Survive by turning back hands of time

Leave it to Gordon Brown, the British prime minister. This severe Scot, son of a Presbyterian minister, the closest you can get to being a dour Dutchman like me, is also not afraid to face reality. Brown’s most loyal ally in his cabinet, Ed Balls, said last week — with the express approval of his patron — that we face “The worst recession in over a 100 years.”

Before that, the longest depression was from 1873-96. Then my great-grandparents lost their money, forcing my maternal grandfather to quit university and become a small farmer. All because of an energy crisis: 90 per cent of the world’s horses died from equine flu.


If you want to survive the next long slump, become a small farmer — go back to horses, because the 21st century version of the downturn will also involve an energy crisis, a double one: peak oil and climate change.

My grandfather farmed on 15 hectares, some lush grassland for his dozen milk cows and some beautiful sandy loam for the cereal crops, a horse of course, a flock of chickens, a pig, little money but enough to eat and to share, a pillar in the church and community. I am named after him.

Then — 1873 — the world had about a quarter of the people it has now. The first billion of us arrived sometime in 1803 during Napoleonic time. It took 125 years to see the second billion arrive, in the very year I was born. Since then, with carbon-based energy replacing horse power, the world population more than tripled.

Brace yourself: disappearing are endless credit, plentiful jobs and life-time occupations. Nothing will be forever, except freakish weather and the unwanted such fuel scarcity. The sooner we confront reality, the better. When Brown admits the truth — and U. S. President Barack Obama also warns us that we face the worst — that really means the problem is beyond the capacity of our rulers to cure: we are on our own.

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