I found this to be extremely low-brow and alarmist. The author presents assertion as fact without exploring alternative arguments. The author appears to reject transition models as a means to survive the oil shocks and suggests praying instead. If, as I think his argument for the failure of transition is based on an analogy with the ‘tragedy of the commons’, then my feeling is that he doesn’t fully understand the game-theoretic and evolutionary mechanisms that can resolve commons dilemmas. He cites the argument that self-regulating and cooperative communities are subject to predation to the point of extinction. In this analogy he means the transition community. This is only half of the story, and nature demonstrates that it simply not true because every (successful) group has mechanisms to resist and deter predation. An example of this in nature is dialect. An example in transition might be local currencies. Read it with a pinch of salt. RJT