150-Strong: A Pathway to a Different Future

by Rob O'Grady, Dmitry Orlov (Introduction)

Rob O’Grady is an engineer and father of three who has been stirred to action by his reflections on environmental issues and his everyday encounters with the perversity of our current system. Trained in the discipline of “sustainability engineering,” he discerned early in his career that to talk of sustainability in the world of business and politics was “to pour from the empty into the void,” because the underlying context is subversive of such efforts. Rejecting a career dealing in irreconcilable contradictions, he went into the construction industry and helped to build a thriving company that employs some 150 people. But he continued to think about environmental and economic issues. Having never come across an approachable account that, to his mind, adequately addresses the intractability of our current situation, he set to writing. He took an engineer’s approach—working from first principles, drawing on real-world experiences, and understanding the need to keep things practical and simple—and found, to his surprise, that the germ of a solution emerged. This book is the culmination of a journey that started from a vote of no confidence in our current system, and ended in a fledging hope that a better future might be possible.

Genres: Nonfiction

228 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 24, 2016

Reviews

[Linda R. Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A groundbreaking book!

This book, which draws on an important biological limitation to the human capacity for personal relationships, known as Dunbar's number of approximately 150 individuals, proposes an alternative to our current dysfunctional status quo, which threatens us with various possible collapse scenarios, including financial, societal and environmental. His proposal is beautifully simple, but he is clearly aware of the resistance it will face if implemented in the current materialistic climate. It's genius is that it can be implemented on a small scale in a decentralized and widespread series of local changes that will not necessarily stir up significant resistance. This book is must reading for anyone who is concerned about the current problems we are struggling with on a national and an international basis. Highly recommended.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick easy read. Covers some heady topics very concisely.