Role of ICT in sustainable development

The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook is a blueprint for moving into a changing energy future. It distills the essentials for small-footprint living, leavened with deep wisdom, a wide variety of wonderful recipes, juicy quotes and reminders to enjoy life as we power down.

Albert Bates is a teacher of permaculture and natural building and uses his wide range of practical skills to produce this inspirational manual on surviving oil peak and moving into energy descent. Bates offers detailed practical advice in sections on saving water, managing waste, creating energy, growing and storing food, and re-building community. Even better, it really is a cookbook, with dozens of recipes accompanying the text that emphasize fresh, locally-grown food.

This up-beat but down to earth guide to preparing and thriving in a world beyond oil is definitely a book to have on your shelf as an indispensable reference during the coming years.

Synopsis: We are in a defining phase of human evolution. Fail, and we relegate life on the planet to fungi deep in caves and bacteria on the ocean floor, if that. Succeed, and we take the next step in our own progress as a species — and life is, once again, truly great. The current mix of challenges before us include: The Energy Crisis: we have exhausted a supply of fossil sunlight hundreds of millions of years in the making. That savings account is almost gone. Now we have to learn to subsist upon our daily income. The Resource Crisis: Malthus was nearly right, but didn't foresee technological advances. Limits to Growth was spot on! We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet for this many humans consuming this much of everything. We have to tear up the credit cards and live within our budget. We have to make space for all the other species and the web of nature that supports the whole ballgame. The Climate Crisis: The budget is now 350 parts per million of carbon (equivalent) in the atmosphere. We are north of 380, which means we need to sequester more than we emit, immediately, or 6 degrees, 12 degrees, and 18 degrees warmer are all theoretically possible. None of those is survivable by homo sapiens, even deep underground. Ourselves: We are not biologically or culturally prepared for the new rules. If we are not to be remembered as a black smear in the strata, discovered millions of years from now by descendants of those microbes clinging to the innards of the rovers we sent to Mars, we need to change how we think, and act, and quickly. Delay, obfustication, manipulation and war are no longer serious options. That part of our evolution is now history. We are homo gestalt. The Great Change follows our conscious choice to turn away from barbarism, conflict, xenophobia, and alienation and towards eco-communitarism, peace and freedom. From that calm and secure center we will build the world to come. And, it will be wonderful.