Emotionally Processing Peak Oil & Em-Powering Community Action! with Nathan Surendran

We built this city on rock n roll! And cheap oil. And it’s currently running out… so what happens now? This week I chat with Nathan Surendran to get a foothold on the fossil fuel crisis (which is the Everything Crisis) and how we can keep our balance, together. Nathan is a systems thinker, recovering engineer, energy and security analyst, policy advisor, author of the Energy and Resilience substack and chair of the Wise Response society. He is also seriously kind, and provides so much practical, empowering advice in this convo, including:

Moving far far away from civilisation

The unsustainability of cities

Neurodivergence leading to deep research

The Energy Elephant in the room: WHAT AREN’T WE SEEING

Why oil (diesel) is the lifeblood of industrial society

Drawing down ancient sunlight 1 million times faster than it’s being recharged

Every calorie of food takes 10 calories of fossil fuels, oof

The Iran War

Why we can’t just switch to renewables

Right relationship with renewables

What are baseline standards of living?

Household appliance heroes for the energy descent

What is Energy Blindness?

Emotionally processing peak oil

One barrel of oil = 5 years of human labour (!)

Are we being gaslit about the situation in the strait?

The industrial system schools us to comply, not think

Why the rich aren’t as protected as they might think

Less affluent people are ahead of the game

What is mutual aid?

Un-pathologising co-dependence

Maori concepts of community care

Why we need danger from a mental health perspective

🧙‍♀️LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️

Nathan on Substack ~ Energy and Resilience

Nathan’s home on the web

[doc] When The Trucks Stop ~ mutual aid guidelines

Wise Response on Substack

Jason Bradford ~ The Future Is Rural

Steve Keene

Ian McGilchrist

Charlie Hoyle

Nate Hagens

Steve Keen

Howard T Odum

📸 Photo credit: Jason Hosking

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