Degrowth and the supply of money in an energy-scarce world

Degrowth is going to happen whether governments want it or not because, as fossil fuels run out, incomes will shrink along with the energy supply. This degrowth can either be unplanned and catastrophic or managed and relatively benign. This paper argues that three tools are essential to avoid degrowth becoming a catastrophic collapse. These are (i) a system to share the benefits from using increasingly-scarce fossil fuels, (ii) new ways of financing businesses and (iii) the introduction of debt-free regional and local currencies. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.