Overview
For well over half a century, since the first credible warnings of petroleum depletion were raised in the 1950s, contemporary industrial civilization has been caught in a remarkable paradox: a culture more focused on problem solving than any other has repeatedly failed to deal with, or even consider, the problem most likely to bring its own history to a full stop. The coming of peak oil-the peaking and irreversible decline of world petroleum production-poses an existential threat to societies in which every sector of the economy depends on petroleum-based transport, and no known energy source can scale up extensively or quickly enough to replace dwindling oil supplies. Not The Future We Ordered is the first study of the psychological dimensions of that decision and its consequences, as a case study in the social psychology of collective failure, and as an issue with which psychologists and therapists will be confronted repeatedly in the years ahead.
Full Product Details
Author: John Michael Greer
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint: Routledge
Weight: 0.450kg
ISBN: 9780367101329
ISBN 10: 0367101327
Pages: 158
Publication Date: 14 June 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
In Not the Future We Ordered, Greer offers two inspirational challenges to the reader. One is a new definition of the word hope. 'Hope is not optimism, ' he says. 'It is not the passive expectation that good things will inevitably come one's way. Rather, it is the recognition that no matter what the circumstances might be, there are positive goals that can be achieved if they are pursued with forethought and a sustained willingness to try.' Additionally, Greer issues a clarion call to psychotherapists and helping professionals to move through their own denial and learn the realities of our predicament because they will 'find themselves called upon to deal with the individual and collective psychological impacts of the arrival of a future unpleasantly different from the one most of us expect.' I wholeheartedly recommend Not the Future We Ordered. Just as we face a future that we did not order, Greer suggests strategies that we may not have 'ordered' for preparing emotionally and spiritually to navigate it. These require commitment and a great deal of personal introspection, alongside dynamic engagement with the community in order to create more resilient lives. Not the Future We Ordered abandons all hubris and radically redefines 'hope, ' moving it from passive expectation to pro-active empowerment. -- (02/13/2013)
