Show Notes
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 [https://energyandresilience.substack.com/]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 [https://energyandresilience.substack.com/]
Nathan's home on the web [https://www.schema.nz/]
[doc] When The Trucks Stop ~ mutual aid guidelines [https://wiseresponse.substack.com/p/what-can-i-do-in-response-to-the]
Wise Response on Substack [https://wiseresponse.substack.com/]
Jason Bradford ~ The Future Is Rural
Steve Keene
Ian McGilchrist
Charlie Hoyle
Nate Hagens
Steve Keen
Howard T Odum
📸 Photo credit: Jason Hosking [https://www.jasonhosking.com/]
🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] 🧡
More from Reskillience
I tell a story about a freak storm that flattened our summer crops before sharing a super inspiring convo with Chris Gilmour [https://www.chrisoutdoors.ca/], an emergency and disaster preparedness expert who believes that deep nature connection is key to surviving and thriving through uncertain times.
I tell a story about my inability to change before chatting with a guy who's obsessed with changing everything! Dr Shane Simonsen of Recombination Nation [https://recombinationnation.substack.com/] is a biochemist, research scientist and experimental farmer who is shaking up agriculture-as-usual by breeding plants that require ZERO INPUTS. No fertiliser, no pest protection, no weeding, no watering! We talk about how to run your own kinky plant breeding experiments at home, as well as:
Planting guides and sow-what-when calendars are great and all, but what happens when the seasons don't play nice? When spring arrives earlier, frost hits later, or heatwaves burn your crops to a crisp? There's no controlling the weather, but with tools like phenology, you can make better predictions and grow more food!
NOTE: I've done breathwork every day since this interview and – you gaias! – it's really helping me human.
"In a time of fracturing seasons, when everything's going awry, there are still cycles that we can set our hearts by."