In the final chapter of Sharing for Survival, the late Richard Douthwaite made the case, with help from David Knight, that the climate crisis can be overcome and that action to mitigate climate change could substantially improve many people’s lives, particularly in the poorer countries.

A consensus becomes established out of the persistence of what it attempts to describe. It is inherently retrospective. It tends to assume that what has been, must continue. A couple of decades of low interest rates and stable global economic growth, and well, it becomes the natural order of things.

In her review of Tina Evans’ new book Occupy Education, Anne Ryan writes that it is”part of a lineage that seeks to repair the conceptual rift between humans and nature which exists in western society”. The book explores the role that a well-developed pedagogy of sustainability could play in the quest for solutions to our ecological and social challenges. There’s a strong emphasis on practical action such as localised food production. Ryan’s full review can be read here, along with that of Mark Garavan who believes the book to be “an important contribution to the task of transforming our world.”

This talk given by David Knight on July 4th describes three possible future scenarios: runaway climate change; collapse triggered by peak oil; and “green future”. He takes into account recent claims that peak oil can be postponed by the adoption of unconventional methods of oil production, and he concludes by presenting a wish list of actions by governments and citizens.

In the first chapter of Sharing for Survival, Brian Davey reviews strategies for climate change mitigation given the disinterest and even hostility in the political mainstream. He puts forward a strategy for civil society and community organisations in a future of economic chaos to connect to the struggle for equity.

Feasta member Aidan McKeown believes that overall, this book “succeeds in delivering a powerful argument that humanity will be forced into – and, crucially, benefit from – a move to a more locally-based and less societally complex way of living. Moreover, by including an historical perspective, it shows that what we are facing has precedents in our collective past: people have repeatedly adapted to crisis, often proactively choosing less complex societal arrangements.”

In his chapter in Fleeing Vesuvius Phil Stevens describes challenges to resilience in New Zealand and provides suggestions to help the country sustain its rural sector and preserve its democracy. There are lessons here for elsewhere too.