I’m very pleased to announce the release Carbon Civilisation and the Energy Descent Future: Life Beyond this Brief Anomaly, co-authored with Sam Alexander.

From the back cover blurb:

Carbon civilisation is powered predominately by finite fossil fuels and with each passing day it becomes harder to increase or even maintain current supply. Our one-off fossil energy inheritance is but a brief anomaly in the evolution of the human story, a momentary energy spike from the perspective of deep time.

Today humanity faces the dual crises of fossil fuel depletion and climate change, both of which are consequences of the modern world’s fundamental reliance on the energy abundance provided by fossil energy sources. Can renewable energy replace the fossil energy foundations of carbon civilisation?

This book examines these issues and presents a narrative linking energy and society that maintains we should be preparing for renewable futures neither of energy abundance nor scarcity, but rather energy sufficiency. For industrial societies, this means navigating energy descent futures.

Carbon Civilisation is written for a general audience and doesn’t assume any existing background in energy-related issues. It is likely to be of interest to anyone tuned in to or participating in the public conversation and media coverage around climate and energy. That said, it will also have relevance for many people with more specialist involvement in these areas. Click this link to see the table of contents (pdf).

Details on how to purchase the book for delivery to addresses in Australia can be found here.

The book can also be purchased in paperback here via Amazon.

An e-book version (pdf) is available for download here.

Note that the Amazon link above is for the US site. For delivery to countries that have their own Amazon site, the US site will redirect and pricing will change (likely increasing by significantly more than the exchange rate). If you’re in this situation, you can use the contact form at the bottom of this page to enquire about delivery cost to purchase directly from here.

We will also have copies available for A$25.00 at all events where The Rescope Project is appearing in coming months. And if you happen to live in Melbourne, you can arrange to pick up a copy from me directly.

Publication details:
Title: Carbon Civilisation and the Energy Descent Future: Life Beyond this Brief Anomaly
Authors: Samuel Alexander and Joshua Floyd
Publisher: Simplicity Institute, Melbourne, in association with The Rescope Project
Publication date: 12 September 2018
Cover art: Pawel Kuczynski
Cover design: Sharon France
Pages: 144
ISBN: 978-0-9942828-0-4 (paperback)

For enquiries, please use the form below: