This book's Potent Nostalgia is for those ordinary laws of physics and biology, which Northern economies have abandoned in favour of extra-ordinary laws of fossil physics. The rediscovery of our place in the world may prove to be a greater delight than the pain of losing extra-ordinary power. In any case, if we don't reshape our lives as parts of the whole, then those very ordinary laws will react by flood for some, desert for others and with an unpredictable violence and rapidity. Discovery of appropriate techniques can only happen citizen by citizen. Governments and commercial corporations have shown that they are incapable of change. Knowledge is not a function of power. The author farms in a family partnership which produces cereals, vegetables, apples, beef and lamb. Nearly all the produce is sold directly, by way of a market stall, which he proposes as a step towards a real and convivial economy, which may nicely fit those ordinary laws of physics and biology.

"When economy and ecology are seamlessly enmeshed, then the economy will revolve at optimum speed. When they are not, then friction between them will slow both their cycles, grind down bio mass and release wasted economic heat." "Bio fuels have a greater atmospheric CO2 effect than fossil fuels. If we burn life, we add to atmospheric CO2, but also reduce the mass of CO2 absorbing life. If we burn fossil fuels, we add to atmospheric CO2, but the mass of life continues to live and breathe." (From the Lost Coefficient of Time) The Lost Coefficient of Time sets out to refute the assumption quoted below, which has informed the Carbon audits of the IPCC, carbon trading schemes, carbon footprint calculations, most university departments and in particular, the Zero Carbon Britain 2030 report by the Centre for Alternative Technology. "If biomass is burned, the chemistry is more or less reversed, and the original energy and raw material (CO2 and water) are released. There is then no net gain or loss of CO2, which is why biological fuels are considered to be "Carbon neutral." Patrick Noble is an organic farmer of over thirty years experience.