David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was an English economist, cultural historian and writer on environmental issues, based in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of

peak oil Peak oil is the point when global oil production reaches its maximum rate, after which it will begin to decline irreversibly. The main concern is that global transportation relies heavily on gasoline and diesel. Adoption of electric vehicles ...

's approach and invented the influential TEQs system, designed to address this and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. He was also a pioneer of

post-growth Post-growth is a stance on economic growth concerning the limits-to-growth dilemma — recognition that, on a planet of non-renewable resource, finite material resources, extractivism, extractive economy, economies and population growth, populati ...

economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

, the

Transition Towns The terms transition town, transition initiative and transition model refer to grassroot community projects that aim to increase self-sufficiency to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability through ...

movement and the

New Economics Foundation The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a Great Britain, British think-tank that promotes "social, economic and environmental justice". NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) with the aim of working for a "new m ...

, as well as a Chairman of the

Soil Association The Soil Association is a British registered charity focused on the effect of agriculture on the environment. It was established in 1946. Their activities include campaigning for local purchasing, public education on nutrition and certificat ...

. Alongside these roles, his wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, ''Lean Logic'' and ''Surviving the Future'' (published posthumously in 2016). A feature film about his perspective and legacy, ''The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?'', was released in 2020, directed by Peter William Armstrong.

Early life and education

David Fleming was born in

Chiddingfold Chiddingfold is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Weald in the Waverley, Surrey, Waverley district of Surrey, England. It lies on the A283 road between Milford, Surrey, Milford and Petworth. The parish includes the h ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, to Norman Bell Beatie Fleming, a

Harley Street Harley Street is a street in Marylebone, Central London, named after Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer.Joan Margaret Fleming, an award-winning crime writer. He and his three sisters were thus the grandchildren of the Scottish historian and antiquary

David Hay Fleming David Hay Fleming, LL.D. (1849–1931) was a Scottish historian and antiquary. Biography Fleming came from St Andrews, a university town in East Fife and was educated at Madras College secondary school. His family had a china and stoneware bu ...

. He attended

Oundle School Oundle School is a public school (United Kingdom), public school (English Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging boarding school, boarding and day school) for pupils 11–18 situated in the market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire ...

before reading

Modern History The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500, ...

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

from 1959 to 1962. He then worked in manufacturing (textiles), marketing (detergents), advertising and financial public relations, before earning an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

from

Cranfield University Cranfield University is a postgraduate-only public research university in the United Kingdom that specialises in science, engineering, design, technology and management. Cranfield was founded as the College of Aeronautics (CoA) in 1946. Throug ...

in 1968.

Career

Fleming was the Ecology (Green) Party's economics spokesman and

press secretary A press secretary or press officer is a senior advisor who provides advice on how to deal with the news media and, using news management techniques, helps their employer to maintain a positive public image and avoid negative media coverage. Dutie ...

between 1977 and 1980 (the party office at that time being his flat in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...

). From 1977 to 1995, he worked as an independent consultant in environmental policy and business strategy for the financial services industry, and in 1980 began studies in

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public research university located in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

, completing an MSc in 1982 and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

on the economics of the market for positional goods in 1988. In this time, he also helped to organise The Other Economic Summit (TOES), first held in 1984 – a regular counter-summit to the annual G7 summits. TOES is also noted as the birthplace of the

, an organisation with which Fleming retained close links. Also in 1984, he became Honorary Treasurer of the

, and then was appointed that organisation's

Chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

from 1988 to 1991. In 1995, his manual on the formation and management of investment funds in the

Former Soviet Union The post-Soviet states, also referred to as the former Soviet Union or the former Soviet republics, are the independent sovereign states that emerged/re-emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Prior to their independence, they ...

was published. From 1995 until his death, he wrote and lectured widely on the environmental and social issues which he expected to have a major impact on the global market economy in the 21st century, including

oil depletion Oil depletion is the decline in oil production of a well, oil field, or geographic area. The Hubbert peak theory makes predictions of production rates based on prior discovery rates and anticipated production rates. Hubbert curves predict that ...

and

. He was a regular contributor to both ''Country Life'' magazine and

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

's ''Today'' programme, and was published in ''Prospect'' and other journals, as well as in academic literature and popular newspapers. He was editor of ''The Countryside in 2097'', published in 1997, and gave the third annual

Feasta ''Feasta'' is an Irish-language magazine that was established in 1948. Its purpose is the furtherance of the aims of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), an objective reflecting the cultural nationalism of the language movement, and the promotion ...

lecture in 2001, with his seminal ''Energy and the Common Purpose'' first published in 2005. David Fleming died in his sleep on 29 November 2010, while visiting a friend in Amsterdam. For over thirty years Fleming worked on the book that would pull together the various strands of his thinking, ''Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It'' (formerly provisionally titled ''The Lean Economy''). It was completed just before his death and posthumously published in 2016 by

Chelsea Green Publishing Chelsea Green Publishing is an American publishing company which specialises in non-fiction books on progressive politics and sustainable living. Based in Vermont, it has published over 400 books since it was founded in 1984, and now releases b ...

, accompanied by a paperback version entitled ''Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy''.Chelsea Green Publishing's press release for the Sept 8th 2016 publication of ''Lean Logic'' and ''Surviving the Future''
/ref>

Views and ideas

Fleming conceived and developed the idea of TEQs – the first and most widely studied model for the implementation of a carbon rationing system. His ''Energy and the Common Purpose'' (2005) helped set the parameters for the field, leading to 2008's UK government feasibility study of the proposal and an All Party Parliamentary report in 2011, authored by Fleming and

Shaun Chamberlin Shaun Chamberlin is an author and activist, based in London, England. He is the author of ''The Transition Timeline'', co-author of several other books including ''What We Are Fighting For'', chair of the Ecological Land Co-operative, and was ...

. Fleming's April 1999 article for ''Prospect'' magazine, "The next oil shock?", interpreted the

International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 associatio ...

's 1998 report as predicting a global energy crisis in the coming decades. He later revealed that

Fatih Birol Fatih Birol (born 22 March 1958) is a Turkish economist and energy expert, who has served as the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) since 1 September 2015. During his time in charge of the IEA, he has taken a series of s ...

– the future Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency – agreed to meet with him after reading the article, and confessed that "you are right… there are maybe six people in the world who understand this". Fleming had a long history with peak oil, having been part of the team who wrote the Ecology Party pamphlet ''The Reckoning'' in 1977, which discussed the issue and our need to rethink our use of energy. In his 2007 book ''The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy: A Life-Cycle in Trouble'', Fleming argued: *Every stage in the nuclear process, except fission, produces

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

. As the richest ores are used up, emissions will rise. *Shortages of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

– and the lack of realistic alternatives – leading to interruptions in supply, could be expected to start in the middle years of the decade 2010–2019, and to deepen thereafter. *It is essential that

radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear ...

should be made safe and placed in permanent storage. High-level wastes, in their temporary storage facilities, have to be managed and kept cool to prevent fire and leaks which would otherwise contaminate large areas. *The world's endowment of

uranium ore Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium within Earth's crust. Uranium is one of the most common Chemical element, elements in Earth's crust, being 40 times more common than silver and 500 times more common than ...

is now so depleted that the

nuclear industry Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

will never, from its own resources, be able to generate the energy it needs to clear up its own backlog of waste. He also saw

economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

as inherently impossible to sustain. In his renowned words, "Every civilisation has had its irrational but reassuring myth. Previous civilisations have used their culture to sing about it and tell stories about it. Ours has used its mathematics to prove it." As such, a key focus of his work was developing what he called 'the Lean Economy', a vision of how society could hold itself together after the inevitable end of growth, grounded in localisation, community and culture. He founded The Lean Economy Connection (renamed The Fleming Policy Centre after his death) to work on "the long term, stable, intelligent and culturally rich future which human society could enjoy if we understand the current predicament and respond to it decisively." Until his death he remained a strong advocate for TEQs and community-based localisation, and an ardent critic of

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

Works

''Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It''

Often described as his life's work, Fleming worked on the award-winning

non-fiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...

book for over thirty years.Chelsea Green Publishing announce design award for ''Lean Logic''
/ref> It was completed just before his death and 500 copies of his final draft were posthumously self-published by his family in 2011. After the Dark Mountain Project published extracted entries from the dictionary in two of their journals,

gave the work its full publication in September 2016. ''Lean Logic'' explores themes including ethics, science, relationships, culture, policy, art and history but, unconventionally, it is structured in dictionary format, with each entry followed by a list of other related entries. Through this device, Fleming encourages an active role on the reader, who must follow the narrative of their choice as they consider his thoughts on strategies for the future. Many reviewers have found ''Lean Logic'' hard to categorise, with one describing it as "half encyclopedia, half commonplace book, half a secular bible, half survival guide, half ... yes, that’s a lot of halves, but ... I have never encountered a book that is so hard to characterise yet so hard, despite its weight, to put down ... It’s an incredibly nourishing cultural and scientific treasure trove."''Lean Logic'' review by John Thackara, ''The Design Observer Group''
''Lean Logic'' was named in Book of the Year lists from both

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

and GreenBiz, won first place in the 2017 New York Book Show, and was awarded Best in Category at both the PubWest publishing awards and the New England Book Show. In 2020, ''LeanLogic.online'' was launched, making the book's innovative interlinked format available as a searchable, interactive website.

''Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy''

Alongside the final edition of ''Lean Logic'', Chelsea Green simultaneously published a paperback version – ''Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy'' – conceived by Fleming's erstwhile colleague

and drawn from the content of the larger book, but edited to produce a more conventionally formatted, read-it-front-to-back introduction to Fleming's work. Fleming's vision of the future is challenging, as he sees in the present "an economy that is destroying the very foundations on which it depends" (ecologically, economically and culturally), but many reviewers have commented on the positive spirit and humour that suffuse both books' pages as he describes strategies and principles for a satisfying, culturally rich future in such difficult circumstances.Full list of review excerpts, ''The Fleming Policy Centre''
/ref> Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas MP described the paperback as a "beautifully written and nourishing vision of a post-growth economics grounded in human-scale culture and community – rather than big finance", while philosopher

Roger Scruton Sir Roger Vernon Scruton, (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher, writer, and social critic who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of Conservatism in the United Kingdom, c ...

opined that "he writes lucidly and eloquently of the moral and spiritual qualities on which we might draw ... eis neither gloomy nor self-deceived but tranquil and inspiring. All environmental activists should read him and learn to think in his cultivated and nuanced way".

Legacy

Fleming's work was one of the central inspirations behind the now-global

movement. He was a regular speaker at initiatives around the UK and at the early Transition Conferences, and a close friend of Transition movement founder Rob Hopkins, who has described his own work as "simply taking Heinberg's insights into

, Holmgren on

permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using Systems theory, whole-systems thinking. It applies t ...

and Fleming on community resilience, rolling them together and making the whole thing comprehensible". In 2020, Peter William Armstrong directed a feature film – ''The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?'' – inspired by the growing impact of Fleming's ideas around the world, including testimony from notable individuals such as

Peter Buffett Peter Andrew Buffett (born May 4, 1958) is an American musician, composer, author and philanthropist. With a career that spans more than 30 years, Buffett is a Regional Emmy Award winner, New York Times best-selling author and co-chair of the N ...

and

Kate Raworth Kate Raworth (born 13 December 1970) is an English economist known for " doughnut economics", an economic model that balances between essential human needs and planetary boundaries. Raworth is senior associate at Oxford University’s Environment ...

. While since 2020

Sterling College (Vermont) Sterling College is a private work college in Craftsbury, Vermont. Its curriculum is focused on ecological thinking and action through a major in Environmental Studies with concentrations in Ecology, Environmental Humanities, Outdoor Education, ...

has offered the $1.5
Surviving the Future online educational programs
grounded in exploration of Fleming's work, with the intention to turn traditional distance learning into "place-based, community-focused education dedicated to the regeneration of ecosystems, communities and local economies".Surviving the Future program website
/ref>

References

External links

The Fleming Policy Centre

Footage from Fleming talks/interviews, including audio of his final November 2010 interview

Tributes paid upon Fleming's death

''Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time'' – Sterling College's extensive online program based in Fleming's work

''LeanLogic.online'' – Freely-accessible reworking of Fleming's ''Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It'' as an interactive website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleming, David 1940 births English environmentalists Green Party of England and Wales politicians Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford Alumni of Cranfield University Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London 2010 deaths Ecological economists People educated at Oundle School People from Chiddingfold