Energy Descent Realism: Part 2

How do five mental models compare as road maps for surviving the 21st Century?

Pigface Point, a Simpler Way demonstration community in Australia, led by Ted Trainer, photo by Lisa Kelly on Flickr. Used with permission.

In Part 1 of this post, I described five mental models of the world’s energy transition which can be summarized as follows:

1. Pro-Growth Capitalism+Technology Utopianism: Our current business-as usual model, a model of intransigence and greed, not a model of change.
2. Green-Growth Optimism: A model describing an energy transition to alternative, non-CO2 emitting power sources that will enable economic growth to continue, and possibly even accelerate, after fossil fuels are no longer available.
3. End-Times Doomism: A model of civilizational collapse due to resource depletion and overshoot, resulting in either human extinction or, at best, a return to small, pre-agricultural bands of hunters and gatherers.
4. Voluntary Degrowth: A model of deliberate, intentional energy descent via planned de-consumption, relying on radical governmental actions to reorient economies and societies to operate within planetary boundaries and focus on socio-political equity and ecological sustainability within and between nations.
5. Energy Descent Realism: A model of involuntary degrowth that foresees both an end to growth and an end to fossil fuels, resulting in an…