Chapter 2 of this book presents good overview of unsustainable trends in use of energy resources within a very well-crafted textbook.

Chapter 10 presents a good overview of sustainability challenges posed by forms of energy used by humans.

UK-based environmental activist and writer Rob Hopkins trained in the use of permaculture principles, which originated in Australia. In 2004 he began to apply permaculture principles in thinking about local responses to the global problem of ‘peak oil’ and in 2005 he moved to Totnes in England to launch the first ‘transition town’ action plan. Transition Towns has subsequently become an international movement and Hopkins writes as an advocate of this approach to climate change and peak oil. He obtained a PhD from Plymouth University in 2011.

A pioneering account of the environmental impacts of farming practices as seen through the lens of energy flows. Bayliss-Smith is an international expert on food production systems in Pacific Island nations.

Fourth edition of a book on major global sustainability challenges and possible solutions from the founder of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute and Earth Policy Institute.

A provocative book which predicts the impending collapse of agricultural systems that have a heavy reliance on the use of fossil fuels.

Well before Jaryd Diamond attempted something similar in 2005, archaeologist Joseph Tainter reviewed the rise and fall of complex societies over a period of 2000 years. His rather surprising conclusion is that increasing complexity creates increasing vulnerability.

In this book, Tainter worked with geologist Tadeusz Patzek to examine the causes of a disaster triggered by an explosion and fire at the Deep Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Tainter used the disaster to highlight the dangers of oil dependency for societies that require increasing sources of energy to sustain increasingly complex systems.

Famous for his work on the increasing mobility of people in the wake of economic globalisation, Urry used this book to call for a ‘resource turn’ in sociology in order to focus on the kinds of social adaptations that will be required to radically reduce carbon emissions.

Having attracted interest with his provocative 2003 book The Party’s Over, US journalist and environmental writer Richard Heinberg uses wry humour to argue that radical changes will be need to attitudes and expectations as we move from the Age of Excess to the Age of Modesty.

www.iea.org

The International Energy Agency was formed in 1973/74 at the time of the first global oil ‘shock’, and its aim has been to examine ways to use existing energy supplies more efficiently while stepping up the search for alternative energy sources. The non-aligned agency has 29 member countries and it provides information on trends in the use of various energy sources. It publishes an IEA Journal.

http://knowledge.allianz.com/search.cfm?519/climate-tipping-points-study

A website resource produced by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the insurance company Allianz with support from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. It defines what is meant by a ‘tipping point’ and discusses the likely implications of 12 possible climate tipping points from around the world.

http://www.fao.org/home/en/

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization provides access to good information about world poverty from the perspectives of food and water shortages.

www.transitiontownsnetwork.org

The international Transition Towns network is based in Totnes, Devon, England, where it began. The website provides information about international projects and groups as well as providing access to relevant reports and other resources, books and films about the work that was pioneered by Rob Hopkins. The Transition Towns Network promotes the notion of ‘relocalisation’ of food production.

www.urbanfarming.org

Urban farming provides information about urban food production projects globally. The website provides access to educational videos and information about urban farming projects across the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBrYLJV9_N8

Duration: 1:02.50

This YouTube video was produced by Legalise Freedom (www.leaglise-freedom.org). It features an interview with Joseph Tainter about his two books, The Collapse of Complex Societies and Drilling Down (written with Tadeusz Patzek).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUWces5TkCA

Duration: 53:05

A 2012 video produced by the US-based Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions (www.communitysolutions.org). It argues that Cuba’s experience in having to deal with the sudden loss of oil supplies following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 shows that local communities are capable of dealing with the gathering global crisis of ‘peak oil’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3L9n20myqk

Duration: 18:17

A 2012 TEDxExeter talk by Transition Towns Network founder Rob Hopkins, in which he tells the story of how the town of Totnes embraced his ideas for relocalising food production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR_esVWwpP4  

Duration: 7:08

This documentary nicely outlines the connection between food production and energy (in particular, oil). It outlines the concept of Peak Oil and then applies it specifically to food production and distribution. Refers to the Cuban experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-fHY43qLWs

Duration: 8:31

A TEDxZurick talk by Roman Gaus, who surprised himself when he got involved in urban food production. A very popular presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yYO4L2vegE

Duration: 12:42

This video presents the story of Novella Carpenter, who started small in growing food in an abandoned parking lot in the ‘food desert’ of west Oakland before progressing to bigger and better things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ

Duration: 2:57

A short video which shows how people can join in an activity that might at first seem unattractive.

Submitted by: Anthony Richardson, RMIT University, Australia

Activity description

Scatter Easter eggs or some other chocolate treats in a range of hiding places, including some that will require considerable effort to retrieve. Make sure there are large numbers of chocolates in some locations and very few in others. When participants arrive, give them a certain amount of time to collect the chocolates. Work out who has won the Captain of the Chocolate Industry Award for the exercise. Complete the activity by getting people to indicate on a mud-map the location of the goodies they retrieved.

Discussion questions

1. How much of your bounty was retrieved from near or more distant hiding places?
2. What would be a rough estimate of the time taken to retrieve each item?
3. Who won the Captain of the Chocolate Industry award and why did they succeed?
4. How does this exercise relate to Energy Return on Investment (EROI) calculations?
5. How does the exercise relate to recent trends in oil exploration?

Submitted by: Anthony Richardson, RMIT University, Australia

Description

An activity designed to get students to think about the images or ‘narratives’ of the future they have been exposed to and those that they most identify with (and why!). Start by playing these three clips, which all outline a particular view of ‘the future’:

1. Mad Max 2 opening credits - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4xs5FDHu2E&feature=related

   (the ‘apocalypse’ view of the future)

2. Star Trek - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui6g23ygov8

   (the ‘utopian’ view of the future)

3. Jetsons - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyinD6ZDqeg

   (the ‘more of the same’ view of the future)

First ask students, in groups, to identify and describe these views of the future: Positive; Negative; Essentially the same as now. Then ask each student to explain to the rest of their group which view of the future they personally find most likely, and why.

Then get each student in the class (or each group) to come to the whiteboard and enter the reasons for their opinion (whether positive or negative) in one of two columns (positive or negative). Then, as a class, they can start to see what connections there may be between the two columns, e.g. do any elements cancel each other out? The point is to start to see how ‘dichotomous’ much of our thinking about the future actually is, i.e. it lacks subtlety or a willingness to embrace uncertainty.