THE GROSS SOCIETY - Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels - page 16

ulation growth only makes matters worse. 31 Why not encourage family planning instead? Studies
suggest we could dial back on consumption and be more satisfied with our lives. 32
What would the world look and feel like if we deliberately and intelligently nudged the brakes
on material consumption, reduced our energy throughput, and relearned some general skills? Quite
a few people have already done the relevant experiment. Take an online virtual tour of Dancing
Rabbit ecovillage in northeast Missouri, 33 or Lakabe in northern Spain. 34 But you don't have to
move to an ecovillage to join in the fun; there are thousands of Transition Initiatives worldwide run-
ning essentially the same experiment in ordinary towns and cities, just not so intensively. 35 Take a
look at the website resilience.org any day of the week to see reports on these experiments, and tips
on what you could do to adapt more successfully to our new economic reality.
All of these efforts have a couple of things in common: First, they entail a lot of hard work and
(according to what I hear) yield considerable satisfaction. Second, they are self-organized and self-
directed, not funded or overseen by government.
The latter point is crucial—not because government is inherently wicked, but because it's just
not likely to be of much help in present circumstances. That's because our political system is cur-
rently too broken to grasp the nature of the problems facing us. 36 Which is unfortunate, because
even a little large-scale planning and support could help; without it, we can be sure the transition
will be more chaotic than necessary, and a lot of people will be hurt needlessly.
Quite simply, we must learn to be successfully and happily poorer. For people in wealthy indus-
trialized countries, this will require a major adjustment in thinking. When it comes to energy, we
have deluded ourselves into believing that gross is the same as net. That's because in the early days
of fossil fuels, it very nearly was. But now we have to go back to thinking the way people did when
energy profit margins were smaller. We must learn to operate within budgets and limits.
This means decentralization, simplification, and localization. Becoming less reliant on debt,
paying as we go. It means living closer to the ground, learning general skills, and keeping a hand in
basic productive activities like growing food.
Think of our future as the Lean Society.
We can make this transition successfully, if not happily, if enough of us embrace Lean Society
thinking and habits. But things likely won't go well at all if we continue to hide reality from
ourselves with gross numbers that delay our adaptation to accelerating, inevitable trends.
— APRIL 2014