Suburban Practices of Energy Descent

• Author: Samuel Alexander,Brendan Gleeson
• Date: 01 May 2020
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12337

Suburban Practices of Energy Descent

By Samuel alexander* and Brendan GleeSon†

aBStract. This article proceeds on the basis that the cost of energy

will rise in coming years and decades as the age of fossil energy

abundance comes to an end. Given the close connection between

energy and economic activity, we also assume that declining energy

availability and affordability will lead to economic contraction and

reduced material affluence. In overconsuming and overdeveloped

nations, such resource and energy “degrowth” is desirable and

necessary from a sustainability perspective, provided it is planned for

and managed in ways consistent with basic principles of distributive

equity. Working within that degrowth paradigm, we examine how

scarcer and more expensive energy may impact the suburban way

of life and how households might prepare for this very plausible,

but challenging, energy descent future. The article examines energy

demand management in suburbia and how the limited energy needed

to provide for essential household services can best be secured in an

era of expensive energy and climate instability. After reviewing various

energy practices, we also highlight a need for an ethos of sufficiency,

moderation, and radical frugality, which we argue is essential for

building resilience in the face of forthcoming energy challenges and

a harsher climate.

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 79, No. 3 (May, 2020).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12337

© 2020 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

*Research Fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute. Lecturer, Office for

Environmental Programs, University of Melbourne. Research areas: degrowth, perma-

culture, voluntary simplicity, “grassroots” transition. Author: Degrowth in the Suburbs:

A Radical Urban Imaginary (2019); Carbon Civilisation and the Energy Descent Future

(2018); and Art Against Empire: Toward an Aesthetics of Degrowth (2017). Website:

samuelalexander.info Email: samuelalexander42@gmail.com

†Director, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne. Founder

and former director, Urban Research Program at Griffith University. Research areas:

urban and social policy, environmental theory and policy. Author: Heartlands: Making

Space for Hope in the Suburbs (2006). Co-author: Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical

Urban Imaginary (2019). Recipient: John Iremonger Award. Email: brendan.gleeson@

unimelb.edu.au

908 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

Introduction

Cities are humanity’s most intricate creations. They are the meta-

formations within which other expressions of human creativity

emerge and develop, and this complexity, like life itself, depends on

energy for its sustenance and development (Smil 2017). Energy is not

just another resource or commodity: it is the key that unlocks access

to all other resources and commodities, thereby giving shape to the

physical boundaries within which human societies must take form.

Responding to urban problems and pursuing societal goals almost

always involve energy investment, yet the more problems that are

faced or goals that are pursued, the more energy a society needs to

maintain its way of life. This is how civilizations take form and evolve,

both enabled and constrained by their energetic foundations (Tainter

1988). Indeed, a society must be able to meet and afford ongoing

energy requirements if its specific socioeconomic form is to persist. If

energy needs cannot be met or afforded, the society will transform or

be transformed, voluntarily or otherwise.

Never has this energy dependency been truer than in the low-

density urban landscapes of suburbia, predominantly comprised of

stand-alone houses and generally inhabited by high-impact, ener-

gy-intensive households, which are both creatures and creators of the

growth economy (Alexander and Gleeson 2019). Suburban affluence

is the defining image of the good life under globalized capitalism,

often held up as a model to which all humanity should aspire. The

dominant development model has seen the global consumer class

expanding as more economies industrialize and urbanize. But every

aspect of this industrial mode of existence has been shaped by the

cheap and abundant fossil energy supplies that have become accessi-

ble in the last two centuries (Smil 2017).

This dependency on fossil fuels has given rise to an energy crisis

with two main dimensions (Moriarty and Honnery 2011). First, fossil

fuels are finite resources that are being consumed at extraordinary

rates (IEA 2018), such that their supply will one day peak and decline

even as demand threatens to grow (Mohr et al. 2015). Second, the

combustion of fossil fuels is also the leading driver of climate change

(IPCC 2018), meaning that humanity must decarbonize by choice even

909Suburban Practices of Energy Descent

before we are forced to do so through geological depletion. Further to

those challenges, it remains highly uncertain whether renewable en-

ergy technologies will be able to fully replace the energy services pro-

vided by fossil fuels in an energetically or financially affordable way

(Moriarty and Honnery 2008; 2016; Alexander and Floyd 2018). Thus,

the future will be defined by increased energy scarcity not energy

abundance, which implies an “energy descent future” with rising en-

ergy costs relative to today (Odum and Odum 2001; Holmgren 2012).

Rather than further diagnosing these problems, we assume the en-

ergy predicament outlined above and proceed on the basis that the

cost of energy will rise in coming years and decades as the age of

energy abundance comes to an end. We also take as given the close

connection between energy and economic activity (Keen et al. 2019;

Ayres and Warr 2009). On that basis, we assume that declining en-

ergy availability and affordability will lead to economic contraction

and reduced material affluence. In overconsuming and overdeveloped

nations, such resource and energy “degrowth” is desirable and nec-

essary from a sustainability perspective, provided it is planned for

and managed in ways consistent with basic principles of distribu-

tive equity (Hickel 2017). A large literature has emerged over the

last decade that defends and examines the various complex issues

surrounding such planned degrowth (Weiss and Cattaneo 2017; Kallis

et al. 2018; Trainer 2020). We are broadly sympathetic with that para-

digm. It informs the analysis below. Of course, scarce and expensive

energy may well arrive without sufficient planning and in inequitable

ways. This means that societies may need to prepare for economic

contraction that looks and is experienced more like recession, de-

pression, or even collapse—an unplanned economic contraction. But

whether economic contraction arrives through design or disaster—or

some mixture—this profound turning point in industrial civilization

will be experienced very differently depending on context, including

the vast array of suburban settings that now exist in the global urban

age (Gleeson 2014).

In this article, we examine how scarcer and more expensive en-

ergy may impact the suburban way of life and how households might

prepare for this very plausible, but challenging, energy descent fu-

ture. While we acknowledge various structural challenges (especially