Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Collapse IS the Solution

More books are cropping up with solutions to the crumbling of Empire. Not surprisingly, many of them are suggesting that the collapse of empire IS the solution. The challenge, of course, is to survive and maybe even thrive on a low-energy solar budget. Here's one you can read online:

A Matter of Scale by Keith Farnish

A Book, A Solution, A Future

"For hundreds of millennia, humans connected tightly to the land and the life forms their survival depended upon, because that was how it had to be. Failure to connect was not an option; if you didn’t know how plants grew, how animals bred, how rivers ran, how the seasons and the weather changed, then you did not survive. In some parts of the world – the Native American tribal lands of West Coast USA, the dense forests of West Papua, the deep valleys and jagged mountains of northern India – these connections remain, and cling on despite the best efforts of those who seek to gain more from the land than 'mere' survival. This connection has ebbed away from the majority of humanity, in many cases to the extent that people feel nothing for anything humans have not created themselves. But we cannot eat concrete; we cannot breathe television; we cannot drink money."

A Matter Of Scale is a free, online book which you can read here, or download to read whenever you like. Enjoy it, but don't get too comfortable...

The Author: Keith Farnish is an environmental writer, philosopher and activist. He founded The Earth Blog (www.theearthblog.org) in 2006, and writes The Unsuitablog (www.unsuitablog.com). He is also a guest author on The Sietch Blog. Keith lives in Essex with his wife and children. He is also the author of TIME'S UP!, a book about survival; about ensuring that every individual human has the means to save herself or himself from the global crisis that is unfolding.

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