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Nine Meals from Anarchy
Pdf here (44 pages)
Oil dependence, climate change and the transition to resilience
Imagine that the the petrol stations ran dry. The trucks would stop rolling. The supermarket shelves would be bare within three days. We would be nine meals away from anarchy.
In this pamphlet, nef Policy Director Andrew Simms explores the chronic vulnerability of our oil-dependent society. Originally given as a talk at Schumacher North in Leeds, Nine Meals from Anarchy examines how climate change, competition for resources, decline in oil production and the international food crisis will cause system collapses far greater than the economic crisis.
Simms proposes that we need to act quickly to rebuild resilience into our economy. By looking to countries that have already faced energy descent - such as Cuba - and to periods of the UK's own history when resources were scarce - such as during the Second World War - we can learn how best to act now. Drawing on the Transition Town movement, nef's work on the core economy and the gathering demands for a Green New Deal, Simms charts a course towards a sustainable, resilient and careful future.
Imagine that the the petrol stations ran dry. The trucks would stop rolling. The supermarket shelves would be bare within three days. We would be nine meals away from anarchy.
In this pamphlet, nef Policy Director Andrew Simms explores the chronic vulnerability of our oil-dependent society. Originally given as a talk at Schumacher North in Leeds, Nine Meals from Anarchy examines how climate change, competition for resources, decline in oil production and the international food crisis will cause system collapses far greater than the economic crisis.
Simms proposes that we need to act quickly to rebuild resilience into our economy. By looking to countries that have already faced energy descent - such as Cuba - and to periods of the UK's own history when resources were scarce - such as during the Second World War - we can learn how best to act now. Drawing on the Transition Town movement, nef's work on the core economy and the gathering demands for a Green New Deal, Simms charts a course towards a sustainable, resilient and careful future.
One morning in August in the year 2000, a gathering happened of very worried men from several, very powerful companies at the heart of government, in one of the world’s richest countries.
Around Britain, farmers and truck drivers angered by the rising cost of keeping their vehicles running were blockading fuel depots across the country. They had found, and were paralysing, the critical infrastructure of a Western nation more effectively than any terrorist organisation.
At the height of the protests, hunkered down in private, serious meetings, Britain’s biggest supermarkets, who account for around 80 per cent of our food supply, were telling Ministers and civil servants that the shelves could be bare within three days.
We were, in effect, nine meals from anarchy.
Now, I like my food. I’m a grazer; something to eat at least once an hour. I react to its potential withdrawal much like a dog reacts to any encroachment on its food bowl while eating. So imagine how I feel to be told the cupboard will soon be bare.
Nothing reveals the thin veneer of civilisation like a threat to its food or fuel supply, or the cracks in society like a major climate-related disaster. A cocktail of all three will give cold sweats to the most hardened emergency planner. But that is what we face.
Imminent, potentially irreversible, global warming; the global peak and decline of oil production; a global food chain in crisis – three linked, interacting dynamics complicated by yet another, a rich-world debt crisis.
Since I was a child, I’ve been quietly haunted by a book I read called Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing. In it, for some reason left vague, society had broken down. Everywhere people were on the move, displaced, the lucky few leaving the city to stay with relatives in the country. In Britain, the outset of the Second World War became known as the ‘phony war’ because there was no fighting and the conflict seemed unreal. In spite of all the news reporting, I sense in Britain today a ‘phony calm,’ that belies the seriousness of our situation.
It’s why I want to explore how we can rapidly make a transition away from a system characterised by increasing fragility and vulnerability, towards one that is resilient – socially, ecologically and economically – and has the capacity to adapt to both environmental and human changes.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Around Britain, farmers and truck drivers angered by the rising cost of keeping their vehicles running were blockading fuel depots across the country. They had found, and were paralysing, the critical infrastructure of a Western nation more effectively than any terrorist organisation.
At the height of the protests, hunkered down in private, serious meetings, Britain’s biggest supermarkets, who account for around 80 per cent of our food supply, were telling Ministers and civil servants that the shelves could be bare within three days.
We were, in effect, nine meals from anarchy.
Now, I like my food. I’m a grazer; something to eat at least once an hour. I react to its potential withdrawal much like a dog reacts to any encroachment on its food bowl while eating. So imagine how I feel to be told the cupboard will soon be bare.
Nothing reveals the thin veneer of civilisation like a threat to its food or fuel supply, or the cracks in society like a major climate-related disaster. A cocktail of all three will give cold sweats to the most hardened emergency planner. But that is what we face.
Imminent, potentially irreversible, global warming; the global peak and decline of oil production; a global food chain in crisis – three linked, interacting dynamics complicated by yet another, a rich-world debt crisis.
Since I was a child, I’ve been quietly haunted by a book I read called Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing. In it, for some reason left vague, society had broken down. Everywhere people were on the move, displaced, the lucky few leaving the city to stay with relatives in the country. In Britain, the outset of the Second World War became known as the ‘phony war’ because there was no fighting and the conflict seemed unreal. In spite of all the news reporting, I sense in Britain today a ‘phony calm,’ that belies the seriousness of our situation.
It’s why I want to explore how we can rapidly make a transition away from a system characterised by increasing fragility and vulnerability, towards one that is resilient – socially, ecologically and economically – and has the capacity to adapt to both environmental and human changes.
.
.
.
.
.
.