I have been doing a great deal of research lately in sustainability. That means slogging through the plethora of books on peak oil, climate change and evaluating all the plans being put forward to right the balance.

But this one book has caught my attention more than the statistic laden tomes that tend to characterize this genre. John Michael Greer, the author, has some strange interests. Magic and the occult, for example. And did I mention that he practices Druidry?

You might think those credentials would make this book somewhat on the fringe. On the contrary, this might be the most rational “30,000 foot view” of the history of the human race and what we can expect as we go forward that I have come across. I won’t say that it is necessarily uplifting – but it certainly seems to be rationally argued and plausible. It demands that we humans seriously question our basic delusion that somehow we as a species will continue to operate outside the confines of biological limits imposed by our physical world.

Is the myth of progress really true? Will science save us? Or, are we beginning a “Long Descent” back towards a more sustainable relationship with the biological limits and carrying capacity of the planet? In Greer’s view this will take a couple of centuries to complete. If history is an accurate guide, it probably won’t be a script worthy of a disaster movie.

Well worth considering if you are interested in shedding the consensual illusion that we call the 21st Century.

The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age