Nota: Texto original escrito em inglês por Nate Hagens, do Instituto para o Estudo da Energia e Nosso Futuro, para a Palestra ‘Dia da Terra‘, em Salina KS, 23/04/19. Tradução livre Eurico Vianna, PhD.
Nessa pintura do século 19 [que ilustra o artigo], Paul Gaugin adota uma perspectiva no nível da espécie para perguntar ‘de onde viemos’, ‘quem somos nós’ e ‘para onde estamos indo’. Nós somos a primeira geração da nossa espécie (de qualquer espécie no planeta) a saber, cientificamente, as respostas para essas questões. Nós chegamos ao nível de conversa da espécie. Com implicações de nível planetário.
Acerca de 11.000 anos atrás, enquanto a última era glacial terminava, em pelo menos 5 localidades no planeta, abraçaram a vantagem das novas condições e testaram um modo de vida baseado na agricultura. Adiantando duas grandes mudanças de fase na história da humanidade – as revoluções agricultural e industrial – e aqui estamos: chegando a 8 bilhões, buscando liberdade, experiências e riquesas materiais; todos derivados de um excedente físico. Como muitos estão conscientes, a busca por esse excedente também está impactando a esfera fora de nossas casas (que chamamos Terra), de maneiras perniciosas. Ainda assim, a uma taxa de crescimento anual de 3%, que a maioria dos governos e instituições esperam, dentro dos próximos 25 anos nós teríamos o dobro do tamanho da energia e dos materiais que levamos 11.000 anos para juntar.
Sob essas tendências atuais, um estudante universitário de hoje veria essa taxa dobrar 2 vezes durante sua vida. (Sim, 2X➔ 4X em tamanho quando atingirem 70 anos de idade). Isso seria possível? Seria desejável? Quais são as variáveis que influenciarão essa trajetória? Se isso acontecesse, quais seriam os impactos dessa trajetória? E quais seriam os impactos se não acontecesse?
Se fizer essas perguntas a 100 especialistas, você terá pelo menos 100 respostas porque embora a economia seja composta de sistemas, ela não é explicada usando sistemas, mas sim narrativas simples (normalmente usando termos leigos). Mas somente uma síntese integrando aspectos energéticos, ambientais, econômicos e humanos do comportamento informará o que improvável, o que é possível, o que está em risco e, fundamentalmente, no que devemos focar e concentrar nossas energias para conseguir econômico.
Exponho abaixo um resumo dos vários grandes tópicos relevantes para as próximas décadas do projeto de civilização humana. Apesar de nosso desejo por respostas simples e bem definidas, a maioria dos assuntos centrais que influenciam nossa situação não cabem dentro de binários preto-e-brancos, mas se encontram no espaço liminar entre um e outro. Em um dos ’40 tons de cinza’ apresentados abaixo, nossas instituições e planos de civilização estão longe da nossa realidade biofísica, o que sugere que mudanças culturais tectônicas estão no horizonte próximo ou intermediário. (Nota: essa é a estória horizontal, existe uma dimensão ‘vertical’ de profundidade disponível para cada um desses pontos)
Energy/Economy
Energia vs Todo o resto – A riqueza e produtividade humana é comumente atribuída à nossa inteligência (tecnologia), riqueza existente (capital) e afinco (força de trabalho). Essas contribuições são importantes, mas acabam por ser todas dependentes da energia. A economia moderna come energia da mesma forma que animais ingerem alimentos – todo objeto e serviço na economia humana requer uma contribuição energética para ser convertida em algo útil. Portanto, $1 dólar em petróleo vale ordens de magnitude mais que $1 em lápis, clips de papel ou salgadinhos. Mas energia, a não ser pelo seu custo em dólares, é invisível para nossa sociedade.
Fluxos vs Estoques – A economia humana se baseia em recursos naturais como cobre, aço e fosfato. Em termos globais $1 em PIB representa ~1KG de minérios, energia e materiais extraídos. Nós somos
The human economy runs on natural resources like copper, iron and phosphorous. Globally $1 of GDP results in ~1KG of extracted minerals, energy and materials. We are particularly dependent on high density energy resources like oil and natural gas and from a long term perspective we are living during what might be called ‘the Carbon Pulse’, ➔ a one time bolus of fossil productivity injected into the human ecosystem.
98% of physical labor in modern world is done by machines which in turn are 85% powered by energy dense carbon compounds. Few think about it, but 1 barrel of crude oil, at 5.8 million BTUS, for which we currently pay $70, contains the work equivalent of 4.5 years of human labor, for which we pay (in USA) $140,000. The average American uses 54 of these ‘barrels’ per year directly, with an additional 10-20 via imported goods, equating
to ~300 ‘fossil slaves’ supporting our lifestyles. In effect, though we eat ~2,500 calories via food, we each ‘consume’ over 200,000 calories per day overall. Our culture effectively treats all these geological inputs as ‘flows’ (like rivers, rain, sunlight, tree growth) but they are depletable stocks. No natural resource stocks are renewable on human time scales. Drilling holes is not sustainable. Our cultural stories conflate stocks with flows.
Stocks vs Abstractions –Stocks (e.g. oil, copper, phosphorous) typically follow predictable (gaussian) curves that rise, peak and decline. The amount of these ‘stocks’ we access has generally been increasing for over a century but has now started to decline in many cases (oil quality, iron ore grade, copper overburden etc). But our supply of money and credit continues to increase with no reference to how much of these one-time natural stock endowments remains. (Globally it took over $4 of new debt to add $1 of additional GDP in 2017. In USA, from Sep 2017 to Sep 2018 we grew our economy by $515 billion, but grew our (government) debt by $1.2 trillion, or 7% of GDP). We can print money, but we cannot print energy, only extract it faster with borrowed money.
Gross vs Net – We commonly count on the absolute amount of a resource, stock or reservoir available without considering the amount of it that can be technically or economically extracted. As we access the deeper, harder to find and more environmentally damaging resources, we spend an increasing amount of the key resources to get at the key resources. (E.g. static field decline for US shale oil is 30-40% per year, so future production will now largely be a function of how many new wells are drilled). We have now left the era where our culture spent ~5% of our energy on finding and delivering energy, to one where we will be spending ~10% or even ~15% to 20%. This will likely manifest in higher costs and lower benefits for people and economies. As more energy is redirected to the energy sector, which sectors will get less/none? The net is ultimately what we are able to spend.
Joules vs Work -Energy can only be substituted by other energy. Conventional economic thinking on most non-renewble resources considers substitution possibilities as
essentially infinite. But not all joules perform equally. There is a large difference between potential and kinetic energy. Energy properties such as: intermittence, variability, energy density, power density, spatial distribution, energy return on energy invested, scalability, transportability, etc. make energy substitution a complex prospect. The ability of a
technology to provide ‘joules’ to society is different than its ability to contribute to ‘work’ for society. All joules do not contribute equally to human economies.
Economy vs Economics – The modern human ecosystem can be simply described. We use technology to convert energy and materials into products whose value we measure in dollars. We turn the dollars/products into neurotransmitters (feelings) + waste/impact. Repeat at larger scale. We often mistake a trend for a reality and a short-term pattern for an axiom of nature. In a modern (and relevant) case, we have constructed rules and
‘economic laws’ around a long-by-human-lifespan, but short-by-human-history unique period of time – where because of one-time inputs on geologic time scales, we’ve experienced continual economic growth for over a century. The constant growth we’ve experienced was correlated with human inventions and economic theories, but the cause was finding a ginormous bolus of fossil sunlight. We behave like squirrels living in a forest where a truck full of hazelnuts crashed, living off the freight and thinking it will last forever. Economic theories have -until recently – been right about describing our trajectory but for the wrong reasons – they largely ignore the physical and biological underpinnings of the human
endeavor and will have to be reworked.
Behavioral
Human vs Animal – Humans are clever, unique, adaptable and very capable. Yes, we are special, but we are ➔part of the animal kingdom –➔part of the mammal and ➔ape lineage. Our behavioral repertoire is amazing, yet still constrained and informed by our heritage.
Proximate vs ultimate – Why do we want that job? Why do we waste time on Facebook? Why do we love stock market returns? Why do we dislike that person? Why do we want to play with puppies? Why do we go to war? There are proximate – or ‘surface’ explanations for all these behaviors, but there are also ‘ultimate’ explanations based on our ancestral past. These “ultimate” explanations can predict and make sense of much of modern human behavior. Ultimately, we go through our daily lives seeking ‘brain services’- activities, experiences and behaviors in the modern world that provide the same ‘feelings’ that our successful ancestors got in a different environment.
Belief vs Facts – The human brain can imagine and speak many more word
combinations representing reality than exist in reality. As such the virtual world in our minds seems more real to us even in the face of science, logic and common sense. And since we construct our own individual virtual worlds, we prefer them over the virtual worlds in others’ minds. Which is why ‘beliefs’ are far more powerful than facts. Our beliefs usually
precede the reasons we use to explain them. Which is why fake news works and why we find it extremely difficult to convince people about climate change, energy descent, the limits of technology, etc.
Now vs Future – We are biological creatures with finite lifespans. For good evolutionary reasons we disproportionately care about the present more than the future. But most of our modern challenges are ‘in the future’.
Supernormal vs Normal – Modern technology provides stimuli orders of magnitude higher than our ancestors seeking similar feelings experienced. For them, a berry found on their path was a rare sweet surprise, while we buy sweets by the pound at the grocery store, or shipped via Amazon. We can easily become hijacked/addicted to things that ‘feel’ important but are just ephemeral action-potentials in the brain, not in real world.
Relative vs Absolute – Fitness in nature is correlated with caloric intake per unit of effort. We each follow this simple ‘foraging algorithm’, mediated by the neurotransmitter dopamine, to get more for less. But after basic needs are met, this algorithm shifts to caring significantly more about our comparative performance, income, status, ranking vs others than we do about absolute measures of same. Ergo we don’t care about good or bad so much as better or worse (than our neighbors, or compared to the day before)
Wants vs Haves – Our impulses to want something – a pair of shoes, a new car, a toy – feel more intense to us than the satisfaction we get from the possessing of that thing on ongoing basis. Which is why our basements and storage units are full of the ghosts of dopamine past. While our physical world is based on stocks, our brain and behavior is based on flows, which need to be continually experienced each and every day.
Wants vs Needs -Once our basic needs (food, water, basic services, social respect) are met, we get very little additional life satisfaction from increased consumption. The best things in life are free, but ‘yearning’ is a strong human driver.
Me vs Us -We are a biological species, and as such on the spectrum of competition vs cooperation, we are generally looking out for #1 – ourselves and our family-relative to others.
Us vs Them – But our formative years (millennia actually) were in small nomadic tribes on the African savannah. The success of our tribe -in hunting, resource acquisition, and defense against other tribes, dictated – and often trumped – our own individual success. This intense favoring of ingroups and ostracizing of outgroups – be they different religions,
different political groups, different sports teams or even just different opinions about the future – remains with us today.
Genes vs Culture – Human nature does not change in the short term- our great great+
grandchildren living in 200 years will be subject to all the same drives and constraints I just
mentioned. But culture can manifest emergent behaviors -both positive and negative – that
can happen on much shorter timelines, even less than a decade in some cases. Our genes
tell us what we need (and want), but culture dictates how we get it. We can get at least a
good portion of ‘what we want and need’ using less stuff with less damage.
Environmental
Internal vs External – In the modern formulation of the market system, we internalize
profits and externalize costs. The costs -of pollution and negative social impacts-, are born
by the commons and the public, which includes other generations and other species. No
industry in the world would be profitable if full cost pricing were to include all externalized
costs (e.g. damaging impacts of coal ($0.38 kWh full cost instead of $0.04). But most other
species don’t care at all about externalities, and as we become socially aware of our
downstream effects, we have done more to respond to the costs. Relevant examples include
DDT, chlorofluorocarbons, polluted rivers, and unleaded gasoline. But CO2 remains an
impact that can’t easily be ‘internalized’.
Treasure vs Riches – The vast ecological riches of our natural world: mineral deposits,
millions of species, vibrant ecosystems, lush rainforests, etc. are only counted as having
value to human economies once they are converted. In our quest for treasure, we have
plundered our riches, and the default plan is to continue to.
Civilization vs Community – Humans now appropriate between 30-40% of the
annual productivity from sunlight interacting with soil/land on our planet. Additionally, we
(and our cows, pigs, goats, dogs, sheep, etc.) outweigh the sum total of all other terrestrial
vertebrates by a ratio of over 50:1. The continuum between human civilization and Earth
community – at least so far -has been solely headed in one direction.
Seen vs Unseen – Many of the ‘externalities’ of human commerce we can only read
about. Today looks very similar to yesterday. Yet: E.g. France (and other countries) has
lost 1/3 of its bird population in last 15 years across the board due to fewer insects
(presumably due to pesticides), sea creatures 10km deep are found to have more toxic
chemical concentration than in polluted Chinese rivers, we have lost 50% of animal
populations since the 1970s etc. Human sperm count in developed world has dropped
~50% in past generation. The ocean has lost 2% of its oxygen in the last 50 years, etc. We
focus (naturally) on the seen – but the unseen currently tells a worrying story.
(The preceding 21 points can be (and will be in an interactive website) supported by
modern science. The points below are logical implications from the above synthesis,
but as presented are more my own conclusions.
Cultural
Game vs Plan – In modern human culture we cooperate at various scales (individuals,
corporations, nations) to maximize representations of surplus (monetary profits). Once we
understand that 1) all goods and services leading to economic output first require a
primary resource conversion, 2) GDP is highly correlated with energy, 3) to provide ‘brain
services’ to as many people as possible, governments and institutions do whatever they can
to keep access to energy growing. (credit creation, rule changes, guarantees, etc.) the
common economic statistic Gross Domestic Product takes on a different connotation. To a
reasonable approximation: GDP could be renamed as GDB – Gross Domestic Burning, as
underpinning every economic transaction, a small fire happened somewhere on earth.
From a birds-eye view, modern human society is thus functioning akin to an energy
dissipating structure. With a collective focus on short term profits, we tacitly assume the
best futures will naturally arrive. But viewed from a perspective of GDB, the market itself
cannot use intelligent foresight, only march forward, 3 months at a time. The game – at
least so far – is also the plan.
Narrow vs Wide – Each issue we encounter has different correct answers depending on
how wide a perspective is used. We can look at the impact of a policy on e.g. the taxi driver,
on the taxi company, on New York City transport system, on New York City itself, on USA,
on the world today, on future generations, on ecosystems etc. Most current predicaments
are viewed from a wider boundary perspective, but most cultural decisions are made using
narrow boundaries.
Finance vs Natural Science – In the 20th century we constructed societal
infrastructure and expectations on rules from finance and economics, but the rules from
natural sciences and ecology: primary productivity, trophic cascades, carrying capacity,
overshoot, bottlenecks, phase shifts, succession, pulses, etc. are going to be much more
pertinent in the 21st.
Unlimited vs Limits – Imagine a world with 7.6 billion humans and no laws. No speed
limits, no taxes for public infrastructure, no rules, no courts of law, etc. Humans
instinctually have problems to self-impose limits. So, via social contracts and reciprocity,
we have learned to recognize the importance of such institutions, and as a result, society is
better off. Though we have recognized the importance of rules and constraint on personal
behavior and impact, we have not yet matured to recognize limits for society and culture at
large. But we live on a finite planet.
War vs Peace – Historically in times of fewer resources per capita, earlier human
societies (and tribes before them) went to war. But this continuum is so often avoided in
discussions that it needs to be mentioned. We will go to war again if we don’t manage to
cooperate to solve the future constraints in a constructive way, and there are ways. This
time, war would be much more devastating than ever before in human history. We have
had anti-war movements in the past and hopefully will again in the future – what % of our
‘carbon windfall’ is directed to military spending? In a peaceful world where might it better
be directed?
Population vs Consumption – We are 7.6 billion en route to 9-10 billion. UN (and
other international institutions) misunderstand the energy primacy underlying human
economies. Does a carbon pulse informed synthesis imply substantially lower populations
this century? No. Unless some of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse show up, by far the
more likely scenario is a maintained high population level, with less resources per capita
(maybe considerably less). Malthus was “right” but missed the ‘vertical revolution’ of
fossil carbon. Ehrlich was “right” but missed globalization and the birth of credit markets,
pulling resources forward in time. Perhaps someone today hearing this story immediately
expecting large population die-offs based on resource constraints will also be ‘right’ but
miss the more obvious trajectory of consumption decline rather than population
decline. In the developed world, where people consume 50-100x their food consumption
for other things, there is a lot of room to go down without affecting wellbeing. So less
consumption is still viable, and even desirable. With 350,000 new babies born each day
globally but 350,000 people/families per day also entering the global middle class, with
~5:1 higher throughput than the average, the ‘population’ issue takes on a different flavor.
Intelligence vs Wisdom
Human history is replete with quite intelligent and otherwise successful cultures which
simply got something about the big picture crucially wrong. Easter Islanders believed that
resources flowed from the good will of their ancestors, so it was only logical to cut down all
the trees to aid in the construction of ever-bigger stone heads. Their behavior was clever
but not wise. Our culture similarly rewards reductionist viewpoints and expertise in
solving problems. But as we increasingly reward vertical expertise within a discipline, we
lose the wisdom that comes from crossing disciplines. Simply put, intelligence and wisdom
work best in synergy. Modern humans, with ample intelligence but a dearth of wisdom risk
becoming idiot-savants, metaphorically pushing levers in increasingly clever ways, for
building modern versions of the stone heads on Rapa Nui.
Trivia vs Relevance – Our education system is becoming less relevant for the future we
are facing. Primary and secondary education are a product of energy surplus. Paradoxically,
they also are one of the few investments that can contribute to ‘future surplus’. Education
from a lens of intelligent foresight would focus on science synthesis, understanding our
own minds, on ecological principles, dealing with uncertainty, and on the problem-solving
skills which will be increasingly needed in a lower-energy-throughput society. Less
specialization and more systemic understanding would be the order of the present day.
Dollars vs Humanity
Of all the supernormal stimuli in modern culture: social media, twitter, Overwatch, slot
machines and meat lovers pizza, perhaps the largest and most pernicious is ‘dollars’. We
have managed to parse the entire inventory of what made us function in tribal conditions
over tens of thousands of decades into one variable: digital/linen markers of status and
success. We certainly need currency for transacting and storing wealth, but our culture has
taken it to an extreme, gradually but almost completely financializing the human
experience. One can hope that a vast pool of expressions of humanity lies dormant beneath
the stacks of electronic digits.
Good vs Evil – Humans are not evil, not any more than wolves or wildebeest. However,
at 8 billion strong, pursuing surplus correlated with finite source and sink capacity, our
actions have ‘evil outcomes’. It is important to not conflate our collective impact with who
we are as individual life forms. What is happening is no one’s fault, but we are all complicit.
Should vs Will – Many people are promoting campaigns for what our society ‘should’ do
to solve our myriad of? economic and environmental problems. But most of these recipes, –
with albeit laudable goals – are either incompatible with our physical reality or with
behavioral patterns evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. Banking on ‘sudden
insight’ into the greater good by a majority of people is something environmental activists
have done since the 1960s, and climate activists for almost 2 decades, yet we’re still
emitting more CO2 every year. It is unlikely we will en masse prepare for the Great
Simplification ahead -the cultural, behavioral and systemic barriers are too large. Relative
to planned “change”, we will instead “react and respond”. Instead of advocating for
unrealistic outcomes, we can put effort towards changing the initial conditions that will
result in better outcomes and then make new moves – currently not on the gameboard,
possible.
Popular vs Realistic – Similarly, a full accounting of the severity of our predicament –
on radio, television and in papers, will never be popular. It’s much more comfortable (and
profitable) to be entertained, marketed and promised various contrived solutions, usually
with some unproven or physically unscalable technology, or based on hard-to-detect
fantasy ignoring natural science. We should recognize that glib solutions, typically aren’t
solutions. But acknowledging that would be… distressing, and unpopular.
Left vs Right – Other than perhaps climate change, both democrats and republicans are
both sharply divorced from the realities of our coming challenges. Resource depletion,
credit overshoot and the accompanying systemic risks are absent from any political
conversations. Instead, substantial energy (and vitriol) are expended on the things an
increasing polarized society disagrees on. We will one day soon appreciate (and hopefully
engage with) the issues that most of us agree on: basic needs, family/friends, healthy food,
peace, respect, meaning, and a safe and clean environment for our grandchildren to grow
up in. As such the current arguments between Republicans and Democrats is akin to
arguing about which mosquito repellent is best to put on our arms, while a crocodile has
our leg in its mouth.
Masculine vs Feminine – We live in a male dominated culture. As a result, among
other things, testosterone and dopamine probably influence decisions more than oxytocin
and serotonin. Women -for obvious biological reasons – have shallower discount rates than
men (things in the future carry more weight). Given that most of our societal risks are not
this quarter or this year, but in the future, perhaps we should encourage/support/mandate
a higher % of female leaders and decisionmakers dealing with larger scale cultural issues
with future outcomes. I don’t know how (but I’m male).
Small Groups vs Large Groups –Humans join forces to cooperate on simple and
clear pursuits like profits or military defense. But, counterintuitively, intelligence and the
ability to be creative wrt complex issues doesn’t increase with group size. As groups
become larger they become less and less able to grasp and convey complex situations, let
alone creatively respond to them. At the scale of hundreds or thousands in a
group/organization, the resulting behavior defaults to popular and simple responses.
(Think of any large environmental or social NGO). This has large implications for the
current plethora of risks we face. Forming movements with a lot of people caring about the
same thing is a good idea. But when it comes to getting things done -especially things that
are complex, nuanced, and perhaps unpopular, individuals and small groups have far more
power than they ‘feel’ they do to influence events.
Economy vs Environment -If you could create a list of the 10 best ways to improve
the environment, (e.g. carbon tax, protecting international fishing zones, driving curfews
etc.) it would be likely all 10 would be bad for economic growth. Similarly, a list of 10 best
ways to grow the economy (e.g. baby subsidy, tax rebate) would all likely make either the
micro or macro environmental situation worse. This century, we are going to perpetually
make decisions (or not make decisions, just act) on a spectrum between what’s best for
economic growth, and what’s best for planetary ecosystems and our long-term wellbeing.
It’s probably good to realize (and care about) this upfront.
Rights vs Responsibility – There have been many social contracts in recorded human
history. From the Code of Hammurabi 3500 years ago to the Magna Carta and U.S.
Constitution, humans have often created rules and guidelines to properly delineate the
needs and circumstances of the time. We now live on an ecologically full planet – and are
aware of what we are, where we came from, what we need, what we want and what we are
doing -to each other and to our surroundings. With this backdrop there is a distinction
between ‘right’ and ‘responsibilities’. This continuum will remain a back-burner item. Until
it moves to the front burner.
Individual
Certainty vs probability –The future exists as a probability distribution of: very bad,
bad, so-so, benign and very good futures. But people dislike uncertainty. When we hear
about the all these energy and environmental scenarios we typically either a) reject or deny
the implications using rationalizations along the lines of ‘technology will solve it’ / ‘we’ll
think of something’ etc. or b) ‘it’s too late -there’s nothing we can do -might as well enjoy
the day’. These reactions seem the opposite on the surface but have two things in common:
1) they create dissonance resolving ‘certainty’ in our minds and in turn 2) they obviate the
need for personal response and engagement (which would be uncomfortable emotionally
and physically). The reality is that future is not yet determined and exists as a constantly
shifting probability distribution based on events, technology, wisdom, risk and the actions
of individuals and communities. We need more people to avoid the two poles of denial and
nihilism and stay in the center, own a bit of dissonance, and engage.
Certainty vs probability –The future exists as a probability distribution of: very bad,
bad, so-so, benign and very good futures. But people dislike uncertainty. When we hear
about the all these energy and environmental scenarios we typically either a) reject or deny
the implications using rationalizations along the lines of ‘technology will solve it’ / ‘we’ll
think of something’ etc. or b) ‘it’s too late -there’s nothing we can do -might as well enjoy
the day’. These reactions seem the opposite on the surface but have two things in common:
1) they create dissonance resolving ‘certainty’ in our minds and in turn 2) they obviate the
need for personal response and engagement (which would be uncomfortable emotionally
and physically). The reality is that future is not yet determined and exists as a constantly
shifting probability distribution based on events, technology, wisdom, risk and the actions
of individuals and communities. We need more people to avoid the two poles of denial and
nihilism and stay in the center, own a bit of dissonance, and engage.
Crazy vs Sane – At 50x the income of humans 200 years ago, it is no wonder the average
American is so distracted by convenience and lulled by false narratives as to be asleep to
the real issues. People aren’t idiots nor are (most of them) liars. But we are so often
seduced and misinformed by simple narratives that those warning about the converging
macro crises are generally considered crazy by the mainstream. But to be ‘woke’ to the
issues of the day is perhaps the only route for sanity. Owning a bit of grief and dissonance
about what’s happening is eminently rational, even if it feels bad at times. If worrying about
the 6th mass extinction, energy descent, limits to growth and the coming Great Simplification makes one crazy, well perhaps the world needs a whole lot more crazy. We
have temporarily confused crazy and sane.
Fun vs Meaning – At 80x more energy than our bodies need, possessing the metabolism
of 30-ton primates, even the median among us live material lifestyles above most kings and
queens from centuries ago. And yet many people are miserable, over-fed, over-medicated,
and unsatisfied. What we lack amidst this smorgasbord of riches is a feeling of community
and a true sense of purpose. Inferred by all the other points in this presentation is the
obvious fact that the future needs our help. Yet most people have no concept or even belief
in ‘the future’. Perhaps from awareness of our situation, the stakes, and the possibilities
there may emerge a (very large) tribe connected to Tomorrow.
T
Thinking vs Doing – In a world of inexpensive do-overs, we have become accustomed
to large wastes of time. We spend considerable time pondering esoteric theories or
distracted by gadgets without learning or understanding physical skills. As our fossil slaves
cease to be woken, we will increasingly have to resubstitute human labor for carbon – and
it would behoove each of us to learn a physical skill. Or three.
Grief vs Joy – We like happy, carefree stories with wonder and imagination, well,
because it’s comforting and nice to be happy and carefree. Part of us knows that things
aren’t right, and we strive to deny that fear in things that cocoon us in comfort. Alas, the
stage of our current world, approaching social limits to growth, while squeezing out the
natural world a species at a time does not lend itself to a happy and carefree demeanor. It
is acceptable – and even appropriate – to carry with us some grief and dissonance about our
situation – because it is a perilous one. Accompanying this grief perhaps we will be resolve,
anger and creativity to direct towards future related goals. But we also need balance.
While holding the grief, we have to find time to refresh the white snow in the paths in our
minds, with, variously: music, Netflix, beer, golden retriever puppies, night skies, old
growth forests, and deep friendships. It is a wonderful and perilous time to be alive. Let’s
not forget the ‘wonderful’ parts.
Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Human individuals have a wide spectrum of what sort of values
we choose and maintain. We evolved the capacity both for extrinsic values (imposed from
our environment) like power, wealth and social status, but also internally derived values
like compassion, humility, gratitude and empathy. Extrinsically based actions such as
winning an argument, gaining power over another individual or buying a gold plated toilet
each release a strong pulse of dopamine, a very strong “high” feeling, but one that lasts only
seconds to minutes. These externally derived methods of feeling good often lead to
withdrawal and habitual over-use and ‘seeking’. In contrast, intrinsic values are linked to
sustained release of oxytocin, one of the four “happiness” chemicals our brain releases.
Research in social psychology increasingly is finding that practicing gratitude, empathy,
compassion and humility in our everyday lives results in sustained and dependable feelings
of happiness and joy. With some self-awareness and desire for change, we can design our lives to get sustained doses of happiness and joy more based on intrinsic values.
Hope vs Despair. Whether one feels hope or despair depends on one’s prior outlook. If
you expect 12 billion people living like the average American in the year 2100, with flying
cars and all climate and ocean issues solved via tech fixes, then the future painted here
might look on the dark side. If instead you envision 5-6 billion humans, living a low-tech
society with renewable systems, we’ve only lost 1,000 of our remaining 5,500 mammalian
species, climate has stabilized under 2C, and we’ve avoided nuclear wars, then there is a
great deal to be hopeful about as that future and many like it are still on the table.
Conclusions
We cannot know the future, but we can have increasing confidence of what it will not be.
And it is my own conclusion is that The Next Doubling is now no longer likely to happen.
We will do whatever we can to keep the ‘brain services’ going to as many voters as possible, for as long as possible. We are industrious and creative so this may continue for sometime – but there are physical limits. The downside is that because of decades of can-
kicking it will likely end with a recalibration of financial claims vs underlying physical resources. Most of our research points to a potential reduction of advanced economies’ GDP by 25-40% within the next two decades. This outcome, akin to the “Great Depression” in the 1930s, might sound shocking at first. However, when putting it into context, it also
means that GDP per capita would shrink to levels of the mid 1980s or early 1990s. Both
weren’t really depressed times. Compared to the 1930s where the 30% in output drop
meant true poverty for many, the major challenge with such an event today isn’t so much
the reduction of consumption (to still very high levels), but the ensuing consequences for
labor, income equality, future economic expectations, and societal cohesion.
These risks do not fall under the auspices of any institution or government – and to make
matters worse – they represent almost the perfect cognitive storm to ignore or reject – it is:
complex, abstract, distant (in time), threatening, with no easy answers, and certainly no
easy political answers.
All the ‘cultural’ and ‘individual’ observations above coalesce to a fine point: we are capable
of much more, but are unlikely to alter our current trajectory until we have to. And when we
add in the economy and environmental points: we will soon have to. Recognizing this, the
next step is urgently discussing and cataloguing what initiatives might be worked on by
small groups using intelligent foresight nationwide.
Given we have ~100:1 exosomatic surplus buffer, there remain a great deal of benign, and
even excellent futures still on the table. But they won’t arrive without effort. The world
isn’t irretrievably broken, the Great Simplification has barely started, and there are quite a few people who are discovering exactly the shape of our predicaments, and the nature of
the things which could substantially change them.
NB: While I believe education itself is insufficient for major change, it is still a necessary first
step so that pro-social engaged citizens work towards feasible and desirable goals and react
to events in more rational ways. My own goal with this content is threefold:
1) Educate and inspire would-be catalysts and small groups working on better futures
to integrate a more systemic view of reality
2) Empower individuals to make better personal choices on navigating and thriving
during the Great Simplification coming our way
3) Change what is accepted in our cultural conversation to be more reality based
Dear reader/citizen, I invite you to participate in the future.