Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World

Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World by Richard Heinberg New Society Publishers, 2004.

Powerdown, in a nutshell, identifies running out of fossil fuels as a known and growing problem, explores the consequences of this problem, and attempts through four scenarios to define how we might pick the right path.

In his first chapter, the End of Cheap Energy, the author tells us of international bodies, like the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), who say the overall supply is going to peak in 2006-2007. Heinberg combines this with the geo-political decisions made under the radar about decoupling oil prices from the USA dollar, and about who controls the supply of the oil and gas. There's a tendency for resource wars to start when we get close to the supply peak, and the anti-war movements have identified this correctly as the real reason why the United States went to war in Iraq.

His first scenario is Last One Standing, a fight to the finish for the last drop of energy and the power it brings. He describes the ecological devastation, the social upheavals and the power struggles that would ensue from such a fight. We have already seen examples of this in Nigeria with Shell's removal of the oil, leaving the people of that country with less than nothing. As the access to energy decreases, the fight will get more violent.

Powerdown, his second option for the future, is a cooperating and sharing use of current sources combined with self-limitation and the push for energy efficiencies. This would push against the current competitive nature of society, especially in the north, and would have the north providing the best of the north to the south.

The third option, Waiting for the Magic Elixir, simply says that something sometime will be invented or discovered that will solve all of our problems and we can continue to live just the way we are. This chapter includes a discussion of the hydrogen economy and why it will not solve our problems of not being sustainable.

The last scenario, Building Lifeboats, is a pragmatic view that only some parts of society will survive through the building of lifeboats. Some actions discussed are the seed banks, intentional communities and smaller communities like the Amish who have consciously stayed out of the oil loop.

After going through many of the options available to us, the author reviews what our choices might be, depending on whether you are the elites of the society, the various movements out there, or just ordinary folks. Unfortunately, he lumps every movement together and glosses over the best options that are being worked on today all over the world. The author also doesn't give "the movement" any ability to get together and cause change or change the leadership of the world. He seems to be unaware of some of the larger social changes behind the fight over the MIA, the WTO battles in Seattle, or the changing of economic power through social movements like we see in some South American countries. Some changes like the Kyoto Protocol that now will be implemented around the world were out of the time line for this book but could easily have been supported as a possible action.

What will happen is hard to predict but there are clearly many thousands out there working on all these scenarios and even more that no one knows about now. I only heard recently of some promising ideas in Regina, Montreal, Mexico, Honduras and Sierra Leon. With this book out there, it is hoped that more will wake up to all our problems, smell the coffee, do something and get involved.

Jim Elliott is a community and environmental activist working in many movements.

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