Emotionally Processing Peak Oil & Em-Powering Community Action! with Nathan Surendran

Emotionally Processing Peak Oil & Em-Powering Community Action! with Nathan Surendran

From Reskillience by Catie Payne

May 10, 2026 · 1h 19m · Episode 72

About this episode

Catie Payne discusses the fossil fuel crisis and community action with Nathan Surendran, exploring sustainability and energy issues.

We built this city on rock n roll! And cheap oil. And it's currently running out… so what happens now? This week I chat with Nathan Surendran [https://energyandresilience.substack.com/]to get a foothold on the fossil fuel crisis (which is the Everything Crisis) and how we can keep our balance, together. Nathan is a systems thinker, recovering engineer, energy and security analyst, policy advisor, author of the Energy and Resilience substack and chair of the Wise Response society. He is also seriously kind, and provides so much practical, empowering advice in this convo, including: Moving far far away from civilisation The unsustainability of cities Neurodivergence leading to deep research The Energy Elephant in the room: WHAT AREN'T WE SEEING Why oil (diesel) is the lifeblood of industrial society Drawing down ancient sunlight 1 million times faster than it's being recharged Every calorie of food takes 10 calories of fossil fuels, oof The Iran War Why we can't just switch to renewables Right relationship with renewables What are baseline standards of living? Household appliance heroes for the energy descent What is Energy Blindness? Emotionally processing peak oil One barrel of…

People in this episode

Host: Catie Payne

Guest: Nathan Surendran

Topics covered

  • fossil fuel crisis
  • community action
  • sustainability
  • energy policy
  • neurodivergence
  • mutual aid

Keywords

  • peak oil
  • energy descent
  • industrial society
  • renewables
  • energy blindness
  • mutual aid
  • neurodivergence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Energy and Resilience, Wise Response society

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