ABSTRACT
The year 2008 saw the global economic ‘carnage’ caused by the combination of personal greed, cheap debt and lack of trust between banks. Underpinning this chaos is the uncertainty surrounding current and future energy prices and the fear that we are at the end of the age of cheap energy. Every sub-prime matchbox MacMansion rolled out across the desert plains of Nevada or Arizona was made by energy-hungry machines and production lines, and every desert home is only inhabitable because of the cheap machines that pumps them full of coolth.
