The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age

In all my 68 years, I've never read such a rich source of radical wisdom. Our predicament becomes clearer when we see it in the context of our primeval inheritance. Winston Churchill said: "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." Churchill was thinking in terms of historical times, but it becomes even more true when we consider that much of our behaviour makes sense in the context of our genetic legacy from our primate inheritance. Like that of most other primates, human behaviour is characterised by a constant interplay between cooperation and competition. In hunter-gatherer times our ancestors lived in relatively small groups, and under these conditions cooperation was an absolute prerequisite for survival, status being earned by contribution to the welfare of the group. Under these conditions, competition was kept under severe constraint. All this changed with the Neolithic Revolution. The pace of cultural evolution greatly increased, with commensurate growth in human numbers. With the coming of the industrial revolution, population has exploded, but there has been little change in the genes influencing our behaviour. Though the cooperative impulse is still with us, for many the competitive drive for status has become the main driving force. Like our closest relatives the chimpanzees, the alphas of laissez-faire capitalism -- the politicians, the bankers, the media moguls and the CEOs -- have become adept in the art of being competitors in cooperators' clothing, portraying themselves as acting in the public good, when in fact their true agenda is pure exploitation. They pretend to care about the environment -- and given the capacity for self-delusion, many probably believe they do. It is therefore naive to hope that our leaders will respond constructively to the exigencies of peak oil. As Greer explains, the descent down the other side of Hubbert's peak there will be a drastic reduction in human numbers and most of the goodies we take for granted will simply disappear, forcing us to become cooperators once more. If fellowship and a feeling of being needed by our neighbours is a major ingredient of happiness, "The Long Descent" offers hope for Homo sapiens, even though the journey will be full of tribulations.

People who work in the area of energy efficiency programs and follow the evidence and projections of climate change realize that nearly all of our current energy conservation efforts, while creating a useful program delivery infrastucture, are incapable of mitigating the major effects of climate change. They are not play acting within the terms given by our current misguided cost benefit tests, but they are just shadow boxing given the actual physical conditions we face already for much of our population, and soon for almost everyone (except perhaps the very rich). At the same time, people who work in the energy area tend to be aware that conventional economics is not materially true since it does not take account of the second law of thermodyanmics and the fact that it takes increasingly more energy to create a new unit of energy so as we deal with the effects of climate change we will face increasing unit costs for the use of electricity, oil, and natural gas. This will affect food supply and health and public resources just when we need them to deal with the climate problems. Together, these problems frame the immediate human future. This book, with its projection of catabolic collapse points the way to a hopeful human future full of possibilites for community development and reasonable institutions and personal and family lives as we devolve away from the bright few years in which the earth's store of energy resources was wasted in lifestyles bound up with the foolish systems of capitalism, globalization of production, greed, and alienation from community and locality. The pattern of collapse described by Greer is quite different from the usual science fiction type pictures. It is one we can live with as population dramatically contracts and we evolve in new directions with less and less access to the leverage provided by easy access to energy resources. Evidently, what Druids do is conserve things like useful plants and simple technologies that we will need to survive. The first three chapters of this book are excellent and should be "must reading" for every thoughtful person. The middle is dull, but the writer is, after all, the Head of and Order of Druids and slipping a bit of religion into the middle is probably what we would expect if the Pope were asked to write an excellent techical book on engineering, so it is probably fair. The next to the last chapter could have been left out. The last is, again, excellent. It also has practical advice about what one can do, now, that is real and useful. I did not know we still had Druids, but if this is representative of what they do, then, like the monks who kept culture alive during dark ages, they are some of the most important people because they have taken on a certain representative responsibility for all of us to gather and conserve resources that will be needed, and to see clearly.

The Long Descent is a Short Ascent For several years, I have been seeking a guidebook to our immanent future of less oil and therefore less wealth. Of the over one dozen books that I've studied, Greer's is the clearest. His synthesis of peak oil, the demise of previous empires and the mythological narratives that shape our thoughts succeeds because he gets past simple linear extrapolations from the present into the future. The Long Descent ascends out of the morass of narratives that either promise a glorious future or, a looming apocalypse. This less a practical guide to the future than an illumination of a path through a potentially darker age ahead. Occasionally, I have been so impressed by a book that I buy a second copy to give away. This time I have ordered four copies of the Long Descent.

John Michael Greer's new book, The Long Descent - A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age may very well be his most important literary contribution to date. While well known for his many books on ritual magic, esotericism, and neo-paganism, it is here, in The Long Descent that Greer not only reaches his largest audience to date, but also demonstrates his intellectual prowess to its fullest addressing the single most important predicament facing civilization to day, and does so, with amazing clarity and simplicity. For those unfamiliar with the premise of Peak Oil and its impact on The Way of Life As We Know It, this book is a fine introduction, detailed, but not technical, easy to understand without being watered down. As environmental issues continue to attract the attention of more people, this is a fine book to give as an introduction to this critical topic. However, unlike many books on the subject, Greer is surprisingly upbeat about what each of us can do as individuals to make the bumpy ride through what he and others see as the inevitable decline of industrial societies easier. What is most impressive about Greer's suggestions is their common sense approach - if you adopt them and Peak Oil is a reality and the world goes down the slow (or quick) decline into an agrarian culture again you will be better off. If he is wrong, then you will not have wasted anything, and your life will be simpler, more enjoyable, and under your own control. Either way, you come out ahead.

From start to finish, this book is both practical and inspirational. He begins with a clear explanation of our energy predicament, and makes the novel claim that this is not a problem to solve - it is a situation that we must adapt to. Cheap, abundant energy is slowly becoming a thing of the past, and we must make the best of what we have. The author does an excellent job of disarming two common responses to Peak Oil by bringing their myths to the surface: the myth of progress and the myth of apocalypse. The point is made that allowing one single narrative to rule over your identity is dangerous. Instead, we must look to history to see how past civilizations have fallen and understand that this is a natural process and that we are not exempt. Civilization does not collapse over night - it is better to recognize that it is a gradual stepping down that takes place over the course of a couple hundred years. It won't be great, but it doesn't have to be Armageddon either. After making sure that the reader is clear on these essential points, Greer then proceeds to offer suggestions as to how we can begin preparing for the gradual downslope. As I think is proper, he makes it very clear that these changes have to originate from the individual. It is too late to expect a government solution to the problem, and only individuals and communities can take action now. All in all, this is the best book I have read on this topic. It is a sober and sane take on where we certainly seem to be heading.