Dr. David Fleming - Nov 2006 - "Lean Energy: A Practical Guide to the Energy Descent"
Channel: Dark Optimism
Date: 2016-11-25

Schumacher College Earth Talk, 22nd November 2006, delivered by the late Dr. David Fleming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleming_(writer)# ) - author of the posthumous multi award winning 'Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It': https://www.flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/books

Fleming's last interview (November 2010), where he discusses his life's work, available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1m6Z-HEYpA&t=12s

And since 2020, ten years on, Vermont's Sterling College have been offering their online community and courses grounded in Fleming's ever-more-pertinent work - 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time':
https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/surviving-the-future

Additional footage of Fleming:
https://www.darkoptimism.org/2016/10/14/by-popular-demand-david-flemings-interviews/

Or for Rob Hopkins and Shaun Chamberlin, ten years on, discussing Fleming's legacy and his influence on the origins of the Transition Towns movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOldfjUkElc

(the above public talk given while Fleming was in Totnes to teach on the Schumacher College residential course "Life After Oil", which both Rob and Shaun attended before writing the first Transition books: 
https://www.transitionculture.org/2006/08/31/life-after-oil-course-at-schumacher-college-updated-and-reposted/ )


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“I would unreservedly go so far as to say that David Fleming was one of the most original, brilliant, urgently-needed, underrated, and ahead-of-his-time thinkers of the last 50 years. History will come to place him alongside Schumacher, Berry, Seymour, Cobbett, and those other brilliant souls who could not just imagine a more resilient world but who could paint a picture of it in such vivid colours. Step into the world of David Fleming; you'll be so glad you did.”
~ Rob Hopkins, cofounder of the Transition Network

"A monumental achievement, David Fleming’s Lean Logic is an encyclopedic guide to the crisis of industrial civilization. I challenge anyone to read as much as a page of it without finding at least one insight worth serious reflection. Individuals, families, and communities will find it invaluable as a guide to navigating the troubled waters of the future."
~ John Michael Greer, author of The Long Descent and After Progress

"In my words it's half encyclopaedia, half commonplace book, half a secular bible, half survival guide, half . . . yes, that's a lot of halves, but I hope you get the picture. I have never encountered a book that is so hard to characterise yet so hard, despite its weight, to put down. Lean Logic is neither a policy manifesto nor a dry technical guide. It's an incredibly nourishing cultural and scientific treasure trove."
~ John Thackara, founder and director, Doors of Perception; author of How to Thrive in the Next Economy

"Why do some of the truly great books only emerge and exact their influence upon us after the death of their authors? Perhaps it takes a lifetime to accrue and refine the necessary wisdom. Or perhaps it simply takes the rest of us too long to catch up. Like Thoreau, Fleming's masterpiece brims not only with fresh insight into every nook and cranny of our culture and what it means to be human, but with such wit and humour that its challenging ideas and radical perspectives become a refreshing delight. If we’re to have a future worth surviving, this book demands to be read, re-read, and—ultimately—acted upon."
~ Mark Boyle, author of The Moneyless Manifesto and Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi


For full details on the book, reviews, the forthcoming film about Fleming's vision and legacy, etc: https://www.flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/books

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