About Tim Clarke

Tim was born in Sri Lanka and lived there for much of his early life. His father Mike was the manager of a tea estate, and a man well before his time; keen on conservation and sustainability who initiated many successful initiatives including improving the condition of dwellings, and an adventurer and conservationist who delighted in Sri Lanka’s wildlife and natural environment, especially its beautiful jungles and rivers. Tim was observer and beneficiary of all this. The turning point for him came in 1980 on a visit to India when he read “The Limits to Growth”. The implications were so obvious and clear that he resolved to work in the field of renewable energy and on his return to UK, joined an innovative small company developing Biogas Systems. After a decade working in R/D and assisting development of new projects and technology (including being one of the first in the UK to run his car on biogas), he left to establish a new company which successfully implemented many digester systems of his own novel design in several countries in Europe. Since moving to Dingle in 1997, he has worked as an independent consultant (www.wasteworks.ie) designing and implementing biogas and reedbed/wetland wastewater systems worldwide. He has at the same time studied the interactions between global energy/oil/financial systems, and made a number of presentations warning of unsustainable trends.

Tim Clarke has written 4 articles so far, you can find them below.

End of the Oilocene – The Gathering Storm

"Properly understood, money acts simply as a ‘claim’ on the output of the energy economy and driving up the aggregate of monetary claims only increases the scope for their elimination in a process of value destruction," warns Tim Clarke. He goes on to argue that Ireland is in a particularly vulnerable financial position, which is likely to lead to severe problems in the near future.

End of the Oilocene: the roar of the oil-fizzle dragon king

"Ireland’s policymakers exist in an insulated bubble; congratulating themselves on reducing the debt-GDP ratio and high employment due to the sleight of hand of low corporate tax rates, " writes Tim Clarke. He argues that Ireland is hugely vulnerable to a global financial crash triggered by net energy decline, coupled with rapidly rising extreme global debts and many other factors: "Talk of a 'Celtic Phoenix' excites dull short memories, and another property bubble is in the making."

End of the “Oilocene”: The Demise of the Global Oil Industry and of the Global Economic System as we know it.

Tim Clarke draws on recent research on fossil fuel extraction to argue that the global oil industry in deep trouble. Since oil plays such a key role in the world economy, since 2008 any semblance of economic growth has been fuelled by astronomically greater quantities of debt . The challenge Ireland and other countries will soon face is managing a fast economic and energy contraction and implementing sustainability on a massive scale whilst maintaining social cohesion.