2009.
10. Aeldric, “The Networking of Resource Production: Do the Networks Give Us Warnings When They Are About to Fail?” The Oil Drum, posted September 22, 2010, anz.theoildrum.com/node/6974#more.
11. See, for example, “Iron Ores,” Highbeam Business, 2011. business.highbeam.com/industry-reports/mining/iron-ores; and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen, “Escondida Copper Production Will Decline Up to 10% on Ore Grades, BHP Says,” Bloomberg, posted August 25, 2010.
12. Ugo Bardi, “The Universal Mining Machine,” The Oil Drum, posted January 24, 2008, europe.theoildrum.com/node/3451.
13. The difficulties of rapid adaptation to fuel supply shortfalls are explored in more depth in the Hirsch Report. Robert L. Hirsch, Roger Bezdek, and Robert Wendling, Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management, Report for the US Department of Energy, February 2005, netl.doe.gov/publications/other_toc.html.
14. Thanks to Mats Larsson, personal communication.
15. See for example Benjamin S. Cheng, “An Investigation of Cointegration and Causality Between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth,” Journal of Energy and Development. 21, no.1 (Autumn 1995). However, see also Jaruwan Chontanawat, Lester C. Hunt, and Richard Pierse, “Does Energy Consumption Cause Economic Growth?: Evidence From a Systematic Study of Over 100 Countries,” Journal of Policy Modeling 30, no.2 (2008).
16. US Energy Information Administration, “Annual Energy Outlook 2010 with Projections to 2035,” eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/aeo_2010analysispapers/intensity_trends.html.
17. In recent years, the Chinese government has set a goal of increasing the energy efficiency of the nation’s economy (producing more GDP growth per unit of energy); it has accomplished this at least partially through draconian power cuts to cities and factories. Leslie Hook, “China’s Energy Drive: Back On Track,” Beyondbrics, posted November 25, 2010, blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2010/11/25/chinas-energy-efficiency-drive-back-on-track/.
18. See Cutler J. Cleveland, “Energy Quality,” The Encyclopedia of Earth, eoearth.org/article/Energy_quality#gen11.
19. David Stern, “Energy Mix and Energy Intensity,” Stochastic Trend, posted April 17, 2010, stochastictrend.blogspot.com/2010/04/energy-mix-and-energy-intensity.html.
20. Cutler J. Cleveland, “Energy Quality, Net Energy and the Coming Energy Transition,” in Frontiers in Ecological Economic Theory and Application, Jon D. Erickson and John M. Gowdy, eds. (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2007), pp. 268–284.
21. Cleveland, “Energy Quality, Net Energy, and the Coming Energy Transition,” 7; Kenneth S. Deffeyes, chapter 3 in Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert’s Peak (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005); David I. Stern, “Energy and Economic Growth in the USA: A Multivariate Approach,” Energy Economics 15, no.2 (1993), pp. 137–150.
22. Cleveland, “Energy Quality,” The Encyclopedia of Earth (online).
23. In 2009, the US imported nearly $300 billion in consumer goods from China. For information on the trade balance between the two nations see US Census Bureau, Foreign Trade Statistics, census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/. 24. Cleveland, “Energy Quality, Net Energy, and the Coming Energy Transition.”
25. David Murphy and Charles A. S. Hall, “EROI, Insidious Feedbacks, and the End of Economic Growth,” pre-publication, 2010.
26. Ernst von Weizsacker, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use — The New Report to Rome (Sydney, AU: Allen & Unwin, 1998).
27. Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution (London: Earthscan, 2000).
28. Apsmith, “What’s Wrong With Amory Lovins?,” SciScoop Science, posted September 17, 2005; Robert Bryce, “Green Energy Advocate Amory Lovins: Guru or Fakir?” Energy Tribune, posted November 12, 2007; Robert Bryce, “An Interview With Vaclav Smil,” robertbryce.com, posted July 2007.
29. This is known as the Jevons Paradox or the Khazzoom-Brookes postulate. In one sense, the Jevons Paradox has fading relevance in a world of declining energy resource availability: in the future, efforts to increase efficiency will probably not lead to declining resource prices, merely to prices that are not rising as fast as they would without such efforts. However, another, somewhat analogous trend will come into play: In order for society to save large amounts of energy through efficiency, very large investments in new and more energy efficient infrastructure are required (railroads, electric cars, etc.). This build-up of new energy efficient infrastructure requires energy for the construction and production, which will increase the need for energy. William Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question (London: Macmillan, 1866); Harry D. Saunders, “The Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate and Neoclassical Growth,” The Energy Journal (October 1, 1992).
30. Wikipedia, “Luminous Efficacy,” accessed January, 2011; Wikipedia, “Light-Emitting Diode: Efficiency and Operational Parameters,” accessed January 2011.
31. Alan S. Drake, “Electrified and Improved Railroads,” in An American Citizen’s Guide to an Oil-Free Economy: A How-To Guide For Ending Oil Dependency, posted on aspousa.org, October 25, 2010.
32. Richard Heinberg and Michael Bomford, The Food and Farming Transition, Post Carbon Institute, 2009, available online at postcarbon.org/food.
33. Mats Larsson, The Limits of Business Development and Economic Growth: Why Business Will Need to Invest Less in the Future (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
34. Larsson, The Limits of Business, p. 121.
35. Larsson, The Limits of Business, p. 5.
36. Larsson, The Limits of Business, p. 2.
37. Larsson, The Limits of Business, p. 133.
38. However, Larsson more than made up for these omissions in his later book, Global Energy Transformation: Four Necessary Steps to Make Clean Energy the Next Success Story (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
39. Mats Larsson, personal communication.
40. For a discussion of limits to Moore’s law see Brooke Crothers, “Moore’s Law Limit Hit by 2014?” cnet news, posted June 16, 2009.
41. “Current and projected rates of innovation might not be sufficient to improve or even maintain living standards in the face of still rapidly growing population, global warming, and other challenges of the 21st century,” according to Canadian economist James Brander. Barrie McKenna, “Has Innovation Hit a Brick Wall?” The Globe and Mail, December 26, 2010.
42. Martin Lowson, “A New Approach to Sustainable Transport Systems,” presented at the 13th World Clean Air and Environmental Congress, London, August 22–27, 2004; The conversion is: 0.55 MJ = 521.6 Btu; 1.609 km = 1 mi; therefore, 521.6 × 1.609 = 839; US Department of Energy, “Transportation Energy Data Book,” 2007.
43. Rick Jervis, “Pipes, Pumps Trouble Big Easy,” USA Today, posted December 16, 2010.
44. US Government Accountability Office, Global Positioning System: Significant Challenges in Sustaining and Upgrading Widely Used Capabilities, Report No. GAO-09-670T, May 7, 2009.
45. Vernon W. Ruttan, Is War Necessary for Economic Growth?: Military Procurement and Technology Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
46. In The Party’s Over, I discussed these strategies by which humanity has enlarged its carrying capacity, summarizing a longer seminal discussion in William Catton’s brilliant 1980 book Overshoot. Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over (Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers, 2003), pp. 14–33; William Catton, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (University of Illinois, 1980).
47. For an unrealistically optimistic view of what division of labor has achieved, see John Kay, “Why You Can Have an Economy of People Who Don’t Sweat,” Financial Times, Oct. 20, 2010.
48. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: Oxford University Press, World’s Classics Edition, 2008).
49. Economists frame the advantages of increased trade in terms of a concept called “comparative advantage.” Technically, comparative advantage means that each country will specialize in what it is good at, even if another country does everything better, and the result is that all countries benefit from trade. However, this assumes that capital can only be invested domestically. If instead capital can be invested anywhere, which is actually the case, then it will go to whichever country has an absolute advantage. The net result is even greater output than a world based on comparative advantage, but one in which not all countries benefit. Even in the comparative advantage model, economists recognize that some sectors in a country can lose out while others gain. In world of absolute advantage, the sectors that gain need not be in the same country as the sectors that lose. Herman Daly has made this point, but apparently Ricardo also recognized that comparative advantage depends on capital being invested domestically, which was the case in his day.
50. Frances Berdan, “Trade and Markets in Precapitalist States,” in Economic Anthropology, Stuart Plattner, ed. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989).
51. Jeff Rubin, Why Your World Is About To Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization (New York: Random House, 2009).
52. Jeff Rubin, “Oil and the End of Globalization,” transcript and video of a presentation at 2010 ASPO-USA, The Oil Drum, posted November 8, 2010, theoildrum.com/node/7095#more.
53. Julian Lincoln Simon, The Ultimate Resource (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
54. Herman Daly, “Ultimate Confusion The Economics of Julian Simon,” Social Contract Journal 13, no.3 (Spring, 2003).
55. Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Bjorn Lomborg, “Cool It:” The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming (New York: First Vintage Books, 2007); Cool It, movie by Ondi Timoner and Terry Botwick, 1019 Films, 2011.
56. The literature on the collapse of civilizations includes materials ranging widely in terms of quality of analysis. The best-selling recent book on the subject is Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking, 2005).
57. Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies, New Studies in Archaeology, (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Chapter Five
1. “Super Efficient Crew Builds 15-Story Chinese Hotel in Just SIX DAYS,” The Huffington Post, posted November 12, 2009.
2. Richard Heinberg and David Fridley, “The End of Cheap Coal,” Nature 468 (November 18, 2010), pp. 367–369.
3. Zaipu Tao and Mingyu Li, “What Is the Limit of Chinese Coal Supplies — A STELLA Model of Hubbert Peak,” Energy Policy 35, no.6 (June, 2007).
4. Werner Zittel and Jorg Schindler, Coal: Resources and Future Production, EWG-Paper 1/07 (Ottobrunn, Germany: Energy Watch Group, March 28, 2007).
5. Tadeusz W. Patzek and Gregory D. Croft, “A Global Coal Production Forecast with Multi-Hubbert Cycle Analysis,” Energy 35 (2010).
6. Don Miller, “Uranium Prices Surge on China’s $511 Billion Investment in Nukes,” MoneyMorning.com, posted December 7, 2010.
7. Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Nations That Debate Coal Use Export It to Feed China’s Need,” The New York Times, November 21, 2010.
8. This section draws heavily on the article “The Japan Syndrome” by Ethan Devine. However, see also the work of Chalmers Johnson on “the developmental state.” Ethan Devine, “The Japan Syndrome,” Foreign Policy, September 30, 2010; Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japannese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982).
9. Devine, “The Japan Syndrome,” Foreign Policy.
10. From a social standpoint, Japan handled its economic transition away from high growth rates well: throughout the 1990s, the Japanese unemployment rate was about three percent, only half the US rate at the time. The Japanese also maintained universal healthcare, and had low wealth inequality, low rates of infant mortality, crime and incarceration, as well as the highest life expectancy. Steven Hill, “Reconsidering Japan and Reconsidering Paul Krugman,” Truth-out.org, posted December 12, 2010.
11. Devine, “The Japan Syndrome,” Foreign Policy.
12. Ted C. Fishman, “As Populations Age, a Chance for Younger Nations,” The New York Times, October 14, 2010.
13. For another overview of this subject, see Dalibor Rohac, “Shaky Foundations to China’s Growth,” Asia Times online, posted October 21, 2010.
14. Chandni Rathod and Gus Lubin, “And Now Presenting: Amazing Satellite Images of the Ghost Cities of China,” Business Insider, posted December 14, 2010.
15. Wieland Wagner, “China’s Real Estate Bubble Threatens to Burst,” Spiegel Online, posted August 3, 2010.
16. To read more, see Bill Powell, “Inside China’s Runaway Building Boom,” Time.com, posted April 5, 2010.
17. Warren Karlenzig, “China’s New National Plan: Green By Necessity,” Common Current. com, posted November 29, 2010.
18. The history of currencies is recounted in Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (New York: Penguin Press, 2008).
19. See Wikipedia.org, “Genoa Conference (1922).”
20. See Wikipedia.org, “History of the United States Dollar” and “Nixon Shock.”
21. David E. Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).
22. See Marvin Friend, “A Short History of US Monetary Policy,” The Powell Center, powellcenter.org/econEssay/history.html.
23. Bill Black, “The EU’s New Bailout Plan Will Exacerbate Political Crises,” Business Insider, posted December 13, 2010.
24. See Wikipedia.org, “Foreign Exchange Market.”
25. To read more, see Edward Harrison, “Currencies Pegged to the Dollar Under Pressure to Drop Peg,” CreditWritedowns.com, posted October 13, 2009; Michael Hudson, “Why the US Has Launched a New Financial World War — And How the Rest of the World Will Fight Back,” alternet.org, posted October 12, 2010.
26. Michael Sauga and Peter Müller, “The US Has Lived on Borrowed Money For Too Long,” an interview with German Finance Minister Schäuble, Spiegel online, posted November 8, 2010.
27. See for example, “Finance Has Become a New Form of Warfare,” an interview with Michael Hudson, Information Clearing House, posted November 5, 2010; David De-Graw, “The Road to World War III — The Global Banking Cartel Has One Card Left to Play,” Amped Status, posted September 23, 2010; Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, “QE2 Risks Currency Wars and the End of Dollar Hegemony,” The Telegraph, November 1, 2010.
28. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, “The Eurozone is in Bad Need of an Undertaker,” The Telegraph, December 12, 2010.
29. Michael Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (New York: Henry Holt, 2008), chapter 6.
30. Vicken Cheterian, “The Arab Crisis: Food, Energy, Water, Justice,” Energy Bulletin, posted January 26, 2011.
31. Brice Pedroletti, “China Seeks to Mine Deep Sea Riches,” The Guardian, December 7, 2010.
32. For an excellent general overview of the population issue, see Bill Ryerson, “Population: The Multiplier of Everything Else,” in The Post Carbon Reader (Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2010); for an interactive Internet guide to population sizes and growth rates for all regions and countries, see “Explore the US Census Bureau’s International Data Base,” mazamascience.com, mazamascience.com/Population/IDB/.
33. “Pakistan: Population growth rate adds to problems,” irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91656 (accessed March 16, 2011).
34. Spengler, “Longevity Gives Life to Tea Party,” Asia Times online, posted December 7, 2010.
35. Population Media Center, populationmedia.org.
36. Sharon Astyk, Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2008); Sharon Astyk, “Peak Oil Is a Women’s Issue,” Relocalize.net, posted November 25, 2006.
37. “Mother: Caring Our Way Out of the Population Dilemma,” by Christophe Fauchere and Joyce Johnson, Tiroir A Films, 2011, motherthefilm.com.
38. See for example Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, Development Redefined: How the Market Met Its Match (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, August 2008); Edward Goldsmith et al., The Future of Progress: Reflections on Environment and Development (Totnes, Devon: Green Books, 1995).
39. Helena Norberg-Hodge, Ancient Futures: Learning From Ladakh (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991); John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (New York: Penguin Group, 2006).
40. United Nations Human Development Report 2010, The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, November, 2010).
41. See the report by Reset for the House of Commons All Party Parliamentary Committee on Peak Oil, The Impact of Peak Oil on Economic Development (Edinburgh: Reset, 2008).
42. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999).
43. Amartya Sen, “Development as Capability Expansion,” in Readings in Human Development, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and A. K. Shiva Kumar, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 3–16.
44. See page 22, “Quantitative Relationships Among Energy Use, GDP, and Other Socio-nomic Indicators,” in James H. Brown et al., “Energetic Limits to Economic Growth,” Bioscience 61, no.1 (January 2011), pp. 19–26.
45. Wikipedia, “Overdevelopment,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdevelopment.
46. Manfred A. Max-Neef, Antonio Elizalde, and Martin Hopenhayn, “Development and Human Needs,” chapter in Human Scale Development: Conception, Application, and Further Reflections (New York: Apex, 1991), p. 18.
47. Manfred Max-Neef, Antonio Elizalde, and Martin Hopenhayn, (in Spanish) “Desar-rollo a Escala Humana — Una Opción Para el Futuro,” Development Dialogue, número especial (CEPAUR y Fundación Dag Hammarskjold, 1986), p. 12; Manfred Max-Neef et al., “Human Scale Development: An Option for the Future,” Development Dialogue 1 (1989), pp. 7–80.
48. Wikipedia, “International Inequality,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_inequality.
49. Jim, “Desdemona at 2: The Environmentalist’s Paradox,” Desdemona’s Despair, posted December 2, 2010.
50. James B. Davies et al., The World Distribution of Household Wealth, United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (New York: UNU-WIDER, February 2008).
51.N aomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Picador, 2007).
52. (January/February 2011); Robert B. Reich, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).
Chapter 6
1. Michael Cooper and Mary Williams Walsh, “Mounting Debts by States Stoke Fears of Crisis,” The New York Times, December 4, 2010.
2. The connection between falling standards of living and political unrest has long been a subject of study. See J. C. Davies, “The J Curve of Rising and Declining Satisfactions As a Cause of Some Great Revolutions and a Contained Rebellion,” in The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, H. D. Graham and T. R. Gurr, eds. (New York: Praeger, 1969), pp. 690–730.
3. Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “Monitoring America,” The Washington Post, December 20, 2010.
4. Rick Munroe, “Review: Putting the Bundeswehr Report in Context,” Energy Bulletin, posted September 28, 2010.
5. Ferguson is discussing government debt only, but I have reworded his points somewhat and extrapolated them to refer to a more general debt crisis. Niall Ferguson, “Fiscal Crises and Imperial Collapses: Historical Perspectives on Current Predicaments,” presentation posted online, Business Insider, May 19, 2010, businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-sovereign-debt-2010-5#-26.
6. Richard Douthwaite and Gillian Fallon, eds., Fleeing Vesuvius: Overcoming the Risks of Economic and Environmental Collapse (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, forthcoming), p. 76.
7. Ellen Brown, “QE2: It’s the Federal Debt, Stupid!” Truthout, posted November 12, 2010.
8. Ellen Brown, “Austerity Fails in Euroland: Time for Some ‘Deficit Easing’,” Truthout, posted December 24, 2010.
9. A similar strategy is being pursued by JAK bank in Sweden, which issues no-interest loans to customers.
10. Ellen Brown, “Cash-Starved States Need to Play the Banking Game: North Dakota Shows How,” The Web of Debt, posted March 2, 2009.
11. The government could loan money into existence interest-free for projects deemed to be in the public interest that would generate enough revenue to repay the debt. It could buy municipal bonds at zero percent interest, for example, to help the current municipal fiscal crunch. Interest is the culprit more than the debt-based creation of money.
12. See, for example, Stephen Zarlenga’s The Lost Science of Money (New York: American Monetary Institute, 2002) and Margrit and Declan Kennedy’s Interest and Inflation Free Money (Lansing MI: Seva International, 1995).
13. Herman E. Daly and Joshua Farley, Ecological Economics (Washington DC: Island Press, 2004), p. 258.
14. Unfortunately, however, banks loan when the economy is booming and collect payments when it is shrinking, the opposite of what is required.
15. Transaction Net, “LETS — Local Exchange Trading Systems,” transaction.net/money/lets/.
16. Dierdre Kent, Healthy Money, Healthy Planet (Nelson, NZ: Craig Potton, 2005); Richard Douthwaite, The Ecology of Money (Totnes, Devon: Green Books, 2000); Bernard Lietaer, The Future of Money: Creating New Wealth, Work and a Wiser World (London: Random House, 2001); and Thomas Greco, Jr., Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2001).
17. BerkShares, Inc., “Local Currency for the Berkshire Region,” berkshares.org.
18. Other monetary theorists, including Bernard Lietaer, Richard Douthwaite, and Ellen Brown have arrived at essentially the same conclusion. See Ellen Brown, “Vision: Time for New Theory of Money,” YES! Magazine, posted December 21, 2010; Lietaer, The Future of Money; Richard Douthwaite, “The Supply of Money in an Energy-Scarce World,” in Fleeing Vesuvius, pp. 58–83.
19. Bernard Lietaer, “Why This Crisis? And What to Do About It?” lecture, TEDx Berlin, November 15, 2010, online at lietaer.com/; Bernard Lietaer, Robert Ulanowicz, and Sally Goerner, “Managing the Banking Crisis,” Lietaer.com, posted February 4, 2010.
20. Greco, The End of Money, pp. 171–189.
21. Greco, The End of Money.
22. Upon reading this paragraph, ecological economist Josh Farley commented: “My personal view is that the state should be solely responsible for creating money. It would be a receipt/IOU for services rendered, repayable in the form of taxes. Taxes would be used to regulate the money supply rather than a means of financing government expenditure. This would allow money creation by federal, state and local governments. To get around the Constitution, state and local governments would issue interest free bonds accepted for taxes rather than legal tender. I’ve participated in enough complementary currencies and credit clearing systems to recognize that their reality often falls short of their theoretical beauty.”
23. “Bartering, an age-old mode of commerce, has taken hold with a vengeance this year as the recession draws a broader spectrum of people trading everything from designer clothes to guitar lessons. The phenomenon is rooted partly in environmental concerns about crowded landfills and the energy consumed in manufacturing as well as a mainstream embrace of recycling. Social media like Facebook lend momentum to the swaps as people join forces to trade, share or negotiate better deals from retailers.” Mireya Navarro, “In a Tight Holiday Season, Some Turn to Barter,” The New York Times, December 22 2010.
24. Andrew Gavin Marshall, “The Financial New World Order: Towards a Global Currency and World Government,” Global Research.ca, posted April 6, 2009.
25. See, for example, Daly and Farley, Ecological Economics.
26. When a non-renewable resource is essential and substitution is very difficult, depletion should proceed no faster than we can develop renewable substitutes. We should capture the unearned income from the extraction of such resources (also known as rent or windfall profits, e.g. Exxon’s $46 billion in profits in 2008) and invest it in renewable substitutes.
27. Another way to say this: Waste emissions cannot exceed waste absorption capacity.
28. Lietaer, TEDx Berlin lecture, on lietaer.com. As economists define efficiency, it boils down to a maximization of monetary value, determined by willingness to pay. Converting corn to ethanol for Americans to drive their SUVs is more efficient than using it to feed malnourished Mexicans if Americans are willing to pay more. Perhaps we need to redefine efficiency as the satisfying the greatest number of human needs at the lowest ecological cost. Since GDP is a good proxy for ecological costs, it should go in the denominator of national welfare accounts.
29. Organizations studying and promoting ecological economics include: The International Society of Ecological Economics, The Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, The New Economics Institute, New Economics Foundation, The Capital Institute, and The Gund Institute.
30. Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth (London: Earthscan, 2009).
31. D. Woodward and A. Simms, Growth Isn’t Possible (London: New Economics Foundation, 2006), available online at neweconomics.org.
32. Herman Daly, “A Shift in the Burden of Proof,” The Daly News, steadystate.org/a-shift-in-the-burden-of-proof/.
33. Herman Daly, “Uneconomic Growth in Theory and in Fact,” the first annual Feasta lecture, at Trinity College Dublin, April 26, 1999.
34. Serge Latouche, Farewell to Growth (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2009).
35. Frederick Soddy, Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1926).
36. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Boston, 1854); Scott Nearing and Helen Nearing, Living the Good Life (New York: Schocken Books, 1970).
37. Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity (New York: HarperCollins, 1981); Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, Your Money or Your Life (New York: Viking Penguin, 1992).
38. Henry George, Progress and Poverty (New York: Doubleday, 1879); The Henry George Institute.
39. Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (New York: Macmillan, 1899).
40. Some other organizations and websites include the New Economics Institute, Capital Institute, New Economics Foundation, Third Millennium Economy, Real World Economics, paecon.net/PAEReview/, and ethicalmarkets.com.
41. Herman Daly, Steady-State Economics (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1991), p. 17.
42. Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy (CASSE), steadystate.org.
43. Brian Czech, Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
44. Peter Victor, Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2008); also Rob Dietz, “The ‘Good New Days’ in a Non-Growing Economy,” Energy Bulletin, posted October 25, 2010.
45. Susan Arterian Chang, “Moving Towards a Steady-State Economy,” The Finance Professionals’ Post, a publication of the New York Society of Security Analysts, posted April 12, 2010.
46. “Eco-Municipalities: Sweden and the United States,” knowledgetemplates.com, knowledgetemplates.com/sja/ecomunic.htm.
47. Daly and Farley, Ecological Economics, pp. 178–179.
48. Daly and Farley, Ecological Economics, p. 180.
49. Douthwaite and Fallon, Fleeing Vesuvius, p. 142 and following.
50. Douthwaite and Fallon, Fleeing Vesuvius, pp. 89–111; Daniel Fireside, “Community Land Trust Keeps Prices Affordable — For Now and Forever,” I, posted July 29, 2008; “Land Trust Success,” Land Trust Alliance, landtrustalliance.org. Brazil already does this, and has also imposed an additional tax on foreign investments in their stock market.
51. Hazel Henderson, hazelhenderson.com.
52. Hazel Henderson, “Real Economies and the Illusions of Abstraction,” Energy Bulletin, posted December 8, 2010; CDFI: Coalition of Community Development Financial Organizations, cdfi.org.
53. Joel Bakan, “The Corporation,” documentary movie, Big Picture Media Corporation, 2003.
54. Green America, greenamerica.org.
55. International Co-operative Alliance, “Statement on the Co-operative Identity,” ica .coop /coop/principles.html.
56. For expanded discussion of these points, see discussion of GNP in Arne Naess, Ecology, Community, and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
57. William D. Nordhaus and James Tobin, Is Growth Obsolete?, Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper 319 (New Haven: Yale University, 1971).
58. Unfortunately, the organization Redefining Progress seems to have become a casualty of the economic crisis.
59. Harvard Medical School Office of Public Affairs, “Happiness is a Collective — Not Just Individual — Phenomenon,” news alert, web.med.harvard .edu/sites/RELEASES/html /–christakis_happiness.html.
60. Jamie Smith Hopkins, “Putting a Dollar Figure on Progress,” The Baltimore Sun, September 11, 2010.
61. Joseph Stiglitz, Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, Report on the CMEPSP (September, 2009), p. 7.
62. The phrase “Green National Product” is from Clifford Cobb and John Cobb, The Green National Product: A Proposed Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (Minnesota: University Press of America, 1994), pp. 280–281.
63. Derek Bok, The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn From the New Research on Well-Being (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).
64. “David Cameron Aims to Make Happiness the New GDP,” The Guardian, November 14, 2010.
65. “Seattle Area Happiness Initiative,” Sustainable Seattle.org, sustainableseattle.org.
66. “ABAC Poll: Thai People Happiness Index Rose to 8 Out of 10 Points,” eThailand.com, posted December 6, 2010.
67. “Coronation Address of His Majesty King Khesar, the 5th Druk Gyalpo of Bhutan,” Gross National Happiness.com, November 7, 2008.
68. Cliff Kuang, “Infographic of the Day: Happiness Comes at a Price,” fastcodesign.com, posted December 8, 2010; happyplanetindex.org.
69. Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick, and John Page, “The Economics of Happiness,” a documentary movie, International Society for Ecology & Culture, 2011.
70. Lester Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009).
71. Lester Brown, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).
72. The book also discusses Tradable Energy Quotas, a consumer- and market-driven cap-and-trade fossil fuels quota rationing scheme now being evaluated by Parliament in the UK. Richard Heinberg, The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse (–Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2006). See also David Fleming and Shaun Chamberlin, “TEQs Tradable Energy Quotas: A Policy Framework for Peak Oil and Climate Change,” Energy Bulletin, posted January 18, 2011; TEQs: Media Coverage and Launch, teqs.net, teqs.net/report/media-coverage-and-launch-event/.
73. Albert Bates, The Biochar Solution (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2010).
74. Alan S. Drake, “Chapter 1: Electrified and Improved Railroads,” from An American Citizen’s Guide to an Oil-Free Economy, Energy Bulletin, posted October 27, 2010.
75. William N. Ryerson, “Population: The Multiplier of Everything Else,” in The Post Carbon Reader, Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch, eds. (Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2010), p. 153.
76. Roy Morrison, Ecological Democracy (Cambridge, MA:South End Press, 1995).
77. Joe Roman, Paul R. Ehrlich, Robert M. Pringle, and John C. Avise, “Facing Extinction: Nine Steps to Save Biodiversity,” Solutions 1, no.1 (February 24, 2009), pp. 50–61.
78. Richard Heinberg and Michael Bomford, “The Food and Farming Transition,” available online at PostCarbon.org, 2009.
79. The cultural, psychological, and institutional barriers to solving our 21st-century survival challenges are being addressed by the Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior. Stanford University, “Millenium Assessment of Human Behavior,” mahb .stanford.edu.
80. This is a slight rephrasing of Winston Churchill’s famous remark that “[t]he United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.”
81. Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich, New World New Mind: Moving Toward Conscious Evolution (Cambridge, MA: Malor Books, 2000).
82. Peter C. Whybrow, American Mania: When More is Not Enough (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005).
83.N ate Hagens, “The Psychological and Evolutionary Roots of Resource Overconsump-tion Revisited,” The Oil Drum, posted June 25, 2009, theoildrum.com/node/5519.
84. Kurt Cobb, “The Extremely Leisurely Pace of American Democracy and the Urgency of Our Predicament,” Resource Insights, posted January 9, 2011.
85. There are long and deep traditions valorizing voluntary poverty in Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist societies and literature. Many pre-agricultural societies were organized around a “Big Man” who gained prestige by giving away all his material possessions. See Marvin Harris and Orna Johnson, Cultural Anthropology, 7th ed. (Pearson, 2006), pp. 172–175.
86. Whybrow, American Mania.
Chapter 7
1. Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster (New York: Viking Books, 2009).
2. Lewis Aptekar, Environmental Disasters in Global Perspective (New York: G. K. Hall, 1994).
3. See James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape (New York: Free Press, 1994); and Gregory Greene, “The End of Suburbia,” video documentary, The Electric Wallpaper Co., 2004.
4. Wikipedia, “Transition Towns,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns.
5. Rob Hopkins, Transition Handbook (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2008).
6. Hopkins, Transition Handbook, p. 15.
7. Formerly archived at: transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/CheerfulDisclaimer
8. Transition Town Totnes, transitiontowntotnes.org.
9. Rob Hopkins, “Ingredients of Transition: Strategic Local Infrastructure,” Energy Bulletin, posted December 15, 2010.
10. Common Security Clubs, commonsecurityclub.org.
11. “Discover Tools for Facilitators,” and “Common Security Club Forum,” Common Security Clubs, commonsecurityclub.org.
12. Sarah Byrnes, “Learning to Live on Less,” YES! Magazine, posted December 23, 2010.
13. Community Action Partnership, communityactionpartnership.com.
14. I suggest the term “laboratory” because the sorts of efforts and enterprises that will best serve communities under rapidly evolving economic circumstances may not be apparent or even knowable at the outset — we will have to experiment. However, it is by no means essential or even important that the entities envisioned adopt this suggested title. Some communities may prefer slightly different names for political reasons: a Local Enterprise Laboratory, for example, might fare better in red states.
15. Colleen Kimmet, “Better Than A Food Bank,” Energy Bulletin, posted November 5, 2010; Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center, mmfec.org.
16. Marcin Jakubowski, “Global Village Construction Set,” Make, Green Project Contest, makezine.com/tagyourgreen/detail.csp?id=95.
17. “The JAK Members Bank,” JAK Medlemsbank, jak.aventus.nu/22.php.
18. “Sustainable Commercial Urban Farm Incubator (SCUFI) Program,” VirtuallyGreen.com.
19. John Michael Greer, The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2009), p. 76.
20. Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, dancingrabbit.org.
21. Diana Leafe Christian, Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2007) and Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 2003); Communities: Life in Cooperative Culture Magazine, communities. ic.org; Global Ecovillage Network, gen.ecovillage.org.
22. You can also access a trove of articles about them through YES! Magazine.
23. The phrase “great turning” has been used by activist and Buddhist teacher Joanna Macy, and was adopted by David Korten as the title of a recent book. The “turning” I am referring to is perhaps less politically and spiritually nuanced than what Macy and Korten describe.
24. Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (New York: Basic Books, 2009).