Energy. It's powerful. It's plentiful. And it's going to become scarcer.

So says the co-founder of the permaculture design system, David Holmgren.

“We’ve been living with the greatest surplus of dead energy any society has ever had and we’ve done some pointless things with it as well as some rather brilliant things we hopefully won’t have to throw away in future. 

“I see energy descent as a rather gentle decline - like a balloon coming back to earth - as its most hopeful future. I expect energy decent will mirror energy ascent. It will happen very fast over several decades then more slowly over several centuries.

"The sting in the tail is that the rate of change appears much greater due to the radical change of direction. Everything we’ve taken to be true for centuries in our Western cultural lineage, which is now a global culture not of place but of no-place - could change. Almost everyone in the world has a foot in this culture and another foot, partly… maybe… in a culture of place.

“In line with permaculture, which is interested in opportunities, I want to look at the opportunities coming from energy descent".

Low-input farming - a new competitiveness

In an energy decent scenario stemming from the peaking of the global oil supply - the time at which discovery of new oil reserves falls behind the demand for oil, “The higher prices for energy, and therefore food, will allow low-input and organic farming to compete', says David.

“This will partly re-level the playing field because the energy subsidy that currently allows the large scale, centralised systems to be the most powerful and most profitable will diminish.

“It will increase the incentive for the local, including urban agriculture, and for garden agriculture where people grown food for their own use. It will lead to the growth of food co-ops, community gardens, city farms, farmers’ markets and CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture)".

Reduced mobility, positive outcomes

“The reduced mobility of people and goods will have some positives" David claims.

"Reduced personal mobility will kick start household and local economies – this relocalisation process. The more people that are in-place, and the more that goods are not moving so far... that just might stimulate those household and local economies. It will make those local products more competitive than imported ones.

“It will stimulate self-reliance, retrofit, repair and recycling, not necessarily because those things are seen as environmentally good but just because they are economic, sensible and practical ways to deal with circumstances.

"Reduced mobility will increase community interaction and exchange".

Power shift

In the UK, the USA and now in Australia, the idea of relocalisation is gaining ground. Relocalisation is the process of developing local sources of food, employment and entertainment and developing local economies and livelihoods. Its supporters say that relocalisation rebuilds local cultures and will be an important means of dealing with the increasing costs and reduced availability of goods and services stemming from the peaking of the oil supply. Sustainability advocates point out that relocalisation has an equally important role in adapting to global warming.

“Relocalisation will shift power and value to give more respect to older people with self-reliance skills. It will bring more respect to people who can work physically – now that would be a turn-around, wouldn’t it?

“I think it will lead to demand for permaculture as life skills education because this – in Australia – has been the great track record of permaculture – helping to empower people that they can look after themselves in positive ways.

..................................................

There are around six relocalisation groups in Australia. Learn more at: www.relocalize.net