Joining me at the launch of the book “Degrowth in the Suburbs”.

You, dear reader, joined me at the recent launch of the book “Degrowth in the Suburbs”.

Well, you were not actually there in person, but it was such an important moment that I took you along in spirit.

Why did I bother? 

The book, the work of Samuel Alexander and Brendan Gleeson, gives a clear understanding the difficulties arising from the energy-intensive economic system that prevails here and points to the need for altered behaviours if we are to avoid a collision with resource shortages and climate extremes.

Dr Alexander, a co-director of the Simplicity Institute and a lecturer at the University of Melbourne’s Office of Environmental Programs, co-wrote the book  with the Director of the university’s Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, Professor Gleeson.

Interestingly, I have been an advocate for the densification of Shepparton and so rather than allowing, or encouraging the city, to spread in what I consider a haphazard manner into adjoining farmland, we should be restructuring the city’s rating system to make densification irresistibly attractive to developers.

However, Alexander and Gleeson were not enthusiastic about densification as we first must learn to live with a built infrastructure that will be an integral part of a towns and cities, suburbs in particular, for many generations yet.

In an interview just last week, Alexander said everything needs to be taken in context and it was dangerous to make sweeping generalisations about what is an inherently complex problem, but he said it may well be appropriate to consider a degree of densification for Shepparton.

Most of Shepparton’s infrastructure has existed for about a century and so what we are building now will have to endure whatever it is the next 100 years will bring and having listened to Alexander and Gleeson, we need to think carefully and deeply about what we build, why we build it and where we build it.

And in their book, the authors point to a “crunch” moment when there will be a collision between the world’s finite resources and human aspirations, and if not within the next few decades, then most certainly before this century is over.

Degrowth in the Suburbs is not a cheap book, something for which Professor Gleeson apologized during the launch noting that it was problem of contemporary publishing, but people here will have the chance to read it soon for free when a copy is secured by the Shepparton library.

Dr Alexander is an example to us all as his way of living, which by today’s standard is austere and yet according to him complete, rich and happy, is about sharing, living with just enough and being dependant wherever possible on renewable energy, growing his own food, and investing himself in his neighbourhood.

The work of Alexander and Gleeson allows a glimpse of the future, suggests what our response should be and, in a charming way, gives us hope.