"Less is a Four Letter Word"
"Less is a Four Letter Word" is the follow-on research from Energy
Beyond Oil. It concentrates on the role of growth in the resource depletion and global
pollution processes that make the continuation of the current dominant economic paradigm
untenable.
The main work on the Energy Beyond Oil workshops, and later the book, took place between
2002 and late 2004. The original plan had been to jump from the characterisation of the UK's
energy problems in the book Energy Beyond Oil directly into more practical and
personal plans for personal energy descent, in order to allow people to adapt to this new
energy reality. What happened was that, in promoting the work of the project, we kept hitting
on another, significant, obstacle: the issue of growth.
Coming from the environment movement, it was always clear that there are two taboo issues in
mainstream environmental campaigning... two issues that are never examined in detail, because
to do so would invite ridicule and disapproval:
- the role of economic in causing greater consumption, pollution and climate change;
and
- in the global context the issue of population, but more importantly the disproportionate
effect of the rich population of the world on the planet's environment, and on the poor
"majority" of the human species.
In promoting the work of the Energy Beyond Oil Project we often found that talking about
cutting consumption – in short, "Less" – would create a negative response.
Despite the arguments that the physical restrictions on our use of the world's resources make
a future contraction of consumption inevitable, people felt that these issues shouldn't be
discussed to overtly because it might distress people. After a while we came to realise that
"Less" was an offensive four letter word, like many of those other Old English and
Saxon words that many people find so offensive!
Rather than a distinct body of work, we are using the information from the
"Less" research to update the information contained in the Energy
Beyond Oil book an re-issue it as a series of themed briefings. There are also slides
available from the "Less is a Four Letter Word" workshop. These are available
from the Information page.
It is likely that we'll be publishing a new book, entitled "Less is a Four Letter
Word", in late 2007/early 2008.
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