Everything I post on this blog is informed primarily, maybe even exclusively, by the recognition that humans are animals and subject to the laws of nature. Call it a first principle. To be clear, I don't consider this the same as promoting a scientific understanding above, below, or equivalent to a religious experience with life and existence, but I would assert that a faith or a spirituality that is not informed by a scientific version of the Truth is inadequate for the times we live in. With that in mind, I think it is useful and valid to interpret the place of science and the various effects it has had on the history of the western world, whether good or bad, as the ultimate Faustian bargain(myth is an excellent way to understand existence as well). But is science as a means to humans to understand nature really the same as the Faustian drive for power and riches? There is certainly power to be had through the understanding of the workings of nature, but can the knowledge of something be responsible for the acts that knowledge enables? Mmm, maybe.
This may seem like a roundabout way to talk about a new economics for a resource-constrained world, but I believe that the magnitude of what needs to be considered should match the magnitude of the condition you find yourself in. In periods of dramatic change, one struggle you might find yourself in is between the way you thought the world worked and how the way you thought served to cause the changing circumstances. Examining your underlying assumptions is critical to achieving some new understanding that will be of use further down the road. To put some flesh on all of this, the changing circumstance is the steady depletion of economically extractable resources, especially the Ur-resource of crude oil. The underlying assumption is that the domination of nature by humans can continue without serious or fatal repercussions.
The domination of nature finds it's fullest expression in industrial civilization and the consumption driven economy it enables. The exploitation of the natural world for human use was given an enormous shot in the arm in the form of fossil fuels coupled with the advent of science and the technologies that the scientific method made possible. To bring back Faust for a bit, fossil fuels, playing the role of Mephistopheles, provided the power for humanity to use to dominate nature in ways it could not have otherwise done. The deal between Faust and the devil was for the devil to be the servant of Faust for a limited time in exchange for his eternal soul. During this time, the devil would give Faust everything he wished for; power, money, riches. Of course, Faust wound up in hell because he was unable to quit the bargain before the term expired.
The discovery and use of fossil fuels has produced a tricky predicament for humanity. We have come to believe during the course of the last 300 years that humans have liberated themselves from the hardships of past generations through their own cleverness. But the power we used to accomplish this is completely natural. No technology has created any fossil fuel energy but has instead just drawn it down from the Earth's natural endowment. Like the devil's bargain, the supply of hydrocarbons is limited in quantity and, therefore, in time. The cruel lesson in all of this is that, despite our cleverness, we cannot escape the natural bases of our lives. Yet we've behaved as though we had escaped the confines of the natural world and had created a world entirely seperate from it. The first principle of any economic system, or any society, of the future has to be as I stated it above because we in fact have not defeated or escaped nature by any stretch, not even in the industrial heyday.
The basis for any future society, then, has to be in accordance with ecological conditions. This essentially means it will be based on the flows of energy through the systems we rely on and human economic needs will be balanced with the needs of the natural systems that support us. All this seems obvious enough but when you consider that, sans any fossil fuels, the eventuality we all should be preparing for, the only energy source you are left with is the sun (fossil fuel is just old sunlight anyway). Of course, the sun produces wind, waves, photosynthesis, and heat. All our technology will have to be designed to make the most of these sources of energy. It will not be concentrated energy in the way fossil fuel energy is concentrated so the ability to power things we are accustomed to powering will likely not be there for us. This means industrial level production will not be possible over the long haul.
One concept used in ecology, and other fields like engineering, is the energy returned on energy invested(EROEI). Expressed as a ratio, it is one determiner of whether or not something is worth doing. A good way to think about it is through the example of a predator, like a lion, expending it's effort in catching food. It is worth it for a lion to go after bigger game like a gazelle or something, but not so much to go after rabbits. In fact, the lion would not be able to survive if it went after rabbits because, even if were able to catch one, it would have spent more energy getting the rabbit than the rabbit has to offer. At the very least, it would be barely worth it and the lion would have to either evolve to live off of rabbit meat or go extinct.
Humans ultimately face ecological limits to the economic systems they rely upon. It is like Faust choosing to give up earthly riches and return to the staid life of a normal person. It will be like the lion forced to hunt rabbits. Closer to home, it will be like a suburban mom downscaling her SUV for a moped. This could be achieved (except for the lion, perhaps), but requires something largely unprecedented. But, when the human situation is viewed from the perspective of science, and is viewed in a long enough time scale, then the stark reality becomes evident and the choices disappear. A particular future, one that believes humans will populate other planet, or one even in which we escape simple human labor, will not be occurring. Rather, it will likely be one in which we work the land, own less and travel less. In short, a future of smaller scale. Machines will be smaller and simpler and more costly to make. Things we use will be made to last a long time. Refitting the human presence on Earth to match these quite measurable physical constraints is the project for everyone.
Next week I will talk more on EROEI and other ecological concepts that will be the basis for future systems.
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