The Sustainable Society

If we are to consider a sustainable future, one thing is very clear - we cannot live with our present levels of population, transport, energy usage and consumption (that is, of course, the North American/West European levels). The amount of productive land necessary to sustain those lifestyles is 7 to 12 hectares while the per capita amount of productive land on the planet is 1.2 hectares. But that does not mean that a sustainable lifestyle has to be a return to the Stone Age with people scrambling for single grains in the dirt. A properly devised society can be more rewarding than our present ones for, although we will lose the ability to travel halfway around the world for a holiday, we may find that we have no desire to take that break.

Permaculture

The closest concept to the sustainable society today is 'permaculture'. This is a term meaning 'permanent agriculture', devised by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in Australia in the late 1970s. What differentiates it from other forms of green living or agriculture is the inclusion of design in the process. It involves looking at how we can live with nature rather than fighting it. Some of the principles are:

• Waste products are not thrown away but reused
• Buildings are designed as being part of the environment, taking into account sunshine, wind, heat, distance to travel, etc
• Wilderness not looked upon as 'wasted' land but an essential part of the environment
• An aim to get the maximum yield from the land without employing agrichemicals
• Building a sense of community

Sometimes this concept can include the philosophies of what I call 'New Age Greens', people who see environmental living as a lifestyle choice. But this can alienate the 'Pragmatic Green', the man or woman who sees this as simply the only sustainable future for mankind. In "The Permaculture Way", for instance, Graham Bell writes:

Dowsers have an ability to sense energy from the earth through their bodies…It is also used by some people in discovering lines of power in the landscape ('ley lines') and for contra-indicating some sites as having 'bad energy'. In Chinese practice the arts of Feng-shui relate to the appropriate placing of settlements through this technique.

This sort of thinking is best avoided in talk of sustainability. As oil and gas decline in the future, we will have to convert millions of non-green, matter-of-fact people to environmental thinking and lifestyles. Apart from being scientifically unsound, New Age talk can give the impression that sustainability is about tree hugging, folk music and sandals. The Pragmatic Green turns to permaculture because he recognises it as the only way that we can survive with any decent standard of living in a world without fossil fuels. The scientific atheist is as much a part of sustainability as the homeopathic Wiccan.

Transport

One of the most important requirements for a sustainable society is the reduction in transportation, for things as well as human beings. Since most transportation is achieved by fossil fuels and we will not have the spare electrical capacity to produce hydrogen, it is clear that unnecessary movement must be avoided. It is likely that we will return to a biological (walking, cycling, rowing or animals) or wind (sailing ships) basis for most transport which will limit the distance we can sensibly travel. Even if enough oil and electricity were available to run some vehicles such as lorries or trains, we have to remember the cost in time, energy and money to keep the roads and rails in good condition, and the energy and skills needed to maintain such complicated machinery. A cart is far easier to build and repair, and a horse can cope with far rougher terrain than the best of four-by-fours. If we can keep our telephone or radio services going, most people will not need to travel far in the sustainable future.

Urban Farms

Two effects that are likely to come with the depletion of oil and gas are the collapse of the economy and a decline in food production. The first will bring large rises in unemployment and these two problems can be tackled with the same answer - urban farms. I can imagine town councils turning parks and wastelands into fenced-off allotments where the unemployed could work during the day, receiving a share of the harvest in exchange. The benefits for those working would be a sense of purpose and satisfaction (very important when you face possible years without a job), and, of course, extra food to supplement any financial support.

Social Units

Apart from the simple lack of fuel and vehicles, the main reason why we will travel less is because our societies will be more local. Instead of thinking on a national or county level, we will think on a level that is small enough to control with our limited transportation but large enough to supply just about all of our needs. A hierarchical system of settlements will exist rather like the Central Place Theory. This is a system devised by Christaller which basically states that settlements grow on a hierarchical system. The larger the settlement, the more services it has but the fewer of them there are. An idealised layout is shown below.

Central Place Theory

In a society of the future, most people would live in the villages (up to approximately 1000 people although the ideal number for human society seems to be around 150), surrounded by farmland (natural or reclaimed) from which they grow all or most of their food. (These are not necessarily the present day country villages; they are just as likely to be suburbs where gardens, parks, and unused roads and building areas are converted to agricultural land.) These villages will have basic services such as a bakery, pottery, machinery shop, carpenters, etc. One building in the village would be converted into a communal hall used as a workshop, library, school, pub, meeting place, etc.

The next up the hierarchy would be the market town, surrounded by a number of villages/suburbs. This would still have to have areas to grow food but, being larger, it could contain services that do not exist in the level below. Doctors, dentists, vets, clothing manufacturers, glassmakers, boat and cart builders, specialist traders, and so forth. As the name suggests, it would also be the place where people would travel every so often to sell their spare food and wares for other things.

Above this would be the town proper. The likely reason for retaining large settlements like this would be that they held factories and industries such as coal mining, steel works and forestry, universities (and even centres for leisure activities). These would have another level of government which would be necessary for defence, emergency services and universal matters such as money.

In the present day central place theory, there are other levels, the city and conurbation, but these will not exist as individual entities. With so little transport and so much growing land needed, massive areas such as London and New York will have to break up into villages/suburbs and towns for the inhabitants to survive.

To see an example of how such a system could be applied to a real location, South Devon in England, visit the Sustainable Example page.