Premise 

Introduction

In popular discussion, a set of terms is emerging: locavore, adapting-in-place, slow foods, voluntary simplicity, BALLE (business alliance for local living economies), local currency, energy descent, neighborhood resilience, EcoVillages, Transition Towns, and localism. At the same time, some things are reappearing: farmers markets, granges, backyard gardens, folk schools, and old skills taught to a new generation. Localization (i.e., relocalization) is a concept that gives these phenomena a context; it shows where they are coming from, and why, as natural resource supplies continue to tighten, they are important.

A Finite and Disrupted Planet

How ever vast were the natural resources used to construct modern techno-industrial society, they were never limitless. Climate disruption, a once unanticipated consequence of their use, is rapidly intensifying. 

Surplus energy is a gift soon gone. Its availability is in a slow but accelerating decline. The exponential increase in the Energy Cost of Energy (Figure 1) means that the surplus energy available to society is exponentially decreasing. This decrease has already passed tipping points for both advanced economies and emerging markets. 

Similarly, technological innovation, once thought of as a solution to any problem we face, is declining in its usefulness; it has always had immutable physical and thermodynamic limits. If used carefully, technology may ease our transition to a new normal, but it cannot fundamentally change the outcome. This situation can be described as an energy and resource descent; it is not a collapse, yet incorrectly naming it so seems commonplace. 

The descent has begun. It will cause a dramatic change in our everyday lived experience. But we must be clear as to what is at risk; what is ending is not humanity, but an unsustainable modernity (Murphy et al. 2021). 

Modernity is NOT a Perennial System

Only with difficulty are we coming to recognize and slowly adapt to the simple truth that we are extracting finite resources for which there are no adequate substitutions. Finite still bears the same definition it always has: it does not replenish itself. Society must turn from seeking new sources of finite resources and toward crafting new patterns of living within the limits of, primarily local, ecosystem. 

Another way to look at what we face is to view it not as a problem with the possibility of a complete solution but rather as a circumstance demanding an ongoing, and growing, response. An honest appraisal of the consequences of past disruption to climate, soil, oceans, and watersheds produces a similar conclusion; we must leave modernity behind and adapt to a new biophysical reality that we cannot change.

Walking Away from Modernity *

Tom Murphy (dothemath.ucsd.edu) has created a fascinating, multi-part series on our inevitable and imminent parting company with modernity. Among the many important notions in his body of work, none is more important than his observation that, “…because modernity is just one of many possible ways for humans to arrange their lives, a failure of modernity does not translate to a failure of humanity.”

The failure of modernity is inevitable. Nonetheless the faster we “walk away“, the better the chance, slim though it is, that biodiversity and ecological health can restore themselves. Post-restoration, we might find ourselves at home, on a descent planet.

Murphy has written on this topic and also produced a number of podcasts:

• Murphy’s video series starts here: Metastatic modernity video series.

• Written versions, in link above, are introduced here: Metastatic modernity launch.

Murphy’s final installment in the series is one of the best “what can I do” pieces that I have read in my 55 years studying these topics. His list is honest, supportive, forward looking, and brief.

What is Happening Now

We can accept that modernity is ending, but the form of our response is not preordained. But neither is it always clear.

Certainly, our clever and temporarily successful avoidance of significant and long-lasting behavior change will end. We may struggle to radically simplify our lives but biophysical reality will allow no other choice. Dismal as this sounds, it makes many aspects of transition easier by unburdening us from needing to find the motivation-to-change. The details here are fascinating with a newly unfolding reality and enlightened self-interest creating a self-motivating process. 

Nonetheless, there are ways to intervene that can hasten the process.

It is straightforward to understand that the good times we have enjoyed for well over a century were based, in large part, on ever-increasing amounts of high-quality resources, and a massive amount of surplus energy (i.e., energy available to society after accounting for the energy needed to acquire, process and deliver it). If a significant percentage of those material and energy resources is removed from our complex techno-industrial society then the future will not be prosperous in conventional terms. 

We can frame this as a frank premise, although one not widely accepted:

1. Techno-Industrial society faces (re-)emerging biophysical limits, involving an inevitable decrease and, eventually, leveling of high-quality resource availability at the same time that the negative ecological consequences of past consumption must be addressed.

2. This new biophysical context will have dramatic social consequences since the economy is an energy system built on a massive influx of surplus energy. It will negatively affect essential services and institutions (e.g., food systems, water systems, health provision, education, mobility) and will negatively impact those forms of psychological well-being based on continuous economic growth and the consumption of material goods and energy.

3. These circumstances and ensuing effects are, like gravity, not negotiable. They are not altered by political debate or markets nor will denial or inattention make them disappear.

4. Conventional tools (e.g., policy-change, pricing, markets, technological innovation) will be useful but not fully up to the task. Nonetheless, we'll try all such tools first, before realizing the need to behaviorally adapt to a new reality of relentless energy and resource descent. 

What to Do Next

Above are the key parts of the premise. They are a dismal forecast to those raised in the booming years of modernity. Fortunately, they can also be framed as a prospect that we might navigate:

1. Without a plan or a process, society risks a rapid, chaotic descent into a hyper-local existence, what can be characterized as negative localization.

2. Positive localization, in contrast, is a process for creating and implementing a response, a means of adapting institutions and behaviors to living within the limits of natural systems. Place-based localization includes institutions, and individual and group behaviors that are compatible with biophysical reality.

3. Localization is not a specific outcome or end state to pursue. Rather it is a way of organizing and focusing a process of transition. It is, arguably, a process already underway, but one that must be accelerated while options still exist.

And that brings us to the purpose of this webpage. Biophysical limits and disrupted ecosystems requires that we prioritize provisioning. And doing this provisioning in a way that is best described as low-input agrarian localism.  Consider the excellent work of: 

1. Small Farm Future (Chris Smaje)

2. The Future is Rural (Jason Bradford)

Helping our neighbors to be well-fed (in every possible definition of that word) is a worthy, perennial goal and a precondition of local resilience.

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* Thanks to Ursula K. Le Guin for pointing out the option to walk away from what seems, on the surface at least, to be the rational choice. Her story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" (1973), builds upon Jeremy Bentham's idea of utilitarianism, but then parts company with that notion. 

Le Guin draws from the critique of utilitarianism offered by William James who describes it as much too narrow a definition of human nature. In "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life," James (1891) argued for a psychology of morality that includes innate ideas and tendencies. This version of human nature is not the narrow rationality of Bentham's utilitarianism, but neither is it irrational. Human nature is comprised of evolved, innate inclinations that lead to adaptive behavior. If insights from the 19th century seem too old, then the 20th century work of philosopher Mary Midgley navigates the same territory with the same result.