ABSTRACT
What does peak oil mean for the future? Many people know only one answer to this question: They paint images of catastrophes, such as those in James H. Kunstler's ‘The Long Emergency’, where the author predicts a neo-feudal society, impoverished and torn by inner struggles, devoid of any social security (Kunstler 2005). Others, however, see an easy-going future based on renewable energies that will enable ‘green growth’. ‘Profit from the Peak’ is the catchy message (Hicks and Nelder 2008), also known under the headline of a ‘Green New Deal’. Still others think that we will live in a society with regional currencies harmoniously flourishing alongside the world market, reduced to an ecologically acceptable scope and linked to an exploitative model of low-paid, part-time work, backed up by an expanding allotment-garden movement (Paech 2011). More differentiated nuances are less common, and the future is assumed to be less open: mostly, it is considered to be predetermined. But the future does not arise as a blueprint on the drawing board. Rather, it is produced by social forces, step by step, with a considerable degree of freedom, and full of unintended consequences. Just as the present is primarily the result of the history of social conflicts and struggles, so will the future be as well.
