Tag Archives: Climate change

212. The Wood Economy Revisited: A Future Rooted in Locality

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The wood economy is becoming an essential part of the emerging informal economy as the industrial system contracts.

This piece explains how woodland, simple tools, and long-established country practices can help communities meet everyday needs close to home.  It shows how wood underpins food, heat, building, movement and local exchange in a future shaped by constraint rather than growth.

Wood in Local Communities Through History

For most of British history, wood lay at the centre of daily life.  Local communities depended on nearby woodland for heat, cooking, tools, buildings, wagons, fencing and household goods.  Coppiced woods provided fuel and poles on a regular cycle, while hedgerows supplied timber, shelter, wildlife habitat and food.  Woodland was rarely decorative.  It was a working asset.

Many villages managed shared woods through custom rather than formal authority.  People understood how to cut, season and use wood because survival depended on it.  This long experience shows that a locality-based wood economy is not new.  It is a return to ways of living that sustained communities for centuries.

Woodland and the Wider Country Economy

Woodland forms part of the essential landscape needed for a self-reliant food economy.  Hedgerows, copses and shelterbelts protect crops, reduce wind, retain soil moisture and create favourable microclimates.  As the economy shrinks, large farms are broken up, and more people work the land directly, these wooded features become central to everyday production.

Earlier writing on farming noted the increasing need for simple, human-powered equipment, as diesel will become unaffordable.  Wood supplies handles, frames, wheels, carts and barrows in a world where metal may be scarce or costly.  Woodland management, therefore, links directly to the revival of small farms, gardens and mixed livelihoods across the country.

Seasonal woodland work also returns.  Coppicing, charcoal-making, hedgelaying, and sawpit work provide winter employment that fits naturally with the farming year.  People move between land work and wood work as seasons change, creating a flexible pattern of labour suited to a shrinking economy.

Why Wood Matters in a Shrinking Economy

As the wider economy contracts, households depend increasingly on what they can produce or exchange close to home.  Wood is one of the few materials that can be grown, worked, repaired, reused and converted into energy without industry.  It is renewable, warm, workable and versatile.  It provides heat, shelter, tools, fencing, charcoal and countless everyday goods.

Industrial materials such as steel, concrete, and plastics cannot be produced locally.  Wood can.  This difference places wood at the centre of the future informal economy.

Locality-Based Production

As discretionary employment declines and essential work expands, demand grows for local supplies of wood for buildings, fencing, fuel, tools and workshops.  This leads to the revival of small woodlands, community wood centres and informal sawpits.

Each locality manages woodland for mixed uses.  Coppicing returns because it provides a steady flow of poles, firewood and small timber.  Hedgerows are maintained for both materials and wildlife.  The emphasis is on continuous production rather than clear cuts.  Examples already exist, such as the Woolhope community woodfuel cooperative in Herefordshire, which manages woodland for long-term local heat supply.

Local Wood Co‑operatives

Across the UK, several groups already manage woodland and supply local heat in ways that reflect the future wood economy.  The Dartmoor Woodfuel Cooperative brings together woodland owners and biomass boiler users to produce local woodchip for heating buildings.  The Springbok Sustainable Wood Heat Cooperative runs a district heating system fuelled by wood harvested from nearby woodland.

These examples show how communities can manage woodland themselves, reduce reliance on external energy and keep woodland in continuous production.

Wood for Heat, Cooking and Power

As fossil fuels become expensive and unreliable, heating and cooking shift toward biomass.  Wood-burning stoves and ranges become common, supported by shared wood yards within the locality.

Charcoal plays an essential role in cooking, water filtration and small craft industries.  People relearn how to make charcoal using earth clamps or simple kilns, turning coppice waste into a clean, storable fuel.  Charcoal making provides seasonal work and links woodland management with food and craft activity.

Buildings and Structures in the Country

Future wooden country buildings will support farming and locally based work.  Buildings are simple, functional and wood-framed, using local timber where possible.  Sheds, shelters, workshops, and small dwellings will support food production and wood-based activities.

As the industrial system contracts, formal planning systems may fade altogether.  Construction focuses on need rather than permission, with local agreement replacing central control.  Large-scale buildings will decline because communities will become largely self-contained.  Within each locality, modest structures related to farming, wood production and craft activity will be built as required.

Wooden Tramways and Local Movement

Before iron rails and powered transport, wooden tramways were widely used to move heavy materials short distances.  Timber rails reduced friction and allowed carts or wagons to carry loads that would otherwise require far greater effort.

In a shrinking economy, wooden tramways offer a practical way to move logs, firewood, stone, compost, crops and building materials between woodland, fields, workshops and stores.  Built and maintained from local timber, they require no fuel or complex machinery and sit naturally within a wood-based economy.  They support steady, predictable movement rather than speed.

As mobility declines, transport becomes slower and more local.  Wood is used to make and repair handcarts, barrows, bicycle trailers and small wagons.  These simple tools move food, timber, water and goods around the locality.  Movement beyond the locality declines as discretionary travel falls.  Daily life reorganises around short distances.

Everyday Woodcraft and Skills

The wood economy relies on skills learnt locally.  People make fence posts, gates, stools, shelves, carts, tool handles, bread paddles and household items.  Exchange often takes place through barter, gifting and shared work rather than formal money.

This strengthens local identity and reduces dependence on distant supply chains.

Woodland, hedgerows and copses form part of a broader food-producing landscape.  As more people work directly in farming, wood supplies fencing, animal housing, tools and heat.

Wood processing often takes place alongside farm work.  A hedgelayer produces bean poles and firewood.  A smallholder runs a sawpit in winter and grows food in summer.  This flexible pattern of work defines the emerging economy.

Woodlands moderate the local climate.  Trees hold moisture, reduce wind, cool summer heat and shelter crops and animals.  These effects reduce risk and increase resilience as external inputs decline.

Coppice, Hedgerows and Long‑Term Structure

Coppice cycles provide a living store of future materials.  Short cycles supply poles and fuel; longer cycles provide larger timber.  Coppiced woodland regenerates itself without replanting, offering durability and continuity.  Hedgerows provide annual cuttings, firewood, poles and stakes, becoming productive assets rather than boundaries.

Historically, woodland was governed through local rights such as estovers.  Estovers were traditional rights in English common law that allowed people to take necessary wood for fuel and essential repairs.  Such customs show how communities once managed shared resources through agreement rather than central authority.

As industrial goods become scarce, wood replaces many everyday items.  Wooden fixings, tools, crates, fencing and utensils reduce dependence on long supply chains and keep essential goods available locally.

Lightly wooded areas support goats, pigs and poultry.  Animals browse, forage and shelter among trees, strengthening the local food system.  Earlier work also explored wood coins as a simple system of local exchange.  These are not money but tokens representing practical work, often linked to cutting, seasoning or processing wood.  Rooted in real labour and local materials, they help value circulate within the community.

A Slow and Inevitable Transition

The wood economy will not arrive suddenly.  It will grow quietly as incomes fall, travel declines and industrial goods become harder to afford.  Communities turn to what they can produce locally.  Wood meets many needs without industry.

The wood economy is the natural outcome of a shrinking formal economy.  It is practical, achievable and grounded in the landscape.  Above all, it supports the social economy that emerges when people depend more on one another and less on distant systems.

Justice and Governance in the Wood Economy

As the industrial economy contracts, its large and remote systems of government also weaken.  These systems were built on scale, fossil energy and distance.  In a wood economy, governance must return to a human scale.  Power becomes visible, comprehensible and grounded in everyday life.

Justice in the wood economy is not imposed from above.  It grows out of custom, shared need and practical stewardship of land, woodland and resources.  The aim is not efficiency for its own sake, but fairness, continuity and low energy use.

A Single Council and Court

Each locality governs itself through a single body that combines the roles of council and court.  This Council of Custom and Stewardship sets local ordinances, oversees shared resources and settles disputes.  The model draws inspiration from historic systems such as the Chief Pleas government of Sark, in the Channel Islands, where a single assembly and its committees manage law, administration, and justice for the whole island.

Adult residents of several years’ standing may vote and stand for election.  The council will be small enough for members to know one another and the people they serve.  Members retire in rotation to preserve continuity while allowing renewal.  A presiding executive Steward will carry out day-to-day duties and represent the locality when required.

The Annual Assembly of Continuity

Short-term councils can respond quickly but lack a long-term perspective.  To address this, each locality holds an Annual Assembly of Continuity.  Long-standing residents gather to debate and agree on matters that affect future generations: woodland rotation, housing limits, water use, energy sources, education and trade priorities.

Decisions agreed at the assembly form a binding framework for the year ahead and are recorded in a Book of Continuity.  In this way, immediate decision-making is guided by long-term responsibility to land and community.

Law and the Court of Custom

Disputes are heard in public by a small panel of council members, supported by a clerk and, when needed, a jury of neighbours.  Most cases concern boundaries, woodland use, water access, noise, craft standards or broken agreements.

Punishment is rare.  The purpose of justice is restoration rather than deterrence.  Outcomes focus on apology, repair, compensation or service to the community.  Decisions are recorded, forming a growing body of local common law rooted in lived experience.

Localities cooperate through voluntary federations to manage shared rivers, tramways, woodland, paths and trade.  Delegates are chosen for competence rather than ambition.  Their task is to negotiate, not command.

Where disputes cannot be resolved locally, they may be referred onward by agreement.

The UK-Wide Court of Review

To preserve fairness across the country while respecting local autonomy, a single UK-wide Court of Review exists.  Its role is limited.  It does not legislate or manage daily life.

Instead, it ensures that local ordinances remain consistent with common law principles, basic fairness, environmental responsibility and agreed national standards such as weights, measures and coinage.  It also resolves disputes between localities when federations cannot reach an agreement.

Localities lead.  The national body reviews.

Policing and Safety

Each locality appoints a Constable and Deputies, usually by rotation or election.  Their role is to keep the peace, respond to emergencies and act as witnesses or mediators.  Their powers are deliberately modest.

Order rests more on reputation, visibility and mutual dependence than on coercion.  Serious crimes are rare and handled jointly by several localities under the guidance of the Court of Review.

Why Governance Evolves with the Wood Economy

This approach fits the wood economy because it is simple, transparent, and low-energy.  Decisions are made close to where their effects are felt.  Responsibility is personal rather than abstract.  Long-term stewardship is built into the system.

As with the wood economy itself, these forms are not prescriptions.  They will be refined through use.  What matters is that law remains near to those it governs, power remains visible, and fairness remains the foundation of community life.

184. Boundaries and Belonging in the Wood Economy

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Boundaries and Belonging in the Western world was built on the power of fossil fuels. Coal, oil, and gas released more energy in a century than wood and muscle had done in thousands of years. They allowed cities to sprawl, food to travel, and people to live far from the sources of what sustained them.

Now that age is ending. As the fossil-fuel economy contracts — through depletion, cost, and climate constraint — its vast systems begin to shrink. The future will be slower, more local, and more dependent on renewable energy from the land itself. Out of this contraction will grow a new pattern of life: the wood economy.

The Natural Form of Localities

A locality is a human-scale ecosystem — a place defined not by lines on a map but by what can be sustained within its reach of energy and resources. Its extent depends on population density, terrain, and the effort needed to move people, goods, and ideas.

In the countryside, where populations are sparse, a locality may cover several former parishes, linked by woodland, water, and tramway. In towns it may be no more than a few streets and workshops clustered around a market square. Each finds its natural limit where daily cooperation and personal knowledge can still hold.

Dorothy Hartley, writing in Made in England, reminded us that water gathers in valleys and that “man follows water.” The mill stood where the stream turned, and cottages grew around it. In the coming age, those same patterns will return. Localities will once again form along rivers, ridges, and catchments, for water defines both boundary and lifeblood.

From Parishes to Localities

The ancient parishes of England were never arbitrary. Their lines often followed tribal lands, ridgelines, or watersheds — boundaries that made sense to people who walked them.

As the industrial framework recedes, those old contours will quietly reassert themselves. Localities will emerge around shared coppices, mills, and meeting halls. They may overlap or divide, depending on geography and population. The essential unit will be small enough for familiarity, large enough for self-reliance.

Energy descent makes smallness practical again. Without cheap fuel, long-distance commuting and centralised services fade. Authority and accountability return to where people can see one another’s work.

Cities Dividing into Localities

Cities were once groups of villages. London, Birmingham, and Manchester all began as loose clusters of settlements that later fused together under coal and steam.

As fossil-fuel energy declines, this process reverses. Cities will redivide into localities — self-managed neighbourhoods with their own gardens, workshops, and shared facilities. Electric grids may fragment; heating will become localised; transport will slow. The metropolis will soften back into a constellation of distinct communities, each aware of its boundaries and its dependence on nearby others.

This is not collapse, but re-formation — the industrial city returning to its village roots, adapted to a lower-energy future.

Population and Scale

The functioning size of a locality depends on density and resources. Rural localities may sustain a few hundred people across wide acres; urban ones may include several thousand. Beyond that, personal accountability fades and bureaucracy returns.

Sociological research supports this. Communities of about five hundred to five thousand can manage their own economies and decision-making without rigid hierarchies. It is roughly the range in which people can know one another by face and reputation — the foundation of trust.

Water and Power

Water is both a boundary and an energy source. Streams, rivers, and valleys determine settlement, as they always have. Water mills will return to importance — grinding grain, sawing timber, pressing oil, or generating small amounts of electricity.

Each catchment becomes a cooperative system: those who live upstream must safeguard the flow for those below. This natural interdependence replaces distant regulation. The landscape itself becomes the framework of law.

Shared Culture and Specialisation

Localities will not all look alike. Each will develop its own identity and special skill. Just as Studley in Warwickshire became known for needle making, others will be known for woodworking, pottery, herbal medicine, or glass.

Such specialisation gives character to the country and underpins small-scale trade between localities. Products carry the mark of place — tools stamped with a local symbol, pottery fired with clay from a known pit, honey tasting of a particular valley’s flowers.

The national economy thus becomes a patchwork of productive localities, trading modest surpluses rather than mass goods.

Migration and Renewal

Migration will continue — both within and into the UK — but at a slower, more deliberate pace.

Within the country, people will leave high-cost urban areas for smaller, self-reliant settlements where they can work directly in food, craft, or care. Migration from abroad will also persist, as it has through all British history. Newcomers will find belonging through participation — working in coppices, mills, or workshops, and sharing in local festivals and responsibilities.

Cultural diversity will remain, but it will be expressed through work and contribution, not separation. Each new skill or tradition becomes part of the local identity, as happened through centuries of craft migration before the fossil age.

Religion, Practice, and Social Cohesion

Faith will return to smaller meeting places — timber halls, converted barns, or open groves. Religious life will be woven into the calendar of work and season: planting, harvest, and renewal.

Doctrinal difference will matter less than shared values — fairness, stewardship, and respect for life. The rhythm of communal feasts and quiet observances will reinforce belonging and give spiritual coherence to the practical life of the locality.

Railways and the Shape of Settlement

Even in a shrinking fossil-fuel economy, inter-locality rail lines will survive. They are among the most durable artefacts of industrial civilisation — built to last and easily maintained.

Coal, charcoal, or wood-gas-fired steam engines will continue to move goods and travellers at moderate speeds. They will form the spine of national cohesion, linking one cluster of localities to another.

Settlement will once again centre around stations, as it did before the motor age. People will walk or ride five miles to meet the train, just as they did in the 19th century. Footpaths and tramways will radiate from each station like the spokes of a wheel, connecting workshops, markets, and homes.

Around these railheads small service centres will grow — inns, warehouses, repair shops, post rooms, and guild exchanges. The old sprawl of suburbia will contract into distinct, walkable communities, each aware of its boundary and connection.

The train, no longer a symbol of haste, becomes the rhythm of inter-local exchange. It allows movement and trade without sacrificing locality.

Boundaries That Breathe

The boundaries of localities will never be fixed. They will expand and contract as woodlands grow, water shifts, and populations change. Cooperation between neighbours replaces central direction.

Localities will link through federations — councils of guild representatives and mints — managing trade, transport, and environmental care. Decision-making will rise only as far as necessary, never higher.

These boundaries breathe like the lungs of the nation, each drawing in what it needs and exhaling what it can share.

The Shape of the Nation to Come

As the fossil-fuel economy contracts, it will not simply vanish — it will recede like a tide, leaving behind a network of harbours, tracks, and skills ready for reuse. The national framework remains, but it is no longer a structure of command; it becomes a pattern of cooperation.

Britain will settle into a mosaic of working localities — each tending its own woods and water, producing food, craft, and culture, and linked by the rail lines, canals, and coastal routes of the old industrial world. The capital and the great cities will endure, but not as engines of growth: they will serve as exchange points, libraries, and archives — the memory of the nation.

Movement will slow, but life will deepen. The quality of existence will no longer be measured by output but by balance — between work and rest, between locality and landscape, between human need and nature’s capacity.

This is not a return to the past but a re-rooting in continuity. The wood economy represents not nostalgia, but maturity — a civilisation adjusting to the limits of the living world. It is a Britain smaller in scale, steadier in rhythm, and richer in meaning — a land once more shaped by the patient flow of water and the enduring work of human hands.

183. Britain’s Growing Dependence on Foreign Electricity – Why Localism Is the Answer

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The Telegraph: “Britain more reliant than ever on foreign electricity imports” (20 October 2025)

The Telegraph reports that Britain is now importing around 16 percent of its electricity in the first nine months of this year, up from 15.6 percent the year before. The cause lies in the decline of the nation’s generating capacity, high domestic prices compared with France and Norway, and the economics of undersea interconnectors that automatically draw in cheaper foreign power.

This growing dependence exposes a fundamental weakness in the centralised energy system. When national supply contracts, and foreign imports fill the gap, Britain becomes more vulnerable to international price shifts, market volatility, and cross-border politics. The remedy is not simply to build more giant projects but to change the structure of the system itself.

Localism: The Practical Alternative

1. Resilient, locally controlled supply
Local energy generation – solar panels on roofs, community wind farms, small-scale hydro, or biomass systems – can supply local needs directly. This reduces exposure to the fluctuating international market and gives communities a degree of energy independence that the national grid cannot.

2. Matching production with local demand
A localised system aligns supply with the pattern of local consumption. Energy generated nearby is used nearby, cutting transmission losses and easing strain on national infrastructure.

3. Faster delivery through community engagement
Large projects often stall in the planning system. Local schemes, supported by residents and councils, can be built quickly. Local ownership generates pride and participation, creating a virtuous circle of trust and investment.

4. Keeping value within the community
When electricity is produced locally, so is its economic benefit. Revenue from generation stays in the locality, creating jobs and funding further investment in storage, maintenance, and energy efficiency.

What This Looks Like

Localities could develop networks of community energy cooperatives, each managing their own mix of solar, wind, and battery storage. Councils could coordinate neighbourhood micro-grids, ensuring power stability and fair distribution. Local demand-management schemes could smooth peaks in usage, reducing the need for imported electricity at critical times.

These developments do not replace national systems – they strengthen them from the ground up. The national grid becomes a backup, not the lifeline it is today.

A Necessary Evolution

The UK’s generating capacity fell to 71.7 gigawatts last year, down 3 percent. That trend will not reverse quickly. Centralised, capital-intensive projects take years to complete. Local energy projects can be conceived, financed, and operating within months.

Localism therefore represents the natural evolution of the British energy system – smaller, faster, more flexible, and more secure.

Conclusion

Britain’s growing reliance on foreign electricity is a symptom of over-centralisation and under-investment in local capacity. The answer lies not in larger reactors or longer cables, but in empowering local communities to generate and manage their own energy. Localism restores control, strengthens resilience, and keeps wealth circulating where it is produced.

The power Britain needs for the future may not come from across the Channel, but from its own localities – rooftop by rooftop, turbine by turbine.

177. When the Waters Rise: Localism in an Age Without Government Rescue

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Aviva’s report, Building Future Communities, prompted this piece. It warns that millions more homes in Britain will face flooding by 2050. The threat is not confined to coasts and rivers. Much of the new risk will come from within towns and cities, where heavy rain overwhelms drains and the land can no longer clear the water.

The report describes a Britain where formal defences can no longer cope. Dykes, pumps, and culverts were built for a climate that no longer exists. The ground is wetter, storms are heavier, and budgets are thinner. Aviva calls for resilience in building and planning, but it also hints at a more profound truth — that some places may no longer be defendable.

History offers a warning. On the Humber estuary, the medieval town of Ravenser Odd was once a busy port with its own market and church. It stood near today’s Spurn Point. Repeated storms and shifting tides gradually destroyed it. By 1362, it had been swallowed by the sea. The people left, and the name survived only on old charts.

Hull stands further inland, but faces a similar danger. About ninety per cent of the city lies below the level of a high tide in the Humber. Its safety depends entirely on a network of pumping stations that lift water out of low ground and push it towards the estuary. When tides are high, sluices close and the pumps must run continuously to prevent water from flowing back into the city.

In 2007, heavy rain overwhelmed parts of the system. Pumping stations failed, and water poured through streets and homes. Since then, the pumps have been modernised, but their dependence on electricity, maintenance, and constant management remains. Without them, large areas of Hull would lie underwater within days.

The city’s long history of self-reliance is reflected not only in its flood defences but in its communications. Hull is the only place in Britain with its own independent telephone network, founded by the city council in 1904. Local control of the telephone system meant that engineers and pumping stations could always stay in contact, even if national lines failed. The decision was made for practical reasons — to keep the pumps, power, and emergency services connected — but it became a symbol of the city’s independence. That local autonomy, once an oddity, now looks like a model for the future.

The lesson is stark. Hull does not stand above the flood. It stays dry only because machines keep it so. As sea levels rise, the pumps must work harder against higher tides. When costs or power shortages interrupt the system, flooding will return.

Flooding is not just a coastal story. Inland towns face a different but equally dangerous threat. Tewkesbury, where the Severn meets the Avon, has flooded repeatedly in recent years. In 2007, it was cut off entirely, and thousands of homes were lost to the water. Each time the pattern repeats — heavy rain, full rivers, overwhelmed drains, and a slow, difficult recovery.

Another, quieter problem is rising groundwater beneath our cities. In Liverpool, engineers now have to pump water constantly out of railway tunnels to keep them dry. The British Geological Survey has found that the city’s water table is rising because industry has gone. Factories and shipyards once drew large volumes of groundwater for cooling and process water. When that abstraction stopped, the underground water began to return. Basements, subways, and tunnels that were once dry are now under threat.

The same is happening across post-industrial Britain. Groundwater is creeping back into places built on the assumption that pumping would go on forever. It is a hidden flood, rising from below, just as the tides rise above.

Together, these examples show how fragile the modern landscape has become. We have built towns and cities that depend on constant effort to keep nature out. When that effort falters — through power failure, neglect, or economic decline — the land reclaims itself.

Government cannot hold back every tide or drain every valley. Aviva has told Parliament that hundreds of thousands of properties are already more at risk because existing flood defences are deteriorating. Insurance is being withdrawn from high-risk areas. The era of guaranteed rescue is ending.

Localism will become the only workable response. Communities will have to decide which ground can be held and which must be given up. They will need their own plans for shelter, food, and recovery. In some places, retreat will be wiser than defence.

Abandonment is not failure if it allows life to continue elsewhere. New settlements on higher ground could become the next generation of self-reliant communities, built around local supply, shared work, and mutual care.

Ravenser Odd was lost when the sea advanced faster than its people could adapt. Hull, Tewkesbury, and Liverpool each face the same test in different forms — the sea, the storm, and the water below.

When Water Has the Last Word

The idea of retreat is not new. Throughout British history, many inland settlements have disappeared when the land became too wet to live on.

In the 14th century, the upland village of Hundatorra on Dartmoor was abandoned after years of cold, wet seasons. Its fields, once tilled for grain, turned to bog. The people left, and a few stone houses are all that remain today.

Further north, in 17th-century Moray, the village of Culbin was lost when violent storms and shifting sand choked the drainage of the River Findhorn. The rising water and drifting dunes buried farms and crofts. Families walked away and never returned.

The pattern continues in modern form. Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire has flooded so often that insurers are withdrawing cover. Businesses cannot reopen after every deluge. One by one, they leave. This is how abandonment begins in our time — not with disaster relief, but with quiet departure.

When the waters rise, the question will not be whether government can save us, but whether we can save ourselves. Localism is not just the response to a failing system. It is the only way of living that can endure when the formal world begins to sink.

Postscript

The story of flooding is also the story of economic change. The industrial economy depended on heavy infrastructure, central planning, and a constant flow of energy to hold nature in check. Pumps, drains, and flood defences were all part of that system.

As the formal economy weakens and energy becomes more costly, these systems can no longer be sustained everywhere. What follows is the return of the informal economy — the local, the adaptable, and the human.

Localism is not just a social response to crisis; it is the next stage of the economy’s evolution. When the machines fall silent, it will be the people nearby, not the institutions above, who keep life going.

175. Building Future Communities 2025: Reporting on Prospects for Flooding in the UK

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The Aviva “Building Future Communities 2025” report is a well-structured analysis of how the UK must prepare for the escalating impacts of climate change—especially flooding, subsidence, and heat—by mid-century. Although written from a corporate and national policy perspective, it contains significant implications for localism that go well beyond its surface message.

Aviva is a major UK-based insurance and financial services company. It’s one of the largest insurers in Britain.

Aviva warns that by 2050:

  • Flood-risk homes in England could rise by 25–27%, reaching about 8 million properties.
  • 1.4 million more properties could face subsidence risk.
  • Extreme heat will endanger health, infrastructure, and habitability.

The report proposes six “calls for change”:

  1. Tougher planning rules to stop building in flood zones.
  2. Compulsory low-cost flood-resilience measures in all new homes.
  3. Mandatory Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS).
  4. Government-backed Natural Flood Management (NFM) and private-sector investment.
  5. A Resilient Buildings Taskforce to unite housing, finance, and planning policy.
  6. More innovation and regulation to protect homes from heat.

Case studies (York, Cardiff Bay, Edinburgh Castle, etc.) show practical responses already underway.

Implications for localism

Although the report’s framing is largely top-down, its findings implicitly confirm the necessity of a bottom-up, community-led transition—the essence of localism.

1. The failure of centralised systems

The report highlights how national flood defences, urban drainage, and central planning cannot cope with climate-driven pressures.

  • Surface water flooding, now the biggest rising risk, is inherently local and unpredictable.
  • Many defences are owned privately or by local authorities, not by the Environment Agency.
  • Maintenance and funding backlogs show that central government control is overstretched.

→ Localism implication: resilience must increasingly be managed at the community level—through neighbourhood flood groups, local adaptation plans, and locally funded or self-organised works.

2. Community resilience and neighbour networks

Aviva praises the Pontcanna (Cardiff) initiative, where residents created a local flood plan, registered vulnerable people, and rehearsed emergency procedures. This is an explicit demonstration of social capital in action—the very network of informal relationships on which localism depends.

→ Localism implication: the most successful adaptation is social, not technical. It arises from relationships of trust, cooperation, and shared responsibility—core principles of an informal economy.

3. Nature-based solutions as local land stewardship

Natural Flood Management (tree planting, leaky dams, wetland restoration) relies on small-scale, distributed action across catchments. Such systems cannot be delivered solely by national agencies; they require local landholders, farmers, and communities to collaborate.

→ Localism implication: environmental resilience becomes a shared landscape duty, giving rural communities a new civic and economic role as custodians of their ecosystems.

4. Adaptation of the built environment

The report calls for widespread retrofit of flood and heat-resilience features. This aligns with the idea of re-localised construction trades—craftsmen, small builders, and voluntary repair groups—replacing large corporate developers. Local adaptation will depend on distributed skills and small-scale enterprise, not remote regulation.

5. From formal control to informal initiative

Although Aviva recommends new national regulations, the underlying data point to a future where:

  • Insurance cover becomes increasingly conditional or unaffordable.
  • National defence budgets cannot protect all communities.
  • Individuals and local groups must act pre-emptively.

→ Localism implication: a gradual withdrawal of the formal system (insurance, national infrastructure, planning control) will push resilience functions into informal systems of mutual aid, self-protection, and local investment—hallmarks of a shrinking, post-growth economy.

6. Restoring natural and social capital

Aviva’s support for nature-based flood management and local resilience groups unintentionally endorses local economic self-reliance—where communities invest time and effort in collective maintenance rather than financial growth. This is consistent with your argument that as discretionary markets decline, social and ecological repair will become the new economy.

Critical reflection

While the report’s tone remains corporate and technocratic, it reveals an unavoidable truth: the formal, centralised model of climate governance cannot secure the nation’s resilience. Communities must become self-organising, ecologically literate, and mutually supportive. In short, climate adaptation is the practical route by which localism will emerge from necessity.

concluding observation

The “Building Future Communities 2025” report, though framed as a call for national coordination, actually illustrates the limits of that coordination. In practice, resilience will depend on thousands of local initiatives—socially embedded, place-based, and self-managed. Climate change is not only a threat but a catalyst for the transformation from a formal industrial society to an informal, localist one.

172. Deterioration and Debt: When 1960s Concrete Reaches the End of Its Age

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This article forms part of an ongoing series exploring the transition from the industrial economy to a new age of localism. It examines the decline of 1960s and 70s concrete structures as symbols of the industrial era, drawing on insights from the recent Consciousness of Sheep article ‘Thermodynamic drag’ to illustrate the wider shift from mass mobility to local living.

In a perceptive recent article titled “Thermodynamic drag” (Consciousness of Sheep, 7 October 2025), the author draws attention to the accelerating failures of mid-20th-century concrete infrastructure and the economic paradox of debt repayment built on
decaying physical capital. (Read it here: https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2025/10/07/thermodynamic-drag/)

The article highlights the closure of key bridges and roads across the UK — from the Severn Bridge (opened 1966) to local crossings now deemed unsafe — as examples of how “permanent” assets from the 1960s and 70s are approaching the limits of
their design lives. These structures, built for an industrial society based on expansion and mass mobility, were never expected to last more than 40 to 60 years without major renewal. That time has arrived.

Concrete as the Architecture of the Industrial Age

The great concrete programmes of the post-war decades were more than engineering projects. They were the physical expression of the industrial age — an age built on fossil energy, cheap transport, and the belief that growth was both inevitable and
desirable.

Multi-storey car parks, motorway flyovers, office towers, and elevated walkways embodied a confidence in permanent mobility. The concrete bridge or civic centre was a declaration that humanity had mastered materials and space; that cities would continue
to expand, and that cars, lorries, and buses would circulate forever.

Those assumptions are now failing. The industrial economy that justified this infrastructure is itself contracting. As the Thermodynamic drag article notes, maintenance has become prohibitively expensive and technically complex, and the fiscal
capacity of the state is shrinking. What were once symbols of progress have become liabilities — both physically and financially.

The End of the 40-Year Illusion

Most reinforced concrete structures from that era were designed with a working life of 40 to 60 years. Engineers knew corrosion, carbonation, and freeze–thaw cycles would eventually take their toll, but few imagined that the world would change so completely
in the same timeframe.

Now, the debts incurred to build them are long paid — but the structures themselves are deteriorating, often invisibly, until failure becomes imminent. Governments face a cruel choice: spend heavily to keep them standing, or accept decay and the risk
of collapse.

Yet the deeper question may be whether they need to be replaced at all.

A New Context: From Industrial Expansion to Local Living

The age of localism that is now emerging will depend less on high-speed travel and more on proximity, resilience, and self-sufficiency. As energy costs rise and discretionary travel declines, people will live, work, and trade closer to home.  The physical infrastructure of this new society will look very different from that of the industrial age.

Many of the concrete structures now crumbling — motorway interchanges, flyovers, urban ring roads, car parks, and concrete office blocks — were designed to serve a pattern of life that may no longer continue. In a localised economy, the movement
of goods and people will be shorter, slower, and more purposeful. Large-scale transport architecture may simply be redundant.

Thus, the decay of these structures is not only an engineering failure but also a sign of cultural transition: the old framework of mass mobility giving way to the emerging pattern of local life.

The Strategic Choices: Sustain, Abandon, or Repurpose

Decision-makers now face three broad options:

  • 1. Extend their life through expensive repairs and reinforcement — a path that sustains the    illusion of permanence but commits scarce resources to an outdated model.
  • 2. Abandon or decommission structures whose functions are no longer essential, allowing decay to proceed safely or replacing them with green corridors, cycle routes, or community uses.
  • 3. Repurpose locally — adapting former car parks, viaducts, or civic complexes for smaller-scale, community-based activities consistent with a lower-energy, localised future.

The third path aligns most closely with localism: rather than fighting decay, it accepts the passing of an age and seeks to reuse what remains.

Rethinking Permanence

The Thermodynamic drag article argues that debt-based systems presume permanence — yet all material structures are subject to entropy.  This insight is crucial for the years ahead. When the economy slows and energy availability declines, the concept of “asset life” must be reinterpreted. Instead of investing to maintain obsolete structures, we may need to focus on new forms of permanence — living systems, productive landscapes, and small-scale infrastructures that can be sustained locally.

The collapse of post-war concrete is therefore not only a warning but an opportunity: to move beyond the industrial ideal of endless growth and towards a more grounded, durable relationship between people, place, and material.

Conclusion: Letting the Old Age Crumble

The decaying concrete of the 1960s and ’70s is a fitting metaphor for the end of the industrial era. What was once the embodiment of modernity is now the visible residue of an age of excess energy and centralised ambition.

We can either struggle to preserve it — pouring more money, materials, and emissions into failing structures — or accept its decline as part of a natural transition.

In the age of localism, we will need fewer vast bridges and car parks, and more modest, human-scaled infrastructure that supports local production and limited travel.

The article “Thermodynamic drag” captures this turning point powerfully. Its warning about the collapse of 1960s concrete is not merely technical — it is symbolic. The old industrial foundations are giving way.

What rises next will depend on our willingness to live within imits and rebuild life locally.

Read the article here: https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2025/10/07/thermodynamic-drag/

171. Energy and Biochar: Using Fire to Cool the Earth

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Every economy depends on energy. In the fossil age, that energy came from coal, oil, and gas — fuels so powerful and portable that they shaped the whole structure of industrial life. But as those fuels fade, we will once again draw heat and power from wood. The question is how to do it cleanly, fairly, and in a way that strengthens the land rather than exhausting it.

The Return of Charcoal

Charcoal has always been the craftsman’s fuel — dense, light, and steady. It burns hotter than wood, and with far less smoke. In a wood economy it becomes both energy and culture. Charcoal burners return to the coppice, tending slow fires under turf, producing the black fuel that feeds forges, kilns, and cookhouses. Their work is seasonal and skilled, and the village depends on it.

Biochar: Carbon That Stays Put

Out of charcoal-making comes a second gift: biochar. When wood is burned in a kiln with little oxygen, part of its carbon becomes stable, refusing to return to the air. That char can then be:

  • Used as fuel in stoves and workshops.

  • Buried in soil, where it improves fertility and locks carbon away for centuries.

  • Mixed into building materials and roads, turning the built environment itself into a carbon store.

This idea, developed by Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper in Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth, turns an old craft into modern climate care. Instead of spending carbon, we begin to bank it.

The Carbon Cascade

Bates and Draper describe a “carbon cascade” — a chain of uses where carbon is stabilised a little more at each step.

  1. A tree draws carbon from the air.

  2. Some of its wood is burned cleanly for heat.

  3. Some becomes biochar and is locked into soil or walls.

  4. A portion stays in standing timber or coppice, growing again.

Each step keeps more carbon in useful form and less in the atmosphere.

Smoke and Health

The old image of smoky chimneys belongs to the past. In a managed system, wood fuel is well-seasoned, kilns are airtight, and masonry stoves replace open fires. Communal bakehouses and bathhouses concentrate combustion in efficient hearths, run by trained stokers. Biochar kilns produce far less smoke than open burning, making clean air a community achievement.

The Energy Ledger

Energy in a wood economy is measured as carefully as money.

  • One coin might equal a sack of wood worth about 100 kilowatt-hours of heat.

  • A household might use 60–80 coins a year for heating and cooking.

  • Coppice yield decides how many coins can be minted.

This keeps heat within the limits of the forest. Waste becomes expensive; thrift becomes virtue.

Heat, Light, and Motion

Beyond household fires, energy is shared:

  • Masonry heaters store warmth for community halls.

  • Waterwheels and hand-cranked flywheels power workshops.

  • Biochar kilns provide heat for drying food or timber.

The goal is not endless power, but enough — reliable, renewable, and rooted in the land.

Using Fire to Cool the Earth

The paradox is real: by burning wood in the right way, we can cool the planet. Each kilo of carbon locked in biochar is carbon taken from the sky. Each cottage that burns seasoned wood instead of coal avoids adding new carbon. The coppice that regrows next year closes the loop.

A wood economy does not fear fire. It learns to use it with precision and respect — to warm homes, to forge tools, to enrich the soil, and to steady the climate.

169. Escaping the Iron Age: Steel, Wood, and the Shrinking Economy

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Kris De Decker’s article How to Escape from the Iron Age? casts a stark light on one of modern society’s hidden constraints: steel. Every bridge, vehicle, wind turbine, and machine depends on it. Steel is the backbone of the industrial economy – and one of the most carbon-intensive materials we produce.

De Decker highlights a painful contradiction. To build the renewable energy systems that might decarbonise industry, we need vast amounts of steel. Yet producing that steel today depends on fossil fuels. Recycling cannot close the loop: there isn’t enough scrap, and different grades don’t easily match.

His conclusion is firm. Use lighter vehicles. Build smaller, simpler structures. Prevent corrosion. Make more use of recycled steel. Scale our systems down to fit what can be sustained.

The industrial mindset

This is sensible, but it still assumes an industrial mindset. De Decker writes as though the economy will keep on growing – just with fewer tonnes of steel. The vision is essentially industrial society, only slimmer.

But what if that assumption is wrong? What if the age of growth is over?

Steel in a shrinking economy

A shrinking economy changes the terms of the question. Instead of asking how to sustain expansion, we ask how to live well with contraction. That means fewer mega-projects, less long-distance trade, and less reliance on global steel plants tied to fossil fuels.

It is in this context that wood and other biological materials come to the fore.

The case for wood

Wood is not a perfect substitute. It has limitations in terms of scale, durability, and land use. However, those limits appear differently in a downsizing world. We will not need endless skyscrapers, superhighways, or sprawling steel-framed warehouses. What we will need are homes, workshops, halls, small bridges, and local infrastructure.

Here, wood, straw, hemp, earth, and carpentry excel. Timber structures, when well-maintained, can last for centuries. Engineered wood can carry heavy loads and span wide spaces. Local forests and sawmills can provide building materials without relying on global supply chains or fossil-fuel-based blast furnaces.

Local skills and trades

A shift toward a wood-based economy would also be consistent with localism. Carpenters, joiners, lime-plasterers, sawyers, and forestry workers would become essential trades again. Each community could use the resources of its surrounding land. Waste cycles would be shorter. Skills would be preserved and shared locally rather than outsourced to distant steel complexes.

Living well with less

The real lesson is not simply to ration steel within the old industrial frame. It is to accept contraction – and design a smaller, lighter, more local economy. In that future, wood and other plant-based materials are not just substitutes. They are central to living well within limits.

168. The End of Degrowth

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Or what comes after the realization hits that we’ve been already in degrowth for fifty years now

An American view of the future. Copied from The Honest Sorcerer

With peaking energy supplies humanity faces a massive dilemma. How to adapt to the shift from ever growing supplies of fossil fuels and minerals to an ever shrinking availability of these resources? Is this even possible?

Let’s take the case of America, the poster child of capitalism, for example. In order to see how degrowth might unfold — wholly unwillingly, I have to add — we must first understand the essence of our current economic system. The key thing to note here is that the core tenet of capitalism is not a belief in markets, free trade or private ownership but unimpeded growth. Unrestricted competition between businesses was nothing more than an ideal which was never met. The larger enterprises grew, the bigger their influence over pricing and regulation became. The repeated appearance of monopolies, an ever growing wealth inequality and a growing number of rent-seeking billionaire oligarchs thus were not unintended side effects of an otherwise benevolent system, but a clear goal towards which capitalism as a complex adaptive system evolved over time.

Concentrating wealth in the hand of the few and limiting competition was simply the best way to maximize profits. In fairness this is not an entirely new phenomena: whenever lootable, hoardable, tradable and storable surplus became available — be it grains, gold, sheep etc. — sooner or later some people always ended up owning much more than the average folk. And when the richest conspired to bend the rules for themselves, civilizations inevitably ended up in the rather unstable state of oligarchy. History never repeats itself, but it sure does rhyme — a lot.

What has made capitalism more “successful” than any of its predecessors was an ever increasing supply of raw materials, energy and labor turned into products and services at a profit. In a more or less stable system, such as in the Middle Ages, it would have been much harder for Rockefellers and Carnegies to rise and contest established power structures. That has changed when fossil fuels started to unlock more and more resources and technology in the industrial age. Whenever a new market or resource (be it real or digital) was opened up for competition, and ultimately for exploitation, a few companies quickly ended up dominating that field — making their owners the new richest kids on the block.

What would happen though, when that material growth finally turns into reverse, consumers can no longer afford to spend as much as they used to, and market after market start to shrink, only to eventually disappear? You see, without adequate surplus energy, it would be impossible to keep producing and consuming at present rates, so something will have to give. Is it possible for capitalism to adapt by degrowth or will this shrinkage — enforced by Nature — cause the system to mutate into something entirely different?

Profits over the economy

Just take a look at what growth has already turned into in the past five decades. In contrast to what it meant half a century ago — new, well paying jobs, a general rise in living standards and improving future prospects — growth has basically turned into a wealth pump. Ever rising asset prices and corporate welfare for the rich, collapsing living standards, food inflation and unaffordable housing and energy for everyone else. The post World War II economic boom revolved around making and selling goods at a profit while paying workers well, thereby creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop of consumption — driving manufacturing and still more consumption. This, however, required cheap raw materials, coal, oil, natural gas and electricity, as well as the “freedom” to dump waste on and destroy Nature free of charge. As environmental regulations became stricter, at the same time when resource extraction and conventional oil peaked (and became more expensive as imports kicked in) in the 1970’s, the old model of “economic” growth became impossible to maintain.

There is only so much you can extract, pollute and destroy without ruining your own prospects.

You see, a continued real, material improvement for the everyday person always required a corresponding increase in resource and energy use. A bigger house, a second car, electronic gadgets, flights abroad, eating out etc. could no longer be provided on a shrinking material and energy base. The only way to preserve growth was to move the manufacturing of the most energy intensive and polluting products and services abroad, where labor, resources and energy was still cheap. This practically meant unfettered growth in company profits, at the cost of disappearing industrial jobs and stagnating wages for everyone else.

Profit per unit of real gross value added of nonfinancial corporate business: Corporate profits after tax with IVA and CCAdj (unit profits from current production), retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, October 2, 2025.

Education followed a similar pattern: as working class jobs vanished and salaries stopped growing in real terms, the only prospect for improving one’s lot was by going for a diploma. Asking more and more for higher education, and by financing this activity via student loans, created a lot of economic activity but required very little energy and resources to perform. Hence the birth of a myth: the post-industrial, service economy. (There is, of course, no such thing as a service economy.) These trends, on the other hand, has led to the devaluation of degrees, combined with a swell in administrative and frankly BS jobs. The same “happened” to healthcare, where the number of doctors barely grew as opposed to that of controllers and management. And the list goes on: from “owning” copyrights to creating “intellectual property”, providing financial services and inserting a middle man into every transaction imaginable. Sure, a lot of economic activity could be generated this way (measured as GDP growth and rising stock valuations), while very little — if any — real value was added. Money for nothing? Quite likely.

U.S. per capita energy use (from all sources including fossil fuels) is falling since 2000. China is set to surpass the EU in 2025 on a per capita basis. In absolute terms, China has already left behind the EU and U.S. (combined!) in 2020 already. Source

The real state of the economy

Despite the lack of real value added, and much to the reasons explained above, U.S. gross domestic product — the total value of goods produced and services provided during a year — just kept rising and rising. Lacking real material growth this expansion was increasingly financed by credit institutions and government debt. That is, by conjuring money into existence. (Yes, banks create around 80% of the money circulating the economy as electronic deposits.) And as of late: the government running massive deficits — i.e.: spending more than what gets collected as revenues.

Deficit spending, besides creating even more inflation, has a direct stimulating effect on the economy as a whole. When you take a look at what the government spends taxpayer money on, you find expenditures such as social security, Medicare, national defense etc. Retired workers spend their benefits on goods and services, Medicare pays doctors, nurses and the administrative staff (who then also use this money to buy stuff), while national defense drives entire industries (besides being a massive racket). In the end most of this government deficit spending ends up circulating the economy as consumption and investment a.k.a. GDP growth. On the other hand, this practice also increases inflation and locks future governments into a debt trap, where ever increasing amounts of money will have to be spent on servicing this debt. Short term benefits, long term costs — sounds familiar?

The effect of U.S. government deficit spending on GDP. The total height of each bar shows the “official GDP” reading for Q3 each year (in trillions of Dollars, seasonally adjusted annual rate) — source. The effect of deficit spending (source) was marked by diagonal stripes. The red line shows real gross domestic product (source) minus deficit spending — both converted to chained 2017 Dollars (seasonally adjusted annual rate). 2025 values are my estimates. Based on these real values, U.S. economic growth was 2% year-over-year in the past quarter of a century.

If we take a look at the actual GDP figures, we can not only discern a growing trend when it comes to overspending, but a tendency to use deficit spending to fill in the gaps after a recession. Governments in the past 25 years, it seems, have done everything in their power to a) hide the true depth of each recession, and to b) show higher than normal GDP growth. But that’s only half of the story. If we take inflation into account by using chained 2017 Dollars, and deduct government overspending, the true size of the U.S. economy in the middle of 2025 would have been around $22.5 trillion — some 27% below the official figure ($30.5 trillion). And that’s by using the seriously under-reported and heavily massaged CPI figures… If real inflation had been just two percentage points higher than the official figure, economic growth over the past eight years would have simply disappeared into the mist.

Take note how we got to this point: starting with the peaking of conventional oil production in 1970’s, then the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, followed by neoliberalism and credit adventurism leading to a financial meltdown in 2008/2009. Then came zero interest rate policies, wage suppression, tax cuts for large corporations and now a cost of living crisis in the wake of the 2021 energy crisis (which has never ended). Is it any wonder the U.S. economy is where it is: drowning in debt?

Degrowth is already on — Now comes war

Let’s face it: degrowth is already here — since the 1970’s at least. So far it was offset by globalization (mainly by importing cheap goods from China) and a massive expansion of debt — both federal and private. However, no economy can be propped up artificially forever. With the coming peak and decline in U.S. oil and natural gas production later this decade, revenues can expected to fall dramatically, at the same time when the country becomes import dependent again. Should that be the case, a major economic downturn would be inescapable, and it would be only a question of time till the rest of the world realized that the U.S. economy would deflate like a balloon without incessantly increasing its debt levels, or seriously and heavily taxing its major corporations (1). The former would further erode trust in America’s ability to honor its obligations which, together with the realization that with less and less oil it would be impossible to repay these debts, would be devastating. The latter move, however, would make paying prodigious dividends to shareholders practically impossible, and quite possibly trigger a stock market meltdown. A rock and a hard place?

No wonder that slashing social benefits, Medicare, Medicaid are all on the top of the government’s list — we can take severe cuts to those as a given. But then what’s there to do the year after? Sure, cutting social spending will result in lower consumption (and lower GDP growth), but resource depletion won’t stop just because we no longer give adequate medical and financial support to retired citizens… The now accelerating long decline of high-tech industrial civilization will demand more and more cuts each and every year. Unless… Unless there is a way to “convince” other nations to give up their consumption and resources first.

The European economy is already in self-destruction mode for four years now, resulting in a massive (10%) drop in their overall energy consumption compared to 2014. And not only that, they also became more dependent on U.S. energy deliveries than ever. Should any of their nations decide not to put up with American pressures then, LNG shipments could easily drop to zero overnight. Or the last remaining pipeline underneath the Black Sea could suffer a severe blow. Europe, the second largest importer of energy in the world is now on a strict slimming diet, enforced and controlled by their biggest friend and ally. Next one on the list: China, the globe’s largest importer of oil and gas.

Constraining the world largest energy consumer’s access to hydrocarbons is a more tricky question, though, as they are not as dependent on one source as the EU was (or rather: still is). There are, however, some major suppliers — ruled by governments deemed hostile by the West — whose deliveries to China could be curtailed: Venezuela and Iran. Toppling these two regimes could thus deliver triple benefits: first, U.S. oil corporations could finally return in full to exploit their resources. Second, they could divert oil deliveries to America, instead of the far east, and third it could help reserve the Dollar’s status as the world’s number one currency. As Curro Jimenez observes:

Iran has the third-largest oil reserves and the second-largest gas reserves. If the U.S. were to control Iran and Venezuela’s oil reserves, it would control the first and third-largest oil reserves in the world, while the second and fourth – Saudi Arabia and Canada – are already under its influence. Having control and influence over the four largest oil reserves would allow the U.S. not only to influence prices and distribution, but to dictate in which currency they are paid.

Note, how bailing out Argentina, the last U.S. friendly South American state with a booming shale oil industry in its Vaca Muerta region, fits neatly into this picture. There is, however, a fly in the ointment: we no longer live in the 1990’s when the U.S. was the sole military superpower. Today, we have other players with formidable air defense complexes, hyper-sonic missiles and manufacturing capacities far greater than that of the entire West, combined. Russia, for example, is already busy training and equipping Iran to resist the next wave of U.S.-Israeli bombardment. The recent Tomahawk scare and turning Taiwan and the Philippines into a porcupine are thus part of a diversionary tactic aimed at pinning down air defense and missile resources far away from U.S. targeted countries. As for the success of this strategy… Well, I’m highly skeptical, to say the least.

Conclusion

U.S. per capita energy production and use is already falling for two decades now, despite the shale “revolution” adding record amount of barrels to the mix. Without an ever growing number of well paying jobs, and with a continued cost of living crisis, on the other hand, this cannot be expected to change. So even if American military adventurism were successful, it would most likely end up enriching a few oil corporations, while the rest of the population would still be unable to buy more gas or products made with oil. On a falling per capita energy availability — translating into higher electricity and gas prices — it will be impossible to keep consumption even on its current level. With a continued decline in conventional oil production, and now with peaking shale oil extraction, diesel fuel supply can be expected to fall in the years and decades ahead, making the crisis especially severe in the food, mining, construction and transportation businesses.

Under these circumstances it’s not terribly hard to understand why tariffs were a failed attempt to rein in competitors and to incentivize the re-industrialization of America; as none of these goals were achievable from the get go. Tariffs have thus ended up becoming just another tax on the average citizen, with the only practical purpose of raising government revenues to pay interest on debt, while further eroding people’s ability to buy more products and services. Now add in austerity measures, cuts to social benefits — as well as to many other government programs — and a continued decline in consumer spending is pretty much locked in. With slowing consumer demand, however, even more manufacturing companies will be forced to close doors, and even less oil wells will be drilled — effectively cementing peak oil in place. U.S. oil companies in anticipation of weaker demand and ever increasing drilling costs, are already accelerating layoffs and cutting investments, and not only in the shale business but everywhere.

This, however, is only the beginning. As more and more producers are pulled out, like blocks from a jenga tower, so will the risk of entire supply chains failing grow. Not just in the oil industry, but everywhere else. How this will affect finance and the monetary system is anyone’s guess at this point, but I suspect we are in for a pretty rough ride — potentially involving issuing massive amounts of stimulus checks, investors having to bail-in (2), and CBDC-s being introduced in a rush. Such a major, or even partial, meltdown of the economy, and the draconian measures needed to prevent a complete collapse, however, raises the risk of civil unrest to it’s highest level in recent history… That’s the risk every government around the globe takes, when not explaining that we are rapidly approaching the end of growth, after having surpassed an almost infinite number of planetary and resource boundaries. So, in case you were wondering why there is a war psychosis all over the world, or why the President called certain states and cities ‘training grounds’ or why did he sign orders to criminalize dissent — look no further for an answer. I’m afraid what we have seen up until now is just a dress rehearsal for what comes next: the biggest turning point in human history. Buckle up.

164. Towards a Wood Economy

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The industrial age was built on fossil fuels. Coal, oil and gas powered machines, lit homes, and drove global trade. But that age is passing. Fossil reserves are finite, and their use drives climate collapse.

What comes next may not be an economy of expansion, but an economy of contraction — smaller in scale, more local, and grounded in renewable resources close at hand. One such possibility would be a wood economy.

Wood has always been more than fuel. It has been money, shelter, transport, and culture. In Hardy’s book The Woodlanders, the forest shaped everyday life. Today, as fossil fuel energy ebbs, the coppice may again become the measure of value.

This post marks the beginning of a series exploring what a wood-based local economy could look like. Each part of town and village localist life — from coins to cricket — can be seen through the lens of the coppice.

What We Will Explore

  1. Currency and Trade
    • Wood coins minted from a parish copse.
    • Equal issue to every adult, tied to the amount of fuel in store.
    • Local use only, with surpluses exported for national currency.
  2. Cottagers and Homes
    • Modest timber-framed cottages, built for repair not discard.
    • Shade trees to cool in summer, wood coins to pay for upkeep.
  3. Energy and Biochar
    • Charcoal and biochar as fuel and carbon store.
    • Masonry stoves, communal bakehouses, and clean kilns.
    • The “carbon cascade” — using fire not to waste carbon, but to bank it.
  4. Transport Without Fossil Fuels
    • Horse-drawn tramways linking coppice and village.
    • Chinese-style wheelbarrows on narrow single wheel-width paths.
    • Barges on rivers for national loads.
  5. Health and Care
    • Reducing smoke through technology and rules.
    • Equal coin issue to support those who cannot work.
    • Community book-work for those with mental capacity but poor strength.
  6. Work and Guilds
    • Charcoal burners, carpenters, coopers, bodgers.
    • Apprenticeships to pass on skills.
    • Ledgers and rotas as part of community management.
  7. Food and Water
    • Woodland grazing, nuts, mushrooms, smoked and preserved foods.
    • Charcoal for filtering water.
    • Wooden pipes, troughs, and aqueducts.
  8. Culture and Sport
    • Cricket on the green, hockey in the field, walking.
    • Festivals tied to coppice cutting, charcoal burning, and coin minting.
    • Songs, stories, and rituals rooted in the woodland cycle.

Living Within Limits

A wood economy is not fast or expansive. The slow growth of trees would measure it. Coins, fuel, houses, and food depend on that cycle. Yet within those limits lies resilience.

This series will sketch a future where coppice and biochar, not coal and oil, anchor community life. It will not be a return to the past, but a different way forward: slower, fairer, and more enduring.

163. The Electrification of Road Transport Will Turn Out to Be…

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Copied from a piece by The Honest Sorcerer, Sep 28, 2025

The conclusion of this piece, in relation to the future of diesel for freight transport, is that “The future will be increasingly localized, with much less product variants and with much simple lifestyles.”  Yet another reason for a future of localism.

The world economy is grappling with a gradually worsening diesel shortage. In fact we might have already passed peak diesel in 2023, already. Despite claims to the contrary the world is still fed, moved, mined and built using this extremely energy dense fuel, thus its increasingly tight availability is starting to become a limiting factor to the growth of the world economy. The question poses itself: can the electrification of transport and mining ease the pain somewhat, or is it yet another myth?

World oil and natural gas supply is about to peak, then begin its long decline in the years ahead. While this statement stirred great controversy two decades ago, today it seems to be normal news. Almost too normal — as if the world no longer needed oil. Looking at the prices alone West Texas Intermediate at $65 per barrel seems to be a bargain, especially when compared to the price of gold or other commodities. Surely, if we needed more petroleum its price would be much higher, right? Well, as usual, things are a bit more complicated than that. In fact, I argue, the collapse of oil prices foreshadow a much greater than expected fall in oil supply, but let’s not get ahead ourselves just yet.

Oil is not just another commodity. It is still the lifeblood of this civilization thanks to its immense energy density, portability, low weight and widespread availability. Despite the fact that its use is a major contributor to climate change, we still heavily depend on it for agriculture, mining, long distance transport and construction. Yet, as the image below (taken from the same Ember document we discussed last week) shows: transitioning to an electricity driven transport system takes longer than expected. To be on the optimistic side I could say we just have to wait another century. Or two.

 
Fossil fuel use in transport. Source: Ember

All that glitters is not gold

 

I’m not here to spread unwarranted optimism, though. We simply don’t have time till the end of this century to make a dent on fossil fuel use in road transport — and not primarily because of climate concerns. Diesel fuel availability worldwide is already on a high plateau, even as we add more and more unconventional oil and natural gas liquids to the mix we euphemistically call ‘oil’. Before 2014 every barrel of oil added to world supply resulted in a proportionate increase in diesel fuel consumption: the conversion ratio hovered around 30% (i.e.: one third of each barrel of oil was turned into gasoil). After 2014, however, this tight correlation started to break down: diesel consumption could no longer keep up with growth in oil supply. While prior to 2014 diesel supply grew at a steady 2% year-over-year, after 2014 that annual growth rate virtually collapsed by an order of magnitude to 0.28%. What’s that all about?

 
Diesel fuel consumption worldwide is already at a high plateau, even as we add more and more unconventional oil and natural gas liquids to the mix. R values represent correlation between diesel consumption growth and increases in world oil supply. The closer this correlation is to 1 the better the match between the two data sets are. Data source: Energy Institute / Chart: own work

As we have seen from the ratio of electricity use in road transport, that abrupt slow-down in diesel consumption growth could not come from truck drivers switching to batteries all of a sudden. If we take a good hard look at the source of “oil” supply growth since 2014, however, we might quickly realize that not all that glitters is gold — i.e. not everything is “oil” in that ever growing mix. Production growth of conventional onshore and shallow water crude — the best inputs to make diesel fuel from — began to stall in the middle of the 2000’s already, with almost all new sources of oil coming from unconventional wells ever since 2015. These new sources of petroleum, especially tight oil (oil trapped in low-permeability rocks like shale and limestone) and natural gas liquids (hydrocarbons extracted from raw natural gas during processing, including components like ethane, propane, butanes, and pentanes), however, contain very little if any diesel compounds (1). Sure, refineries could and did make a lot of plastic and gasoline out of this new found “oil”, but very little truck fuel. You see, this is the problem with trying to “replace” conventional oil with all kinds of liquids produced by the petroleum industry: most of it is unsuitable for use in trucks, excavators, ships, locomotives, combined harvesters and the rest (2).

 
Note how the peak oil movement in the early 2000’s was right: conventional onshore plus shallow water crude oil did peak in 2005. Adding deepwater oil into the mix pushed out this peak by two years only. These conventional oil sources are on the decline ever since, with natural gas liquids, extra-heavy and tight oil being the sole sources of growth these days. Source: IEA

What does the future hold, then? Well, not more conventional oil, that is for sure. According to the forecasts prepared by Rystad Energy and used by the IEA, we have 2–3 years till both oil and natural gas production peaks worldwide, then begins to decline. And if you take a look at the chart below, you can see that conventional oil production will experience an especially steep decline, despite additions from investments in existing and approved projects. Unconventional oil production will continue to expand into the future, but it will be unable to offset the decline from traditional oil fields, let alone make up for the fall in diesel fuel production.

Diesel availability can thus be expected to drop precipitously in the decades ahead, foreshadowing serious problems in road transport, mining, shipping and mechanized agriculture.

 
Source: IEA

Oil companies will not sit idle, and watch their market collapse, though. They will do everything to at least mitigate that catastrophe ahead. According to the IEA analysis linked above:

“After a primary recovery period, during which oil and gas is produced via natural reservoir drive mechanisms, operators can deploy a variety of measures to boost production or to slow decline. This includes infill drilling of both vertical and horizontal wells, pumping and lifting, large-scale injections such as water flooding, and enhanced recovery techniques. In practice, these activities can occur in sequence or in combination according to suitability, availability and economics of the technology, and in accordance with a company’s reservoir management practices.”

However, these techniques are not without their own risks:

“Once well density is maximised and infill drilling slows, production decline may accelerate above the rates observed before the new drilling was undertaken.”

To put it bluntly: enhanced oil recovery can buy us a little time, but at the cost of an abrupt decline in the end. Not the most reassuring news, if you ask me. Switching fuels sources will be of little help either. Encouraging home owners to change to electric or gas heating from oil, will not solve anything since both are dependent on a non-renewable resource equally prone to peak and decline just like oil (40% of US electricity is still generated by natural gas). The same goes to trucks, buses and agricultural machinery powered by CNG or LNG: since worldwide gas production is about to peak together with oil, switching between the two energy sources will not improve the situation the slightest.

Electrons to the rescue!

 

That leaves us with one thing to pin our “hopes” on: the rapid electrification of road transport and mining. And why not agriculture or container and bulk shipping? — one might ask. Well, weight is already a huge issue when it comes to agricultural machinery. Soil compacted by tractors can absorb less moisture and plant roots do not develop properly in them. Ocean shipping, often covering thousands of miles, is also “hard” (read: impossible) to electrify — no battery would last a month long journey across the Pacific. And while wind sails and solar panels could reduce fuel consumption by a couple of percentage points, they cannot completely eliminate it. That leaves us with using batteries in road transport, thereby saving fuel for agricultural use and shipping where heavy batteries and electrification is still not an option.

 
IEA (2025), Electric bus sales share by region, 2016–2024, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/electric-bus-sales-share-by-region-2016-2024-2, Licence: CC BY 4.0

So what are the trends in heavy-duty electric vehicles? According to the EIA’s Global EV Outlook 2025 electric bus sales have already reached an invisible ceiling (around 60% of all units sold) in China, while other regions are still dominated by diesel bus sales. Demand for electric trucks, on the other hand, is still in the 1–5% range — even in China. No wonder, despite the optimistic sentiment shared by the EIA and some other organizations, long distance (500 km range) battery electric trucks are still two to three times more expensive than regular ones, and require multi-hour long stops to recharge. Using a fast charger, on the other hand, would degrade the battery much faster than regular charge, so the cost of replacing batteries much more often would quickly negate the benefits of not having to wait several hours for each recharge. And while battery swapping could be an option, building continent wide networks of standardized battery swapping stations is still a pipe dream. Consequently electric trucks seem to remain stuck in the niche of short distance milk runs, parcel deliveries, or drayage (the transport of shipping containers over a short distance to their final destination).

Battery electric trucks are ideal for cycles with combinations of lower daily mileage, lower speeds, and predictable routes, not for long distance delivery consuming the vast majority of diesel fuel worldwide.

 

Then what about electric vehicle trends in mining? Well, apart from some promising experiments, the market for battery electric mining equipment is virtually non-existent at the moment. Even the most optimistic analysts admit, that there are serious productivity concerns when it comes to switching to battery electric mining trucks: “Currently, electric trucks cannot match the uptime of diesel trucks, which require only about 10 minutes of refueling per day compared to the 1 to 2 hours battery charging.” And not only that. “Battery technology remains a key obstacle, with current advancements from suppliers like CATL, ABB, and Northvolt only recently meeting the high demands of haul trucks. The lack of a unified standard in battery designs and chemistries complicates the selection of the optimal solution for mining applications.” From where a 32% compound annual growth rate (unprecedented in any other business) would come from then, remains a mystery for me. And remember, if Rystad’s calculations are correct, we are looking at a nosedive in conventional oil production in the years ahead. We don’t have decades to develop and to ramp up new battery technologies.

 
Pipe dream on steroids. Source: IDTechEX

The little time left to ramp up electrified mining and road transport is not the only limitation, though. While battery technologies could and most probably will improve in the future, generating the megawatts of electricity needed to fast charge these huge batteries will require a massive expansion of the electric grid, or necessitate a similar scale power generation on site. Since grids are overloaded already — and because most major mines are far away from civilization — this latter, however, could only mean natural gas turbines. “Renewables” could only provide some auxiliary support, as a mine cannot be shut down just because its overcast outside or the wind isn’t blowing. (The same goes to long distance trucking, just sayin’.) This continued reliance on fossil fuels begs the question, though: what’s the point of electrification if we just swap one fast depleting fuel (diesel) to another one (natural gas), or in the case of China: coal?

Economic reality

 

Finally this takes us back to the economics of extracting and making these fuels. As we have seen above, demand for diesel was not dented by electrification or alternative fuels. As a result the world is already grappling with a serious diesel shortage, evidenced by record high refinery margins made on making and selling this type of fuel. Ever since 2022 (the failed return to growth after the pandemic and Western sanctions completely upsetting diesel supply in the EU) there is a chronic shortage of the right kind of oil to make diesel from. And with relentless attacks on Russian refineries, diesel export capacities are dwindling as well. Adding all sorts of liquids from unconventional sources, on the other hand, have only resulted in a decline in oil prices, and a widening gap between desires and reality. After ten years of struggling conventional oil (and consequently diesel) supply, the penny has dropped: real, productive economic growth could no longer continue. Something got to give: the Chinese building boom had to end, and Europe’s prosperity had to be sacrificed on the altar of continued financial expansion — lest we wanted to risk tipping the entire system over.

Perhaps the best indicator of this combination of demand destruction, mounting recession fears and flight to safety is the gold to oil ratio, representing how many barrels of oil you can buy with one ounce of gold. You see, the price of oil is the first to plummet during a recession, while gold is seen as a safe haven to protect “wealth”. Whenever this ratio blows out, it indicates a flight to safety and prevailing market caution. As shown on the chart below, we are well past anything we have seen in the past — except for the 2020 health crisis, which resulted in negative oil prices. Such low prices, however, virtually guarantee the outcome laid out by Rystad and the EIA above: oil at $65 or below is simply too cheap for most of the drilling companies to go after. The material costs of drilling ever deeper, less and less productive and ever faster depleting wells simply does not worth the expenditure at these low prices. And soon, not even at $95 a barrel.

 
Gold to Oil Ratio — Historical Chart. Source: Macrotrends

Conclusion

 

Based on these premises electrification can only slow the decline in transport and mining volumes somewhat, but not considerably. As the looming diesel crisis becomes acute, the price of this fuel could skyrocket — but only for a very short time. Since our entire world economy with its six continent supply chains and high material intensity relies on cheap fuel to operate, should such a price spike occur businesses would go bankrupt in droves. A slow but steady rise in the price of diesel, on the other hand, could make anything mined, transported or built by oil so expensive, that people could no longer afford them, leading to a deflationary crisis. Either way demand for diesel would fall in tandem with supply, leaving us with less and less stuff manufactured then brought in from far away. Eventually all the benefits of globalization would be eliminated: no more cheap clothes made available by cheap labor in Cambodia, or battery minerals mined in the Congo, copper in Chile and nickel in Indonesia.

The future will be increasingly localized, with much less product variants and with much simple lifestyles. Remaining diesel supplies will be diverted entirely to maintain agriculture and food delivery, focusing on plant based foods (animal husbandry requires a lot more fuel than growing peas and beans). For the average citizen this will translate into higher food and skyrocketing meat prices, leaving little to no budget to buy anything else than a shirt or a pair of shoes every now and then. (Especially so, if you consider the effect of forced localization raising the cost of doing anything as opposed to just importing stuff from the cheapest source.) Infrastructure projects will be abandoned, just like major housing developments as these activities take a lot of fuel to complete.

How our complex, self-adaptive world economy would react to such a shock as a withdrawal of its prime source of energy, is anyone’s guess. We are looking at a highly volatile situation ahead, lasting decades into the future. Currency crash, inflation, deflation, stagnation and decline are all in the cards. Once the initial part of the crisis is over, we will be looking at a totally different economy though. Many companies will go bankrupt, and the workforce hence released would have to find jobs in agriculture and local workshops, as the demand for cheap labor could only increase with less and less affordable fuel to drive machinery. Adopting a much less materially intensive lifestyle could, however, match the availability of diesel supply, and together with a persistent fall in birth rates could ensure a smooth landing towards the end of this century when oil finally runs out. Yes, I know this might sound messy and pessimistic for those pinning their hopes on this technological civilization going on forever and a day… I have to ask, though, how exactly did you expect ‘infinite growth on a finite planet’ to play out then?

162. The Great Canadian Reset: by Ludovic Viger

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Cooperatives as the Path Through Economic Contraction

Copied from a piece by Ludovic Viger with his permission.

Canada’s economy is at a turning point. For decades, we’ve relied on the promise of perpetual growth to fuel prosperity, but the foundations of that growth are crumbling. According to Dr. Tim Morgan’s Surplus Energy Economics, the global economy, including Canada’s, is inflecting from growth to contraction, driven by the rising Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE). This shift challenges our assumptions about progress and demands new approaches to secure a resilient future.

In this post, I’ll outline three likely outcomes of Canada’s economic contraction and argue why cooperative businesses—democratic, community-driven enterprises—are uniquely suited to address this predicament. Drawing on data from Surplus Energy Economics and Canada’s own economic context, we’ll explore how cooperatives can transform challenges into opportunities for a sustainable, equitable future.

The End of Growth: Understanding Canada’s Economic Contraction

Dr. Tim Morgan’s Surplus Energy Economics provides a critical lens for understanding why economic growth is faltering. Morgan argues that the economy is an energy system, not a financial one. All goods and services depend on energy, and the surplus energy available after the cost of accessing it (ECoE) determines prosperity.

Historically, low ECoEs from fossil fuels drove exponential growth, enabling Canada’s resource-rich economy to thrive. However, as Morgan notes, global ECoEs have risen from around 2% in 1980 to now well over 10%, eroding the surplus energy that fuels economic output. For Canada, a nation with high energy consumption and reliance on exports like oil and gas, this trend is particularly acute.

Morgan’s SEEDS (Surplus Energy Economics Data System) model projects that global material prosperity could decline by 1% annually through 2050, reducing aggregate prosperity by around 22%. For Canada, this translates to shrinking real GDP, strained public finances, and reduced household purchasing power. Evidence from Statistics Canada increasingly points to this reality: real household disposable income growth has stagnated since the 2008 financial crisis, and inflation-adjusted costs for essentials like housing and food have risen sharply, consuming a greater share of our budgets.

The era of “solutions of quantity”—building more, extracting more, borrowing more—is ending. Instead, we must embrace “solutions of quality,” prioritize cooperation over individualism, and adapt to shrinking discretionary funds. Cooperatives, with their focus on community ownership and resilience, are the ideal vehicle for this transition.

  1. From Quantity to Quality: Reprioritizing for Resilience

As economic contraction takes hold, governments and businesses can no longer rely on growth-based strategies. Morgan highlights that rising ECoEs reduce the surplus energy available for non-essential activities, forcing a shift toward efficiency and value. For Canada, this means rethinking how public services and businesses operate. Governments, facing declining tax revenues, will need to optimize spending on essential services like healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Businesses, meanwhile, must focus on delivering high-quality, sustainable goods and services rather than chasing volume.

Cooperatives are uniquely positioned to lead this shift. Unlike corporations driven by shareholder profit, cooperatives prioritize member needs and community well-being.

  • Take Coast Capital Savings, a federally regulated credit union based in British Columbia with over 600,000 members. By reinvesting profits locally and offering affordable financial services, it strengthens communities while maintaining stability in tough economic times.
  • Similarly, agricultural producer cooperatives, like those forming the backbone of Canada’s dairy and grain industries, enable farmers to achieve economies of scale and market their produce efficiently, ensuring quality and fair returns without the exploitative pressures of purely profit-driven intermediaries.

In a contracting economy, cooperatives can deliver “solutions of quality” by focusing on durability, local needs, and equitable distribution. For example, housing cooperatives across Canada, such as those within the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, provide affordable, stable homes without the speculative price spikes of private markets. By pooling resources and prioritizing long-term value over short-term profit, cooperatives align with Morgan’s call to adapt to a less energy-intensive, more resilient economy.

Governments could amplify this by redirecting subsidies from corporations to democratic businesses, as envisioned in my upcoming book, The Great Canadian Reset (September 2025), which advocates for a Democratic Business Development Agency to support cooperative growth.

  1. From Individualism to Cooperation: Building Community Resilience

Economic contraction often exposes the fragility of hyper-individualistic systems. Morgan warns that as prosperity declines, competition for dwindling resources intensifies, potentially fueling social and geopolitical tensions. In Canada, we’ve seen this in rising inequality and housing unaffordability, with the top 1% owning a disproportionate share of wealth while many struggle to afford basics. In such times, individualism—chasing personal gain at the expense of others—becomes unsustainable. Cooperation, however, offers a path forward.

Cooperatives embody cooperation by design. Owned and governed by their members, they distribute benefits equitably and foster collective problem-solving.

  • Historical movements like the Antigonish Movement in Nova Scotia during the Great Depression demonstrated how community-driven cooperatives could provide essential services and build economic self-reliance when traditional markets failed.
  • In Canada today, consumer cooperatives like the Saskatoon Co-op, part of the larger Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) system, demonstrate this resilience by providing affordable food and services and reinvesting profits into local jobs and community initiatives.
  • During the 2008 recession, Canadian credit unions, with over $400 billion in assets today, weathered the storm better than many banks due to their conservative, member-focused models.

In an energy-constrained future, cooperatives can mitigate resource competition by localizing economies. For instance, SolarShare, a Toronto-based renewable energy cooperative, allows members to invest in solar projects, reducing reliance on high-ECoE fossil fuels while keeping energy dollars local. This cooperative model counters the divisive effects of scarcity, fostering trust and mutual support.

As you’ve discussed on various forums, Canada’s values of fairness and belonging align perfectly with cooperatives, making them a natural fit for navigating economic decline. By scaling up cooperative networks, Canada can build resilient communities that share resources rather than compete for them.

  1. Shrinking Discretionary Funds: Cooperatives as a Buffer

As ECoEs rise, the cost of essentials—housing, food, energy—consumes a larger share of household budgets, leaving less for discretionary spending. Morgan’s SEEDS data shows that discretionary sectors, like luxury goods and entertainment, could contract by 30% or more as prosperity declines. In Canada, this is already evident: a 2023 Statistics Canada report noted that 40% of households cut back on non-essential spending due to rising costs. This squeeze threatens economic stability, as discretionary sectors employ millions and drive tax revenue.

Cooperatives offer a buffer against this trend. By pooling resources, they reduce costs for members while maintaining access to essential goods and services.

  • For example, Organic Meadow Co-operative, a Canadian dairy cooperative, provides affordable, sustainable food by cutting out corporate middlemen and ensuring fair prices for both producers and consumers.
  • Similarly, education cooperatives can offer low-cost, community-driven schooling tailored to local needs, providing vital services without the high overheads of private institutions. These models ensure that essentials remain accessible even as discretionary funds dwindle.

Moreover, cooperatives can stabilize local economies by keeping money circulating within communities. The T’Sou-ke Nation Solar Co-op on Vancouver Island generates clean energy and local jobs, reducing dependence on expensive, high-ECoE fossil fuels. By contrast, corporate models often extract wealth to distant shareholders, exacerbating economic leakage in tough times.

Cooperatives’ focus on reinvestment and affordability aligns with Morgan’s warning that we must “own our mistakes and misfortunes” without the “elixir” of growth to bail us out. Through collective ownership, Canadians can stretch limited resources further, ensuring stability in a contracting economy.

Why Cooperatives Are the Answer

Cooperatives are not just a stopgap; they’re a transformative model for Canada’s future. Morgan’s work underscores that economic contraction is inevitable as ECoEs rise and surplus energy shrinks. Traditional growth strategies—borrowing, deregulation, globalization—have failed to address this reality, leaving Canada vulnerable to financialization and systemic risks.

Cooperatives, however, offer a proven alternative. With over 8,000 cooperatives employing 100,000 Canadians and contributing $50 billion to GDP annually (Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada), they’re already a cornerstone of our economy.

Their democratic structure ensures accountability and fairness, countering the exploitative tendencies of neoliberalism. Unlike corporations, which prioritize profit over people, cooperatives reinvest in communities, fostering belonging and resilience. They’re also adaptable to local contexts, whether it’s a fishing cooperative in Atlantic Canada or a solar co-op in Ontario. As my book, The Great Canadian Reset, argues, redirecting support to cooperatives—through loans, training, and policy reform—can democratize our economy and ease the pain of contraction.

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A Call to Action

Canada stands at a crossroads. Economic contraction, driven by rising ECoEs, demands a shift from growth to resilience, from individualism to cooperation, and from excess to sufficiency. Cooperatives are not a utopian dream but a practical, proven solution. They’ve thrived in crises before, from the Great Depression to the 2008 recession, and they can do so again.

Join the conversation and learn more:

Together, we can build a resilient, equitable economy that faces the challenges of contraction head-on.

161. Fragments of the Future: Life After Industrial Civilisation

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A Future We Cannot Avoid

The future will not be what governments promise. Industrial civilisation is ending, not by choice but by natural evolution. Population will shrink, economies will contract, and communications will slow. Governments may talk of growth, but nature, energy, and limits will decide. The question is not whether change comes — but how we prepare for it.

Civilisations do not last forever. Rome fell. Empires rose and disappeared. What seems permanent in one age can crumble in the next. We now stand in the shadow of our own industrial civilisation, built on fossil fuels, global trade, and vast machinery. For two centuries it has powered growth, population expansion, and lifestyles once unimaginable. But the cracks are plain to see.

In the 1960s, Britain offered most young people a clear path to security. A couple could marry, buy a home, start a family, run a car, and even take holidays — often all on the income from one wage-earner in their early twenties. For those who struggled, there was a fallback: council housing, provided by local authorities at rents ordinary people could afford.

The population then was smaller, and its diversity was mainly economic. Britain contained a mix of manual workers, clerks, professionals, and entrepreneurs — but they shared a common expectation of stability. The country was not without problems, but security was within reach for most.

Today the picture is unrecognisable. The population has grown by millions, reshaped by waves of global migration. Cultural diversity has become a defining feature of the nation, while economic security has been hollowed out. Secure jobs have given way to the “gig economy” and “zero-hours contracts.” Housing has been transformed from a basic right into a speculative asset. Young people are burdened with student debt before they even begin working life. The idea of owning a home and raising a family on one income is no longer realistic.

This is called “progress.” Yet it is progress that has stripped away stability and left society more fragmented and insecure than at any time in living memory. Successive governments, locked into the growth narrative, sold off council housing, deregulated labour, and promoted a financialised housing market. They clung to the illusion of control — but the world has shifted beneath their feet.

Here lies the uncomfortable truth: the future is no longer predictable. Climate change, global conflicts, and collapsing ecosystems are driving mass movements of people. Populations will rise in some areas, shrink in others. Economies that once grew steadily will contract, forced down by resource limits and unaffordable energy. Governments that promise stability through top-down planning are selling a fantasy.

And behind all this looms a reality we barely dare to name. Industrial civilisation has enabled the world’s population to grow to nearly 8 billion, sustained by fossil-fuel farming, long-distance transport, and global medicine. Remove those supports, and such numbers cannot be maintained. The conclusion is unavoidable: the global population — and Britain’s share of it — must fall, not by thousands but by millions.

This contraction will not be optional. It will come through falling birth rates, forced migration, or harsher routes: famine, disease, and conflict. We can soften the impact with foresight and preparation, but we cannot prevent it. A smaller economy means fewer jobs, less food, and lower energy availability — and ultimately, fewer people. Industrial society has raised us to unsustainable heights, and nature’s limits will bring us back down.

What happens when there is not enough food for everyone? What happens when hospitals run short of medicines that can no longer be imported? What happens when millions find they cannot afford heat or shelter? These are no longer theoretical questions. They are the questions a shrinking, post-industrial Britain will be forced to answer.

And what of communications — the arteries of any civilisation? The Romans held their empire together with roads. They allowed armies to march, traders to travel, and ideas to spread. When those roads fell into disrepair after the Roman withdrawal, Britain fragmented. Towns shrank, trade declined, and life became more local because the networks that once bound the country together were gone.

Industrial civilisation has had its own communications revolution. Railways and canals first linked the nation, followed by motorways, airports, and container ports that tied Britain into global supply chains. In the past fifty years, telecommunications — from landlines to satellites to the internet — have shrunk time and space, binding the world together at dizzying speed.

But all of these systems are energy-hungry. They depend on fossil fuels and vast industrial infrastructures. What happens when energy becomes scarce, expensive, or unreliable? Railways may endure if they can generate their own power, but roads and air transport will falter without cheap fuel. Telecommunications may not collapse, but they will contract. High-speed networks, data centres, and always-on connectivity may become luxuries rather than assumptions.

The future of communications may therefore be low-energy, local, and patchy. Local radio, community printing, face-to-face exchange, and simple digital systems powered by renewables could survive. National railways may endure if designed to be self-powering, but the age of cheap flights and overnight container shipping will be gone. Britain will remain connected, but less tightly, less instantly, and at a slower pace. Communities will need to rely on themselves first, and on distant networks only when essential.

This matters because communications are the glue of society. If that glue weakens, fragmentation follows. When the Romans left, Britain broke into kingdoms. Today, if global supply chains and digital networks falter, we may find ourselves in a patchwork of local systems again. The question is whether those systems will be resilient enough to support life with dignity.

To glimpse what might come next, we can look back. When the Romans withdrew from Britain in the early fifth century, the centralised system they had imposed collapsed. Roads decayed, towns emptied, and trade shrank. What followed was not chaos so much as adaptation. Smaller kingdoms emerged — the Mercians, the Northumbrians, the Welsh kingdoms in the west. Life reorganised itself on a more local, self-sufficient scale. People lost the benefits of Roman order, but they created new forms of society that fitted the times.

We may now be facing something similar. The retreat of industrial civilisation will not look like the lights going out in a single moment. It will look like services failing, supply chains breaking, and global companies quietly withdrawing from places they no longer find profitable. It will look like governments losing their grip, still promising “growth” while people on the ground see their lives becoming harder. And just as the departure of the Romans gave rise to smaller kingdoms, the retreat of the industrial system may force us back to something local and fragmented — not feudal states perhaps, but communities taking charge of their own survival.

That future will be unimaginably different from the world we know. It will not be delivered by grand plans from Whitehall, because the state itself will struggle to manage the shocks of climate migration, resource scarcity, economic collapse, and population decline. Governments will go on pretending to shape events, tinkering with policies and slogans, but the real driver of change will be natural evolution: energy limits, ecological collapse, and demographic shifts far beyond political control.

This is where localism comes in. Localism is not a slogan, nor a lifestyle trend. It is the only practical response to an age of contraction and unpredictability. Communities must take responsibility for the essentials of life — housing, food, energy, care, and communications. These systems will have to be rebuilt on a human scale, resilient to global disruption, and designed for sufficiency rather than endless growth.

We should not pretend this will be easy. Living standards, as measured by consumption, will be lower than in the heyday of the industrial economy. Population itself will shrink — and the reduction will not be gentle. Whether by design or by disaster, Britain’s millions will diminish. Transport and communications will slow, shift, or even break down. But security, belonging, and dignity can return if communities build resilience together. That is what “progress” must come to mean: not more gadgets, not more debt-fuelled consumption, but the ability to live stable, meaningful lives within the limits of the natural world.

So perhaps the real question is not whether Britain will fracture into “kingdoms” as it did after the Romans left. The question is whether we are ready to face the end of industrial civilisation and prepare for a future made up of fragments — smaller, more resilient communities, strong enough to withstand the storms of the coming age.

The past tells us that societies can survive collapse — but only if they adapt. The blunt truth is this: Britain’s population, economy, and communications will not survive in their current form. The question is no longer if things will change, but how. Will we accept the challenge and rebuild on a smaller, human scale — or will we wait until hunger, isolation, and breakdown make the choice for us?

156. A Grim Encore: Europe’s Descent into Coal

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Civilisation rests on pillars—food, water, steel, cement, and above all, energy. Without them, everything crumbles. That foundational truth, articulated in “A Return to Coal” by Consciousness of Sheep on September 8, 2025, rings louder now than ever consciousnessofsheep.co.uk.

Once the world’s industrial heart, Europe now teeters on the verge of a second Dark Age—for reasons that read like tragicomic irony.

The Mirage of “Cheap” Russian Gas

For decades, European rhetoric cast Russian gas as cheap and plentiful. But that was a myth. In reality, while Russian pipeline gas benefited from transport infrastructure and long-term contracts, pricing steadily converged with—or even exceeded—European spot and LNG levels Reuters. The notion that Russia ever offered a perpetual gas discount was less energy economics and more wishful politics.

Renewables That Aren’t So Renewable

Europe pinned its hopes on non-renewable renewable energy-harvesting technologies (NRREHTs)—wind and solar. But these technologies lack the physical inertia of traditional plants like coal, gas, or nuclear. That’s a serious grid integrity issue. When something disrupts the system—say, a lightning strike at a wind farm or sudden loss of production—there’s no spinning turbine mass to smooth the shock. The result? Cascading blackouts and grid instability.

Even sustainably-minded myths crumble under scrutiny: renewables can’t provide the fast ramp-up, inertia, or black-start capabilities essential to modern grids.

Lignite: Europe’s Dirty Refuge

So where does Europe turn? The article points—with mordant humor—to Europe’s vast coal reserves, especially lignite (brown coal) in places like Northern Ireland—and critically, Germany. Ironically, the nations most bullish about decarbonisation—Britain, France, Germany—may be the first to revert to coal when cheaper Russian gas flows eastward.

It’s especially telling that nuclear shutdowns and intermittent renewables are leaving Europe exposed—only to fall back on one of the dirtiest and least sustainable fuels.

The Irony of a Green Collapse

Here’s the tragic core: efforts to phase out fossil fuels—often at the cost of nuclear decommissioning—have made Europe more fragile, not greener. Germany’s premature nuclear exit, green policy fetish, and reliance on renewables without proper backup capacity led to industrial decline and imports of coal-based wind turbine components from China  In the UK, expensive LNG imports have hamstrung heavy industry; steel production falters, business bankruptcies skyrocke.

All the while, the “green transition” depends heavily on subsidies and mandates—renewables get priority dispatch, despite lacking inertia, and profits for renewable operators are barely viable without these supports.

Conclusion: Coal’s Comeback – Wry, Grim, Inevitable?

Europe may well be hurtling back toward coal—not because of innovation, but under the weight of failed energy policy, shaky grids, and geopolitical isolation.

  • Russian gas wasn’t really cheap, and its myth masked deeper vulnerabilities.
  • Renewables without robust backup are fragile illusions, not anchors of sustainability.
  • Coal—lignite in particular—lurks as a last-resort fallback, especially for nations that once led energy reforms.

This is not a “green transition” but a reversal, propelled by miscalculation, rigid ideology, and the brutal physics of energy systems. The irony is bitter, the direction unmistakable, and the cost – economic, environmental, and societal – immeasurable.

155. The Decline of Surplus Energy and What it means for Prosperity: Part Four

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From Top-Down Control to Grassroots Evolution

In Part One, we saw that the decline of surplus energy will steadily shrink prosperity and reduce the capacity of our current economic system to deliver the lifestyle we have come to expect. In Part Two, we explored why localism — shorter supply chains, stronger community economies, and decisions made closer to home — is the only sustainable response. Part Three described how localism could take shape in practical terms: in food, housing, energy, work, and governance.

Part Four brings these threads together with one critical insight: real change will not start at the top. It will begin in the streets, the villages, the households, and the informal networks where people live their daily lives. The evolution to localism will be led from the bottom up.

1. Why Change Starts with People

Centralised systems, built on abundant cheap energy, are already struggling to respond to today’s challenges. As prosperity contracts, national institutions will find it harder to maintain the breadth of services, infrastructure, and supply chains we once relied on.

People and communities will adapt first because they have to. When supermarket ranges shrink, people will grow food. When heating bills rise, they will share resources. When public services become unreliable, they will build informal networks of care and exchange.

This is not rebellion — it is necessity. Localism will grow because it works when larger systems falter.

2. The Role of Grassroots Action

We are already seeing the early signs of this shift:

  • Community gardens, allotments, and shared kitchens emerging in towns and villages.
  • Repair workshops replacing throwaway consumption.
  • Informal service exchanges — neighbour helping neighbour, often outside the formal economy.
  • Local food networks and direct farm-to-household schemes bypassing centralised distribution.
  • Small-scale renewable energy projects designed and owned by communities.

These are not waiting for government permission. They happen because people see gaps and fill them. Each small step strengthens resilience. Each success inspires others. Localism spreads not by decree, but by demonstration.

3. A New Role for Top-Down Institutions

As grassroots initiatives grow, the role of central and local authorities changes fundamentally:

  • From control to support.
  • From planning first to responding first.
  • From enforcing uniformity to enabling diversity.

Communities will develop solutions suited to their own resources, geography, and needs. The task of councils, planners, and national government is not to dictate those solutions but to remove barriers, offer practical help, and connect good ideas so they can spread.

This is the revolution: a shift from top-down control to grassroots evolution.

4. Why Ownership Matters

People are far more likely to support and sustain changes that they believe are theirs. Top-down plans, however well intentioned, often fail because they feel imposed. Bottom-up action succeeds because:

  • It grows from lived experience and local knowledge.
  • It builds trust within communities.
  • It encourages creativity and flexibility.
  • It develops informal systems that complement, not compete with, formal systems.

Localism works because it places control where people already live, work, and care — close to home.

5. A Grassroots Evolution, Not a Crisis Response

The danger, as outlined in Part One, is that we delay until breakdown forces sudden, chaotic change. But there is another path: early, steady grassroots evolution.

If communities take the lead now:

  • Food systems can localise before supermarket shortages make it urgent.
  • Shared energy schemes can be in place before blackouts become common.
  • Repair and reuse networks can grow before replacement costs become unbearable.
  • Skills can be built while there is still time to prepare the next generation.

This is about being ahead of the curve, not behind it.

6. The Shape of the Future

If we succeed, the UK of the future will feel smaller, slower, and closer to home. But it will also feel more secure, more connected, and more meaningful:

  • More food grown and processed locally.
  • More energy generated and managed by communities.
  • More informal economies where people trade time, skills, and care.
  • Less dependency on fragile global systems.
  • Stronger local identity and greater trust between neighbours.

Top-down systems will still exist, but they will become servants rather than masters — responding to, supporting, and amplifying the innovations of grassroots communities.

Conclusion

Parts One to Three showed why localism is inevitable: declining surplus energy, shrinking prosperity, and the need for shorter supply chains and stronger communities.

Part Four shows how it will happen:

  • Change begins with people, not planners.
  • Localism spreads by action, not instruction.
  • Authorities succeed when they enable rather than control.

This is not a managed transition imposed from above. It is an evolution driven by households, neighbourhoods, and communities taking ownership of their future — step by step, choice by choice.

The question is not whether this happens, but how smoothly. If we encourage grassroots action and allow people to lead, we can make the shift to localism steadily, creatively, and together.

153, The Decline of Surplus Energy and What it means for Prosperity: Part Two

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Here’s Part Two, written as a natural continuation of Part One. It refers back to the energy constraints and declining prosperity explained earlier and sets out a clear, reasoned argument that localism is the only realistic path forward:

Part Two

Why Localism is the Only Feasible Way Forward

In Part One, we saw that the decline of surplus energy is reshaping the foundations of our economy and society. As energy becomes harder to obtain, more expensive, and less abundant, the prosperity that we once took for granted inevitably contracts. If the UK continues with its present economic system, the result will be a gradual narrowing of daily life, with communities forced to adapt to lower levels of choice, mobility, and material consumption.

The key lesson from this is clear: the old model of a highly centralised, high-energy, growth-driven economy cannot survive in a world where cheap surplus energy no longer exists. The question is not whether we return to the systems of the past, but how we design the systems of the future.

This is where localism emerges, not as an option, but as a necessity.

The Logic of Localism

Localism means shifting more of our essential production, exchange, and decision-making closer to where people live. In a shrinking economy, this is not ideological — it is practical. Transporting food, goods, and energy over long distances becomes less viable when energy is expensive and supplies are fragile. Maintaining giant national systems built for perpetual expansion drains resources that are increasingly scarce.

Localism addresses this by shortening supply chains, reducing dependence on vulnerable global markets, and allowing communities to organise around what really matters: food, shelter, energy, care, and skills.

The Three Pressures Driving Localism

1. Rising Costs of Distance
In Part One, we saw how falling surplus energy makes everything costlier. This pressure will steadily undermine the business models built on moving vast quantities of goods across the country and the world. Local production — whether in food, repair, energy, or services — becomes competitive again when transport costs rise and reliability falters.

2. Fragile National Systems
Highly centralised systems depend on scale and efficiency to function. When energy and tax revenues fall, these systems weaken. Hospitals, supply chains, and even utilities will struggle to meet demand under the current model. Local networks, by contrast, can act faster, make decisions that reflect local realities, and build resilience where it matters most.

3. The Growth of the Informal Economy
As discretionary spending shrinks, more people will turn to informal exchange — trading skills, time, and produce outside the formal money system. This trend is already visible in second-hand markets, community gardens, repair workshops, and local service exchanges. Localism strengthens and legitimises these patterns rather than resisting them.

Localism as a Managed Transition

If policymakers accept the reality set out in Part One, they can prepare for a managed shift to a localised economy rather than allowing a chaotic breakdown. This means:

  • Planning for shorter supply chains – Giving priority to local producers and small businesses in procurement, licensing, and tax policy.
  • Supporting food security – Expanding local farming, market gardening, allotments, and small-scale food processing, reducing dependency on fragile imports.
  • Redesigning energy systems – Developing small, distributed renewable energy schemes owned and managed locally.
  • Restoring practical skills – Prioritising training in trades, repair, growing, and low-energy technologies to prepare people for a less centralised economy.
  • Shifting decision-making power – Giving communities greater authority over land use, resource allocation, and infrastructure priorities, ensuring they can respond directly to local conditions.

This is not a nostalgic retreat into the past but a deliberate redesign for a future where resilience matters more than scale.

The Alternative: Denial and Disorder

If we ignore these realities and cling to the old model, the pressures outlined in Part One will not disappear. Instead, they will break the system from below. Food and energy insecurity will increase, central services will fail under strain, and informal economies will grow anyway — but without structure, support, or fairness. Inequality will deepen as some adapt while others fall behind. Social cohesion will erode as trust in national institutions collapses.

This is the difference between shaping the transition and having it forced upon us.

The Inevitable Direction of Change

The end of cheap surplus energy means the UK must rethink the scale at which it operates. Communities will need to rely more on themselves, and solutions will have to fit local resources and conditions. Localism is not a political choice but a response to physics, geography, and affordability.

In time, the shape of the economy will reflect the constraints of energy. The longer we delay, the harder the adjustment becomes. But if we start now — using the logic set out in Part One — we can build a society that is smaller in scale, slower in pace, and closer to home, but also fairer, more resilient, and better able to meet the needs of its people.

Conclusion

Part One showed us the unavoidable challenge: falling surplus energy drives falling surplus prosperity. Part Two shows us the solution: localism is the only sustainable response. We either embrace it deliberately, with planning and foresight, or we stumble into it through breakdown and necessity.

The energy reality is fixed. The choice lies in how we respond.

151. The Decline of Surplus Energy and What it means for Prosperity: Part One

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For two centuries we grew because we had cheap energy with a large surplus. We used a little energy to get a lot back. That surplus powered everything beyond basic survival. As the surplus falls, more effort must go into simply running the essentials. Less is left over for comfort, variety, and growth.

What this means for prosperity

Prosperity depends on what is left after the basics are paid for. When energy takes a bigger bite, households have less money for eating out, leisure, travel, new clothes, and gadgets. Firms have less to invest in staff and new kit. The state collects less tax from slowing activity while costs for health, care, and infrastructure keep rising. The result is a slow squeeze on the domestic economy. Discretionary markets shrink first. Repairs replace replacements. Second hand replaces brand new. People trade time and skills, not only money. It feels like a reduction in choice, pace, and reach.

If the present UK economic system remains unchanged

Assume we try to run the current model as if nothing basic has altered. Prices will signal scarcity, but investment will still chase short term returns. Debt will try to bridge the gap. Households will juggle higher bills and lower real incomes. Local shops will thin out. Out of town retail will struggle with energy and transport costs. Public services will ration informally through waiting time. Councils will delay maintenance. National supply chains will trim range and carry less stock.

Daily life steps back toward the habits of the past. People travel less and nearer to home. More meals are cooked from basic ingredients. Gardens and allotments become practical, not hobby. Homes fill with repaired items. Multi purpose community spaces return. Sharing becomes normal, from tools to car lifts. Not by romance, but by necessity. We keep much of the formal frame, yet an informal layer spreads underneath it. That is how the system reverts, quietly, to an older pattern.

Will this be simple evolution, or a revolution in the economic system?

Both are possible. Evolution happens when institutions accept the energy constraint, and then redesign money, services, and rules to fit a world that is no longer expanding. Revolution happens when the formal system refuses to adapt while the pressure keeps rising. The outcome depends on pace, honesty, and trust.

How change actually happens

First, the energy return declines, then costs creep through everything. Discretionary sectors contract. Tax receipts soften. The state trims or targets benefits. Local authorities defer projects. Households move decision by decision toward thrift. Informal exchange grows, from neighbour help to small cash jobs to co ops. Small producers emerge because large scale margins are too thin. A parallel economy forms, close to home.

If policy stays fixed, stress builds. Debt becomes harder to service. Banks and lenders pull back. A few shocks, such as a winter price spike or a supply interruption, expose the lack of slack. Trust in promises, public and private, weakens. People and firms seek reliability over growth. They value steady supply over low sticker price. They accept less variety if it is nearer and sure. At that point the formal rules either bend to reality, or they break.

What a managed evolution could look like

Government and councils recognise that the era of surplus is over. They shift focus from maximising throughput to securing essentials. Planning and licensing make space for small scale production, repair, and food. Procurement favours nearer suppliers to cut energy risk. Money and credit support maintenance, not just new build. Pricing protects basic needs, perhaps with lifeline tariffs. Transport policy backs walking, cycling, and small electric fleets for short trips. Education and training move toward practical skills. The aim is resilience first, efficiency second.

What a rupture could look like

If denial holds, cuts deepen, backlogs grow, and services hollow out. A sharp energy shock triggers business closures and job losses in the already thin discretionary sector. Households default. The tax base shrinks. Central government centralises more decisions to hold the line, which slows local problem solving. Black markets grow. A new settlement then arrives fast, not by design, but through breakdown. Price controls, rationing, emergency procurement, and strict priorities appear. After the shock, rules are rewritten in haste to match the new reality.

Why a return to the past is only partial

We will not rewind to the 1930s. We keep knowledge, basic digital tools, and some modern infrastructure. But the pattern feels familiar. More human work. Shorter supply lines. Modest output with high care for durability. Less travel. Smaller, multi use spaces. Community institutions matter more. National systems still exist, yet local practice carries more of the load.

Choosing the path

The energy fact will not change. The choice is whether we change our systems with it. Evolution is calmer. It needs plain talk about limits, early support for essentials, and legal space for small scale activity. It rewards households that adapt and communities that organise. Revolution is the risk if we delay, deny, or defend sunk models too long. Then change arrives suddenly and on harder terms.

What to watch

Shrinking ranges on supermarket shelves. Longer waiting times. Rising repair trades. Growth of allotments and local food. More second hand. New mutual aid groups. Small makers and services that thrive by being near. These are signals of the shift. They are also the seeds of the next economy.

Conclusion

Falling surplus energy leads to falling surplus prosperity. If we keep the current system unchanged, life will narrow and move closer to home, much like the past. That can be a managed evolution or a rough revolution. The difference lies in whether we accept the limit and redesign around it, or pretend it is not there and let the limit redesign us.

149. Rainwater Harvesting for UK Homes

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For those who live in country areas where mains water supply may turn out to be a problem

Rainwater Harvesting Systems - Great Home

Here’s a helpful schematic showing how a typical gravity-fed domestic rainwater harvesting system works in the UK—perfect for giving you a visual starting point as we dig into the details.

Rainwater Harvesting for UK Homes (DIY-friendly Guide)

1. Why Rainwater Harvesting Makes Sense—and Might Become Essential

  • Cost-conscious resilience: By reusing rainwater for toilets, laundry, outdoor use, and gardens, households can significantly reduce mains water bills—an increasingly attractive benefit during economic uncertainty or rising utility costs.
  • Environmental & infrastructure relief: Harvesting rainwater eases pressure on mains supplies and helps manage stormwater runoff, mitigating flood risks in urban areas. Standards like BS EN 16941‑1:2018 and the SuDS Manual guide system design and functionality (Total Water Systems, Wikipedia, Wikipedia).
  • Legality & regulation: Rainwater collection is legal in the UK. You don’t need abstraction licences for systems that collect only roof rainwater and don’t tap natural watercourses (GOV.UK, The Sun). That said, strict rules ensure that non‑potable rainwater remains completely isolated from mains drinking water—requiring features like an air‑gap separation (valves alone aren’t enough) (RainHarvesting).
  • Growing focus on sustainability: With water stress rising and bills expected to climb, rainwater systems are increasingly seen as both eco‑friendly and cost‑smart improvements for UK homes (Homebuilding, Ideal Home).

2. Core Components of a DIY Rainwater Harvesting System

Here’s what your system needs to work safely and effectively:

  1. Catchment & guttering
    Rain falls onto your roof and is directed through gutters and downpipes.
  2. First‑flush diverter & basic filter
    A diverter prevents the first, dirtier rainwater (with debris and dust) from entering the tank. A primary mesh filter adds extra protection (Wikipedia, GRAF UK).
  3. Storage tank (rain barrel or butt)
    • Above-ground tanks (water butts) are the most DIY-friendly and cost-efficient for gardens and non‑potable uses (The Eco Experts).
    • Below-ground tanks are more discreet and higher capacity but require excavation and wetter-weather considerations (Wikipedia).
  4. Pump & delivery path
    Gravity can feed garden or external taps, but a pump may be needed for pressure or internal uses like flushing toilets or washing machines. Separate pipes labelled clearly (e.g. black pipe with green stripes labelled “RAINWATER”) are legally required to avoid cross-contamination (The Spruce, GRAF Website).
  5. Mains backup with air‑gap
    A clever system ensures that when the tank runs dry, mains water supplements—but via an air‑gap system (not a mere valve) to maintain total separation and hygienic safety (RainHarvesting).
  6. Overflow & environmental compliance
    Excess water should overflow safely without affecting rivers or requiring abstraction licences (GOV.UK).

3. DIY: Step-by-Step Installation for a Basic Water Butt Setup

This is the most accessible DIY route, ideal for gardeners or those starting small:

What you’ll need:

  • Water butt (plastic or decorative options available)
  • Water butt stand (to raise the outlet)
  • Rainwater diverter kit for downpipe
  • Basic tools: tape measure, combi drill, hole saw bit, spirit level, hacksaw, pencil (Wickes).

Installation steps:

  1. Choose a level spot next to a downpipe; shady positioning helps reduce bacterial growth (Ideal Home).
  2. Assemble the water butt on its stand—check it’s level.
  3. Install the rainwater diverter on your downpipe just above the inlet point; cut the downpipe as instructed by the kit.
  4. Attach the diverter to your water butt; once full, overflow returns to the drainpipe.
  5. Connect a hose or tap to the butt for easy access.
  6. Label as ‘non‑potable’ and maintain the system—clean annually, clear gutters, and flush debris (landscapingsuperstore.co.uk, The Times, The Sun).

4. Safety, Compliance & Good Practice

  • Air-gap mandatory: Non-potable water systems must not risk contamination of mains drinking water; always use an air-gap, and never rely solely on check/ball valves (RainHarvesting, GRAF Website).
  • Labeling & color coding: Pipes carrying rainwater must be clearly marked (e.g. black with green stripes, labelled “RAINWATER”) and taps must also be labelled to prevent future mistakes (GRAF Website).
  • No licence needed: Pure roof-harvested rainwater for domestic use doesn’t require abstraction licensing—so long as it’s not mixed with surface or ground water systems (GOV.UK).
  • Check with your water supplier: It’s wise to inform them of your plans—especially if you want to be sure about local water fitting requirements or guidance (Wikipedia).

5. Summary Table for Quick Reference

StageDIY Steps & Tips
CatchmentUse clean gutters; add first‑flush diverter and mesh filter
StorageChoose above‑ground butt or buried tank depending on needs & budget
DistributionUse separate, labelled piping; add pump if needed for indoor use
Back-upInstall mains supply via air‑gap system
SafetyAdhere to Water Fittings Regs and building regs; label visibly to avoid cross-use
MaintenanceAnnually clean, clear debris, check structure and pumps

6. Final Thoughts: Start Small, Scale Wisely

Beginning with a simple water butt installation is both cost-effective and easy to manage—and very timely, especially amidst potential hosepipe bans or rising water prices (The Eco Experts, GRAF Website, RainHarvesting, Ideal Home). As time and budget allow, you can scale up to more elaborate systems that serve your home’s internal demands—always respecting the regulations and air-gap safety standards.

ChatGPT says: If you’d like help choosing components, sizing your tank, budgeting, or tackling deeper installations (e.g. underground tanks or full domestic systems), I’m here to help!

144, The End of Post-Industrial Nations

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There can be only one… then none?

The Honest Sorcerer
Aug 24

A one million feet view. Photo by NASA on Unsplash

According to prevailing economic theory we live, in the West at least, in a “post-industrial”, knowledge-based, high income economy where industrial output matters very little. Watching financial metrics alone, one could easily agree with that: GDP per capita just keeps on rising, despite polluting low value-added businesses (metallurgy, raw material extraction and processing etc.) being moved into “developing” nations. While the recent ‘rare earth’ craze — and the realization that without certain raw materials and components high-tech post-industrial products can no longer be made — has thrown some sand into the gears of this theory, so far it has failed to shake the West’s entrenched belief in financial capitalism. However, and as usual, the rabbit hole goes much deeper than what the absence of a few magnets and special components might indicate.

This week my interview with Nandita and Alan from Population Balance went live on YouTube. Be sure to check out their website, too, for show notes, links and updates.

Thank you for reading The Honest Sorcerer. If you value this article or any others please share and consider a subscription, or perhaps buying a virtual coffee. At the same time allow me to express my eternal gratitude to those who already support my work — without you this site could not exist.

Blindspots everywhere

In their recent study PricewaterhouseCoopers shed some light on the role of commodities in growth — stating that ‘Minerals will catalyse value creation in the new domains of growth.’ And what minerals have they placed on the top of the chart? Neodymium? Silicon? Nah, good old coal, iron and copper. You see, while the availability of small magnets can and do disturb supply chains, the vast majority of industrial materials still come from “low value-add”, polluting businesses. In other words: the coal and iron age has never ended. Just take a look for yourself:

Source: PwC analysis

The world, in both of its Eastern and Western hemispheres, is still built and moved by these old materials. And we haven’t even mentioned the master resource — sorely missing from the PwC chart above — crude oil… Without these material and energy inputs even the most advanced economy of the world would cease to function in a matter of weeks or at best months, depending on their stock levels. Controlling the flow of these key inputs thus always was and always will be of strategic importance — at least as long as industrial civilization lasts. And while neoliberal economic theory suggests that these raw materials could always be imported at low cost from somewhere else, that presupposes that people “somewhere else” will always agree to sell them at a low enough price. The question thus poses itself: if these materials are so crucial then why are they so cheap? You see, as Nate Hagens pointed out so vividly, there is a fundamental mismatch between the cost, the real value and of course the price of these commodities. Put more bluntly: price does not equal value and has very little to do with cost.:

Let’s take crude oil for example. Without this substance we would not be able to move our cars, trucks, dumpers, cranes, combined harvesters, excavators, ships, locomotives, planes etc. — nor produce essential lubricants, paint, plastic, asphalt and a thousand other products. Yet, at the time of this writing, one barrel (42 gallons) of crude sells for a mere $63, while providing society with 1.7 megawatt-hours of energy — equivalent to four and a half years of human labor. It’s more than just a question of equivalency, though. Due to its incredible energy density, portability and versatility oil can easily power container ships the size of a skyscraper, while no amount of people could peddle such a boat across the Pacific ocean, let alone launch a SpaceX rocket into space (1). Should the flow of oil stop for just a month, the entire world economy would grind to a screeching halt, and societies would collapse soon thereafter. (This is why even a moderate depletion scenario calculating with a modest 4–5% production loss a year is a very big deal.) In this sense, oil is priceless.

The real value of commodities

The entire world economy was built on the price of energy and raw materials being ultra-low compared to the value they provide to society. Every economic activity, from making a car to legal and financial services involves the burning of vast quantities of energy and consuming enormous amounts of minerals and food. What we call value-added activity is, in fact, owed largely to the vast difference between the value of commodities and the price we pay for those. Just think of the yawning gap between the price of a barrel of oil ($63) and the price of the 4.5 years of physical labor (worth $225,000) it replaces. Almost every cent we earn in society is financed from that gap.

Let’s take legal services for example. That surely doesn’t take much oil to provide right? Still, how do lawyers earn so much by burning so little? They must be super-productive, at least economically speaking, right? Well, no. Imagine for a moment that you are a partner at a law-firm in America. You drive to work, burning a few gallons of fuel every day and think: well, that’s about it. But then you arrive at a building built mostly from steel and glass — taking enormous amounts of coal, diesel fuel, natural gas, iron ore, silica-sand, plastics, copper etc. to build. Still remember the chart I shared above? (I guess I don’t have to emphasize the fact that should your company be headquartered in a plywood shack at the edge of town no one would take you seriously.)

Later that day you decide to organize a business lunch with an important client in a fancy restaurant, where the food — grown and harvested by diesel guzzling tractors and combined harvesters — was delivered on trucks and prepared by burning natural gas and using kilowatts of electricity. Not your business, right? Well, next time organize that lunch on a bench in the park, eating home made sandwiches. I’m sure, your client would be thrilled! In the evening, after a productive day, you drive by a supermarket and decide to do some shopping. Again, the food there wasn’t produced by farmers pulling their plows with oxen, nor that beef patty was kept cool by ladies with fans… Instead, gallons of diesel fuel and untold amounts of natural gas was burned in every step of their production and transportation. (Just close your eyes and replace that meat-stand with the tanks of fuel it took to produce and deliver those products to the store.)

In the evening you arrive home and park your car in front of the garage… I guess I don’t have to repeat at this point how that house and vehicle was made and from what. Sure, you could be living in a homeless encampment built from the refuse of this techno-industrial society, but that’s highly unlikely. At the end of the day, you, as a partner at a law firm, have just consumed a ton of fossil fuels and hundreds of pounds of raw materials — mostly made “somewhere else”. How is your activity less material and energy intensive than smelting iron or making glass in a low value added factory then? I bet you know the answer…

Law firms, banks and a gazillion other materially non-productive economic entities are in fact free-riders on this system built entirely on the availability of cheap fossil fuels and minerals. These businesses represent an enormous “high value added” overhead on top of a crumbling base of loads of “low value added” work. This so called “low value added work,” such as that of a steel worker, is just terribly under-payed work, compared to the real value provided to the economy. Should corporations compensate these workers more fairly, or pay a higher price for these inputs, though, the whole inverted pyramid of value would come crumbling down — and therefore its unlikely to happen.

So while the gap between the price of a barrel of oil and the price of 4.5 years of physical labor seems to be huge, almost every single economic activity on this planet draws its profits from this immense difference. Since we still need oil, natural gas and other essential inputs to almost every single economic activity, any substantial price increase sends waves across the economy, ruining businesses and greatly reducing the purchasing power of money. The chart, depicting commodity price indices below tells it all: after the stability of the 1990’s prices started to rise steadily leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. It is a roller coaster ride ever since with the commodity price index climbing higher and higher, pushing Western economies into stagnation, then (since 2020) into decline.

Source: Index Mundi

The cost issue

The third and final element in this picture, after understanding the gap between price and value, is the cost of extraction. In the early to middle 20th century, returns on oil and gas investment, mines, factories and infrastructure (such as dams) were enormous. Thanks to the abundant, high quality, easy-to-get resources — such as crude oil found in Texas, or copper from the Bringham Canyon mine — the economy could experience explosive growth. The relatively low investment costs needed to access these vast treasure troves of resources meant that a lot less money was needed to be paid for extracting them, leaving enormous profits in the pockets of mining and oil companies, even as the economy enjoyed low commodity prices. This also meant that very little energy and raw materials had to be reinvested into their continued production, leaving more materials and energy to build infrastructure and products from. A win-win, right?

As years passed by, though, and as these once prodigious sites became slowly depleted, new modes of resource production had to be found. Fracking shale formations to find more hydrocarbons or opening mines in less favorable locations, on the other hand, meant a much higher energy and material investment for a lot lower return — in other words: higher costs for the entire society. (And we haven’t even mentioned the environmental harm caused by these operations and the use of these resources, conveniently called externalities.) The resulting cost increases began to erode the profitability of the extraction business, though. Since the economy have a limited tolerance towards price increases (due to its need for a large enough gap between prices paid and value provided by these commodities), mining and drilling companies have increasingly came under pressure. As the Pwc report found, their EBITs are falling even as they would need more money than ever to open new mines and drill more wells to keep up with the depletion of their more productive assets. The following image courtesy of BHP, one of the world’s largest mining companies, tells us so:

Major copper discoveries show a downward trend: both in size and resource depth. Source: Visual Capitalist

Opening new ever deeper mines, or having to remove an ever larger rock overburden increases costs disproportionally. Again, not only in monetary but also in energy and material terms. And if this increased investment yields less and less copper per mine (as indicated by the size of the circles on the chart above) this means that we are facing an exponential increase in material and energy investment needed per ton of metal retrieved. Not a winning combination, if you ask me… Resource depletion is thus not a purely geological phenomenon — even though it’s clearly driven by it — but a complex interplay between price, value and cost. And while extractive businesses are constantly trying to reduce their costs, they are ultimately waging a losing battle. Throwing more technology at the “problem” does not solve it either. Newer methods add complexity and usually come with an increased energy demand. In a world, where energy from fossil fuels have started to become increasingly limited, another “solution” had to be found to this predicament.

The geopolitical context

The ever increasing energy and material cost of resource extraction has slowly begun to cannibalize the rest of the economy. As more and more diesel, electricity, and natural gas got re-invested into mining and drilling, less and less energy and metals were left for the rest of the economy to build houses, factories, products and infrastructure from. The economy, as a result, began to adapt by sending the most energy and resource hungry parts of it abroad where labor costs, environmental standards and energy was cheaper… Up to a point where essentially everything was produced elsewhere, leaving post-industrial nations totally dependent on imports. The original idea behind this policy was that “third world” nations would never develop an industry of their own, never reach an income level where internal consumption becomes a factor, never demand higher wages, clean air and water for their workers, and of course never run out of stuff. In other words: the assumption behind offshoring was that the “third world” would never manage to shake off their colonial status.

As the global south slowly began to decolonize itself by looking for alternatives to Western financial systems designed around their exploitation, and as global energy and raw material extraction approached planetary limits, the post-industrial, high value added model of the West began to crumble. Emerging economies have realized that once the basic industries are secured — providing these nations with the iron, coal, copper etc. needed for their development — they can start training the engineers and scientists of their own, turning these resources into bridges, railways, dams, factories and the like. The industrialization of many global south countries have naturally created a competition for resources between these rapidly developing and the already developed nations. (Unfortunately, meanwhile the size of this planets natural reserves didn’t grow in line with the ambitions of its inhabitants.) So far the global race for energy and raw materials was held back by IMF and World Bank policies demanding wages to be suppressed and austerity measures introduced in targeted nations, and thereby preventing competing markets from being built up. With the weakening of the dollar’s status and the development of an alternative system (BRICS) the picture has started to change substantially.

Europe’s sanctioning of Russian energy has acted as a release valve, though. Thanks to the deeply depleted status of the continent’s own fossil fuel and mineral resources, many companies left the EU in search for cheaper energy inputs after the 2022 price shock, lowering competition for resources on the long run by de-industrializing the economic bloc and creating a permanent cost-of-living crisis in what used to be one of the world’s wealthiest regions. The EU’s plummeting energy demand in the wake of natural gas, diesel and coal price hikes has thus not only prevented a global squeeze on energy but also ensured that the problem of high prices for the rest of the world will be avoided for some time to come. (As for the EU: falling wholesale energy prices invited a substantial increase in taxes on energy, keeping prices high for businesses no matter what.) Germany, as a result, is forecast to experience a 0.3% recession in 2025, but adjusting for state spending, the real decline could be closer to 4-5%:

Daily surveys confirm the same message: Germany is being deindustrialized, losing hundreds of thousands of core-sector jobs. The social security deficits already emerging are just the beginning. Yet both politics and business refuse to conduct an honest diagnosis. […] Large corporations can adjust or relocate production to sidestep regulation, but small and medium-sized enterprises – the Mittelstand – are being crushed.

German per capita energy consumption has fallen by 24% in the past ten years (with a 10% drop in single year between 2022 and 2023). Chemical and metallurgical businesses have fled the country in droves, leaving Germany with an ever weaker industrial base. As Thomas Kolbe writes:

The worn-out German economy will not breathe new life into an equally exhausted state through some unexpected economic miracle. If current trends continue – and all signs suggest they will – German public debt will surpass the 100%-of-GDP mark within the next decade.

A debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 100% indicates that the total government debt is larger than the country’s annual economic output. And since we are talking about an economy which is shrinking 4–5% a year without government spending (i.e. without taking on even more debt) this also means that these loans can no longer be repaid, just re-financed. Skyrocketing debt levels, with ever higher interests paid on them, act as an additional drag on economic growth, funneling money away from productive investments and towards paying an ever higher interest to investors. In addition to that, large government borrowing tends to absorb capital that might otherwise finance private sector investment, further exacerbating Germany’s (and other highly indebted nations’) economic woes.

American tariffs, intentionally or not, pushed the brake pedal even deeper, further slowing down not just the European but the entire world economy. As part of his tariff policy US secretary of the treasury Scott Bessent outlined a new strategy, treating allied nations’ wealth as an American “sovereign wealth fund” (his words). In this scheme European, Korean and Japanese companies are encouraged to make investments, building American factories and reshoring industries at their own cost in exchange for some tariff relief.

“We have agreements in place where the Japanese, the Koreans, and to some extent the Europeans will invest in companies and industries that we direct — largely at the President’s discretion,” Bessent said. “Other countries, in essence, are providing us with a sovereign wealth fund.”

What American economic policy experts failed to realize is that you cannot profitably re-industrialize a nation which has already depleted its natural resources below the point of offshoring, whose people no longer want to work in factories (or have the skills needed to do so), whose average citizens are buying groceries on credit and whose economy is kept alive by borrowing more money the US taxpayer could ever repay. You see, de-industrialization happens for a multitude of reasons and cannot be reversed by making “clever” policy decisions.

What Bessent’s “sovereign wealth fund” can, and in fact most likely will achieve, is an acceleration of Europe’s de-industrialization, reducing global demand for energy and resources even further (and thereby keeping energy prices at a manageable level). Since Europe is the world’s largest importer of oil, this makes a lot of sense: if we cannot squeeze more juice out of this planet, we might as well start reducing consumption… Elsewhere, of course. The price of oil, as a result, has plummeted and stayed at a price level not seen since 2018 (2). As the rest of the world accelerates its transition towards a multi-polar system and away from western financial institutions and currencies, though, the pressure of resource scarcity building up under the lid can only be expected to grow again.

142. Let’s Get Honest About the Human Predicament

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We are clinging to a dangerous fantasy – the belief that we can simply replace fossil fuels with something else and carry on as before. That wind, solar, nuclear, or hydrogen will allow us to keep our cars, our flights, our global supply chains, and our high-energy lifestyles. This is not just naïve – it’s reckless.

The hard truth is that there is no substitute for the scale, convenience, and density of energy we once had in oil, coal, and gas. Even nuclear power, often presented as the big solution, cannot sustain our way of life. It is part of the picture – but nowhere near the whole picture.

We must abandon the idea of energy substitution and face what really lies ahead: radical energy descent.

This means reducing our use of all forms of energy – not by a little, but by a lot. It means stepping off the treadmill of endless demand. It means redesigning our lives to need far less.

Not just fewer cars – but fewer journeys.
Not just greener homes – but smaller, simpler ones.
Not just different production – but less production.
Less heating, less cooling, less lighting, less powering.

This is not a message that wins elections or sells products. But it is the message that truth demands. The world is entering a long emergency – of resource limits, climate instability, and economic contraction. More energy won’t save us. Only using less will.

The challenge is no longer technical. It is civilisational.

And so we come to localism – not as a political slogan, but as a survival strategy.

Localism works because it cuts energy demand at the root. It shortens supply chains. It eliminates unnecessary travel. It reduces the need for global logistics, mega infrastructure, and remote bureaucracy. It rebuilds community, relocalises food and work, and makes life slower, simpler, and supportable.

We cannot keep powering the industrial scale of life. But we can power the local.

Localism is not a utopia. It is a pathway through collapse – a way of contracting with dignity. A way of living that fits within the limits of the Earth and the energy it offers.

We don’t need a new fuel. We need a new way of living.
That means less of everything – and closer to home.

Let’s get honest – and start again, locally.