Parts of this essay have already been published as ‘Pandemic brooding: can the permaculture movement survive the first severe test of the energy descent future?’ In this longer essay, David Holmgren explores the responses to the pandemic in light of his Future Scenarios work.
Extract:
I think it is important to see the Brown Tech world as a logical unfolding of energy descent systemic forces breaking down the techno-industrial world, rather than a great battle of benign wisdom over recalcitrant and subversive resistors, or alternatively, an evil plan for world domination that must be resisted at every turn. For an increasingly alienated, perhaps minority of permies, the emergent Brown Tech world is experienced as a mad undemocratic process taking away our rights and freedoms and imposing controls over previously private lives, possibly driven by shadowy elites striving for world domination or worse. This of course leads to association with people of very different values and backgrounds.
Introduction
The welcome signs of spring are all around me at Melliodora and Spring Creek1 after a wet and gloomy winter. With very little passive solar gain, we burnt more wood, and with barely enough photovoltaic power to pump water and power a few other essential functions, we relied on backup from the Victorian grid – still dominated by coal, despite the impressive roll out of wind farms around our region. It was damp enough to remind us of the old days before acceleration of climate change, which has given us more winter sun but less groundwater recharge or fungal decomposition to moderate the fuel loads during the ensuing fire season.
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