This post takes its name from an article in the Guardian written by columnist George Monbiot. The columnist illustrates this woeful futility by taking a similar stance to my own against biofuels. Monbiot, citing a Friends of the Earth report, explains that the European quest for a fossil fuel substitute has exacerbated deforestation rates in Southeast Asia. Demand for cheap biofuel has spurred the growth of palm oil plantations, which now account for a staggering 87% of all deforestation in Malaysia alone.

With the destruction of Southeast Asia’s rainforest, we will lose scores of familiar mammalian species, like the orangutan and tiger. Other not so familiar but equally precious sources of biodiversity will be lost in the mix: uncategorized species of fungi and bacteria, and thousands of insect species as of yet unclassified by science.

Monbiot deftly argues that there is, in fact, no substitute, or suite of substitutes, waiting at the end of the energy tunnel. Any suggestion that there is, he says, is “the stuff of science fiction”. Why? Because the fossil fuels we burn every year are equivalent to “four centuries’ worth of plants and animals”.

This doesn’t mean that the vision of a renewable supply through biofuels, solar, and wind should be shelved as a pipe dream.

What is does mean is a radical shift in how we conduct and organize our lives. What’s so difficult about designing and building homes that are passively solar? And how about communities developed to meet the basic needs of residents and small businesses? The community should be a place where interconnectedness is celebrated as a vital necessity rather than shunned as the antithesis to the rugged individual.

By providing and producing goods and services within the natural boundaries of a bio-region, at scales that adhere to the principles of common sense, we will make great strides in reducing the inefficient over-consumption of fossil fuel resources employed by our current economic system.

In the future, we will see these changes occur out of sheer necessity. Global warming and unstable energy networks will prove the catalyst to change in a way that the overstated theory of Peak Oil never could.

Monbiot is right, hoping for a technofix to all of our energy needs is an exercise in futility. Technology has a key role to play…but in the long run, rebuilding meaningful communities will be far more essential in our quest for energy independence.