From the Danish energy revolution at the island Samsø, a world leader in renewable energy, comes this charming and thoughtful book on communities and commons. The theme is communities governing commons, dubbed commonities. Written by the driving force behind Samsø’s remarkable feat, Søren Hermansen, and the internationally acclaimed Danish science writer and thinker Tor Nørretranders, the book brings together practical experience, down-to-earth cleverness and theoretical ideas of community and commons.

The book is available as a Kindle book from Amazon. It has been beautifully translated from Danish by Jonathan Sydenham. It was published on paper in Denmark in December 2011 by Samsø Energiakademi, home of the energy expertise of Samsø.

The book presentation at Amazon:

Communities can overcome the forces that split societies apart. After decades dominated by selfishness, cooperation is now back on the agenda. The climate crisis and the green technology challenge calls for curiosity and the joy of finding new ways. The solutions of the future do not come from the headquarters, but from the outskirts where communities govern common resources. Communities governing commons is a new force in history. This book propose the term commonities.

Gothenburg-award winning, Time magazine Hero of the Environment Søren Hermansen, the driving force behind the transformation of the Danish island Samsø into one of the worlds leading success stories about renewable energy governed by a community, tell a breathtaking series of down-to-earth stories about renewables and communities, from Samsø to the rest of the world. Internationally acclaimed bestselling science writer and social thinker Tor Nørretranders, author of books on consciousness, creativity, social behavior and the environment, tell the story of modern behavioral science perspectives on communities and commons, drawing on traditions spanning from neurobiology and experimental economics to Elinor Ostrom’s work on governing the commons.

The book comprises a duet of practical tales and theoretical essays united by the idea of commonities as a stronger force than the market and the state. The new world does not originate from the top level, but from the bottom up.

An optimistic and generous vision: Commonities as the future of human societies in the age of climate challenges.

More info on the Danish-language part of Tor.dk.

From a lecture slide