A few brief Facebook conversations I have had the past couple of days while I work on a longer Contemplation regarding binary thinking, particularly as it applies to sociopolitics.
The first shared this article featuring a picture of a massive ‘agrivoltaic’ project and entitled Sheep may soon graze under solar panels in one of Wyoming’s first ‘agrivoltaic’ projects.
My comment: All I can see is a shitload of ecological destruction in the wake of producing all those solar panels…all in the name of attempting to sustain the unsustainable.
GH: Steve Bull, it was never going to work burning 13 billion tonnes of coal oil and gas per year to keep the lights on . With at least another 2 billion people to add to the global population and up grade the remaining 80 per cent of the population to 1st World comfort
Me: GH, Nope, and all chasing ‘renewables’ is doing is exacerbating our ecological overshoot predicament.
GH: Steve Bull, i got no answers
Me: GH, There are none except what Nature has in store. The best our species can hope for is community mitigation/adaptation via relocalisation.
MC: Steve Bull, “Community mitigation/adaptation via relocalization”… Almost a bumper sticker… Thanks for that. I believe you are correct sir… How do we get on with this and how far can it be scaled up to include how many of us and how soon before the rest of us turn into a mob of armed hungry savages (strategy suggestions do not need to be pre-approved by ideologue peers and browbeaters [not that I notice that many in this in this group] and would be most welcome)…
Me: MC, I don’t have any suggestions beyond what I began last year: a community food gardening guild. Most people don’t want to hear the hard ‘facts’ on our predicament so I don’t discuss them with community members. Getting neighbours to begin and expand food gardening is the best I can offer in my suburban community on the outskirts of the sprawling city of Toronto. I do try to raise awareness of the insanity of pursuing the perpetual growth chalice by our politicians but, again, most people dismiss the notion so I do it infrequently.
TE: Steve Bull, and then a hailstorm hits and destroys the solar panels in about 3 minutes. Nice greenwash for intensive industrial agriculture tho
GH: TE, new panels have hail ratings .. although i see ( from reports ) hail is increasing in size
This second conversation is based upon this post:
My comment: There is nothing ‘sustainable’ about the complex, industrial products pictured here.
RH: Steve Bull, In this particular usage it means having energy forms that are renewable as opposed to those that are in the process of making life very hard if not impossible for a large percentage of the inhabitants of the world. You will notice for example that some of the people portrayed are growing plants.
Me: RH, Non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies are not sustainable and contribute to a host of ecologically-destructive processes, just as detrimental to the world’s inhabitants as hydrocarbons are. To say little of the fact that they depend significantly on hydrocarbon-based resources up and down their production and supply chains. Because of carbon emissions tunnel vision, these products are perceived as ‘clean/green’ but are nothing of the sort. They do zero to address our fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot. In fact, since ‘renewables’ have been additive to our energy use, there is a good argument to be made that our pursuit of them is simply exacerbating our predicament. Until we can stop our expansion/growth of both population and resource extraction/use, and reduce our energy/resource demands (significantly), then all the chatter about an ‘energy transition’ is just noise to help reduce our cognitive dissonance (and produce/sell more ecologically-destroying industrial products).
RH: Steve Bull, A significant part of the drive for sustainability is simply the reduction of wasteful uses of energy. And it isn’t simply chatter, there is a a lot of jobs and economic development involved in making our society more efficient.
Incidentally, there is now enough solar, wind, small hydro, geothermal, and other renewables on stream now to cover the energy requirements of producing additional similar energy systems right up to and including getting rid of fossil fuels.
While there may be some environmental advocates who see with tunnel vision, it isn’t nearly the number of fossil fuel cranks who have had the blinders on, concerning the impacts on all the cartoon categories mentioned, for decades.
RH: Steve Bull Yeah, I have seen some of those before, the death by hockey sticks was a new one. Other than saying what we are doing in terms of our fellow mammals, is not sustainable, how does it relate to the jobs bill?
Me: RH, It’s about sustainability and creating “…lots of jobs and economic development…” are the exact opposite of what sustainability requires. We need degrowth.
RH: Steve Bull, I wouldn’t say it is the exact opposite, but rather part of a direction that we need to compromise on with respect to other factors like a just transition, conservation, land use, and economics.
GW: RH, bs
And, finally, this one posted by PW to the Peak Oil Facebook Group I am a member of:
PW: SD, 😂🤣🥲😁😆…..we can’t even afford the infrastructure!!!
SD: PW, not really that expensive. Overhead wires for trolleys and busses were very common in the first half of the 20th century (1900s to 1950s.) The only reason they disappeared was because diesel became cheaper. But those days of cheap diesel are gone, and it wouldn’t take much to get the wires up again. In fact, it would create a lot of jobs. The only thing that is needed is the demand (electric trucks with cable attachments) and coordinated infrastructure development (government.) It’s the only solution.
PW: Here’s additional data of why the electric trolleys and other forms of transportation went out of business. Although GM was acquitted I feel that they somehow beat the charges with bribery and other means. You make it seem that the switch to electric as like hanging drapes. There is no solution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Me: SD, Magical thinking solves everything.
SD: Steve Bull what’s magic about technology?
Me: SD, The idea that we have the resources (mineral and energy) to try and scale up to anywhere near replacement levels, that this can be done without further ecological systems destruction, that it can be accomplished without putting us further into ecological overshoot, and that we have the economic capacity to do this (because what’s a few quadrillion more in debt/credit?) are just a few examples off the top of my head of the magical thinking necessary to have complex industrial technology help to ‘solve’ anything in our future. Such thinking is simply exacerbating our predicament.
Surplus Energy From Hydrocarbons: Another Predicament Catalyst
Today’s contemplation is in response to an article posted on the site Zerohedge, the orientation of many of the comments in response to that article (and increasingly by Zerohedge readers/commenters[1]), and a conversation I had with friends recently on the apparent trajectory of our world and its foundational roots.
As seems typical of our mainstream narratives, events in our human world are typically (always?) the result of human sociopolitical and/or socioeconomic behaviour. Things tend to go well or fall apart because of human political and/or economic decisions/policies. Physical and/or biological aspects/constraints are rarely considered.
If you happen to support the government of the day (or believe their propaganda/marketing), positive events are the result of their actions while negative ones are not; alternatively, if you don’t support them, your interpretation of the world is the opposite. One’s interpretive paradigm/worldview greatly influences our beliefs and understandings of the world, as do the psychological mechanisms that ‘steer’ our beliefs such as confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance reduction, deference to authority, groupthink, etc.[1].
While it is clear that some events are the direct result of human action, believing we have significant agency causes us to tend to view almost everything that occurs to us as a result of our actions. ‘Acts of God’, such as weather events, are often viewed as happenstance — although that too is changing for some (many?).
Human ‘progress’, however, is most certainly the direct result of actions/responses such as our adaptive abilities, technological inventiveness, and efforts towards economic freedom, political transparency, and accountability. Globalisation, democracy, rising equality, human health and longevity have been the outcome of centuries of exploration, struggle against overwhelming odds, experimentation, and tenacity.
We are a ‘wise’ species and our ingenuity has brought us to achieve as near to utopia as we’ve ever been. Just look around you at all the poverty reduction we’ve achieved, healthcare miracles, and technological wonders. There are a large number of humans experiencing living standards and freedoms that few before them ever achieved, including past royalty.
Rarely, if ever, are our interpretations of goings on based upon or include biological, ecological, and/or biogeochemical perspectives.
I am increasingly coming to see that we tend to give ourselves ‘credit’ where none should be given; or, at least, where our behaviour is secondary or tertiary to the physical aspects of our world that have provided ‘temporary’ conditions for such ‘progress’ to arise. As William Catton, Jr. argues at the start of his text on ecological overshoot: “All the evidence suggests that we have consistently exaggerated the contributions of technological genius and underestimated the contribution of natural resources.”[2]
As I have repeatedly argued, energy is everything. Without it, humanity could not exist as it does. And it’s not just the energy of the sun, wind, and water that has allowed our complex societies to reach their current zenith. It is the leveraging of a one-time cache of ancient carbon-based energy stored in a relatively easy-to-access and easily-transportable form.
The energy, and most importantly surplus energy[3], we have been able to extract and leverage to our advantage has ‘fuelled’ our current world to unbelievable heights of ‘prosperity’ — let’s be honest, though, this is only true for some on this planet; the vast majority of humans do not enjoy the levels of ‘wealth’ and ‘energy slaves’ that a minority do. Some have recognised the importance of fossil fuel energy to humanity but then used that observation to rationalise/justify their continued, in fact infinite, extraction/use[4].
I found a statement in article quite telling as to the general trend in such narratives: “Fossil fuels power innovation. Fossil fuels power economic growth. Fossil fuels power our education system, our transportation system, our health care system, and our military. Fossil fuels are key to generating all the wealth that pays for every government program we have. Before we try to eliminate fossil fuels, we need to make sure that we do not also eliminate all the benefits that have come from their use.”[5]
While the connection between our ‘growth’ and fossil fuels is hard (impossible?) to dispute, it seems somewhat amusing, if not naïve, to forward the idea that we will actually have some control or say in ‘eliminating’ fossil fuels, as if the biophysical reality of them being a finite resource is moot should we desire to keep using them — they will become increasingly uneconomic to extract as diminishing returns intensify, regardless of our wants and desires.
I think there should be little argument regarding the observation that fossil fuels have led to the shift away from the human and domesticated animal labour inputs necessary for many (most?) human activities and processes but also, more importantly, human food production (that has been accompanied by an explosion in population). This has not only freed up vast numbers of our population to pursue employment in other areas but allowed for significant increase in the number of people developing and expanding the pursuits that ‘improve’ the social conditions for a larger portion of humanity than might have been possible in the past — this is especially so for so-called ‘advanced’ economies that have leveraged the lion’s share of energy and mineral resources.
And we have enjoyed the benefits of this leveraging for several generations resulting in a zeitgeist that, for the most part, is blind to the finite energy and resource inputs that underpin it all[6]. Just as fish are unaware of the water they exist within and cannot live without[7], most humans are blind to the finite resources we depend upon for our many complexities. It’s notable that many of the stories we’ve created during this epoch of human expansion serve to either keep us in ignorance or, perhaps more alarmingly, to deny/dismiss the physical realities that exist and clearly place the benefits we have achieved directly upon our shoulders.
The result, I would argue, is that humanity has constructed a complex global and industrialised society but believes, for the most part, that the primary underpinning of its development is human-based, as opposed to resource-based. Many have come to believe our ingenuity and technological prowess have been the foundational root of our sociopolitical and socioeconomic complexities. They have rationalised away the finite energy/resources we have leveraged to our advantage and propelled our growth and technology.
We’ve confused a correlation of socio-political/-economic and technological shifts with ‘progress’ and ‘growth’, identifying us as the cause when it has been the leveraging of surplus energy derived from a one-time cache of carbon-based energy that has provided the underpinning of it (and put us well into ecological overshoot).
Now that our energy and material resources have encountered the hard biogeochemical limits of existence on a finite planet, and are experiencing significant diminishing returns on our investments in them — to say little of the negative environmental and ecological consequences of this — we are flailing about blaming our political and economic systems rather than recognising the actual physical limits that exist. Yes, our social systems have exacerbated our predicament but it seems as a result of our reality blindness we are likely to continue misdiagnosing our predicament and chase maladaptive ‘solutions’ (the narratives around ‘green/clean’ energy are a perfect example).
It’s increasingly appearing that we are not the ‘wise’ apes we believe ourselves to be. We are something very different, but not so different to other species that we can forgo the physical and biological limits of existing on a finite planet.
[2] Catton, Jr., William R., Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press, 1980. (ISBN 0–252–00818–9). p. XV. Catton’s book provides a wonderfully detailed synopsis of this idea that we have discounted our physical world in creating narratives to explain our perceived ‘progress’.–
Today’s contemplation is prompted by an article posted recently in a Degrowth Facebook group I am a member of. The author presents the argument that capitalism and the greed it inspires is the root of our inability to address climate change appropriately. While I don’t agree fully with the perspective presented, it is a great article that goes into much detail far beyond climate concerns and I recommend reading it.
Where I found myself reflecting on its content were the assertions that it is primarily, if not solely, the fault of capitalism for our existential crisis of climate change and the suggestion that it’s possible through degrowth strategies to achieve a utopian-like world with “…universal education and healthcare, and at least 5,000–15,000 km of mobility in various modes per person per year. It offers fairer and better lives for the vast majority of people…” (perhaps up to 10 billion) should the world have the wherewithal to ensure the ‘right’ things be done — particularly the idea that we need to avoid elite panic in responding to our crises (that leads to leveraging of situations to protect their ‘booty’) and adopt the non-elite tendency to ‘sacrifice’ for one’s community.
While I have great respect for the degrowth movement and its underlying philosophy that holds humanity needs to live within the biophysical limits of a finite planet[1], the bargaining/denial I sense from many that support it is where I diverge a tad in my thinking about our plight and future ‘potential’.
While I have come to the firm belief that our ruling elite are primarily driven by a desire to control/expand the wealth-generating/-extracting systems that provide their revenue streams and thus wealth/power/prestige/privilege (leading them to encourage/cheerlead the chasing of the perpetual growth chalice that supports the power/wealth structures inherent in any complex society, and certainly leverage crises to their advantage to help meet their motivation), I’m not so convinced that capitalism’s role in our predicament (ecological overshoot) is much more than a leverage-point (of several) in perhaps speeding up the pre/historical and biological/ecological processes which will eventually bring our global, industrial society to its knees.
Long before ‘capitalism’ took hold of our elite, there were complex societies that ‘collapsed’ due to what archaeologist Joseph Tainter argues are diminishing returns on investments in complexity[2]. Our human societies’ problem-solving proclivity to exploit/extract the easy-to-retrieve and cheap-to-access resources first leads to eventual ‘cost’ increases (particularly in terms of energy) that require the use of society’s surpluses/reserves to maintain/sustain political, economic, and organisational structures (as well as technologies) that serve as our ‘solutions’ to perceived ‘problems’.
Once these surpluses/reserves are unavailable due to their exhaustion and ‘society’ can no longer provide the benefits of participation in it, people ‘opt out’ and withdraw their support — usually by packing up and leaving. This ‘abandonment’ by increasing numbers of people undermines the necessary human, and thus material, inputs that support the structures that hold a complex society together and it eventually ‘collapses’.
Obviously, such a withdrawal of support is virtually impossible in today’s world for a variety of reasons; not least of which are the inability to ‘escape’ the elite’s reach in most nation states — at least for the time being — and a lack of skills/knowledge to survive for very long without the energy slaves/conveniences of ‘modern’ society, keeping people virtually trapped and incapable of opting out. In addition, the ruling elite need their citizens for labour and/or taxes and will go to virtually any length to prevent such withdrawal from the various entrapments of today’s world.
This is not to ignore the knock-on effects of ways in which ‘support’ is being undermined by political, social, and economic policies of the ruling elite. More and more people are questioning the directives issued from upon high and challenging them.
For example, there seems to be growing concern that the gargantuan expansion of credit/debt is quite problematic. For some this is an approach that expedites the drawing down of fundamental resources (especially energy) — ‘stealing from the future’ for lack of a better term. A good argument can also be made that much (most?) of this debt/credit is being created to fund geopolitical competition and siphon wealth from national treasuries into the ‘holdings’ of the elite. This is not to dismiss that a portion is being directed to the population, but I would contend that this is to help provide cover for the inequity that is resulting from the massive expansion of fiat currency — particularly in that ‘hidden tax’ of price inflation that always impacts the disadvantaged disproportionately to the wealthy elite — and to sustain the Ponzi scheme that our economic/financial/monetary systems have become.
I sense we are likely to experience (already are experiencing?) a doubling-down of efforts to control the hoi polloi by our ‘leaders’ as our systems begin to decline in perceived benefits. Tyranny comes in many guises, from narrative management and mass surveillance to incarceration and violence.
Our fundamental predicament is unfortunately overlooked in the somewhat reductionist approach that focuses exclusively on capitalism and climate change/carbon emissions. The following graphic illustrates this perspective with respect to the simplification that can occur when one focuses upon a single variable when complex systems necessarily consist of many intertwined ones with nonlinear feedback loops and emergent phenomena.
Carbon Tunnel Vision
Eliminating capitalism has become the clarion call for many but I’m viewing this increasingly as part of the denial/bargaining that is expanding in our ‘hope’ to find a ‘solution’ to our various crises. In relatively simplistic terms, the view holds that if we eliminate the greed inherent in capitalism and the waste it leads to, humanity can continue to have a technological, global-spanning society where everyone can live happily-ever-after — for example, we could direct our ‘wealth’ to the ‘right’ technology (think ‘green/clean’ energy production and electrified gadgets) and thus sustain our complexities with nary a hiccup.
Unfortunately, I would argue, such rhetoric is not only dividing some very well-intentioned groups/individuals, but causing our fundamental predicament to be overlooked and thus any possible mitigation of it to be mostly dismissed — primarily because the issue is exceedingly complex and in all likelihood has no simple and all-encompassing ‘solution’, but rather a difficult and unnerving shift in thinking and approaches where perhaps just a handful of humans carry on in a ‘sustainable’ fashion[3].
This appears to be even worse than a ‘wicked problem’[4], for these still hold out ‘hope’ for a ‘solution’ should every variable line up ‘correctly’ to help ‘solve’ it. This possibility, as remote as it is for wicked problems, opens the door to all sorts of denial and bargaining — a strong human tendency to help avoid anxiety-provoking thoughts.
I’m increasingly leaning towards the conclusion that the ecological bottleneck our human experiment has created by its vast overshooting of the planet’s natural carrying capacity is far too small for the growing number of us to get through. No amount of denial or bargaining (elimination of capitalism; wealth redistribution; ‘green/clean’ energy) is likely to change that[5].
And then there’s the issue of peak resources, most problematic being that of oil. The ideas promulgated in the article and by supporters of degrowth seem to be somewhat energy/resource blind[6]. The significant (and I mean VERY significant) role played by oil and other fossil fuels in creating an explosion in human resource exploitation and population cannot be stressed enough. It has not only allowed us to access previously inaccessible resources to support our growth but has done so to the point where many of these supportive materials have now encountered significant diminishing returns and, for some, begun to encounter increasing scarcity placing continued use more in the rear-view mirror than some techno-cornucopian future[7].
I continue to believe that personal/group attempts to relocalise as much as possible the fundamentals of living can increase the probability of a region getting through to the other side of the coming transition. Potable water, food production, and shelter needs for the climate should be a focus; not bargaining with our sociopolitical and socioeconomic systems since this can unnecessarily divert energy and resources from the actions that will probably foster greater self-sufficiency and -resiliency — perhaps enough to get through the impending ecological bottleneck.
I believe we have never lived in an ideal world, nor ever will. The constant and repetitive rise and fall of complex societies has demonstrated our experimentations have failed, despite having the best technologies and thinkers of the time. We cannot help ourselves, it would seem. We keep making the same mistakes again and again and again…only this time we have leveraged a one-time cache of ancient carbon energy to create a globalised, industrial world and put the entire species into ecological overshoot while destroying many of any competing species and much of the planet in the process.
The likelihood of everything going ‘just right’ for us, as the ‘bargainers’ hope, is probably even more remote than this Canadian senior ending up playing in the National Hockey League (a childhood fantasy[8]) in the not too distant future.
This article was brought to my attention yesterday and is also well worth the read. It echoes many of my own thoughts about our plight.
[2] Tainter, J.. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ISBN 978–0–521–38673–9). There are competing theories as to why and how complex societies decline/collapse, but I have found Tainter’s to be the most compelling.
[3] In no way am I advocating a sudden ‘die-off’ to achieve this; such an event is increasingly looking to happen via the ‘natural’ collapse that accompanies a species overshooting its environmental carrying capacity, regardless of our wishes otherwise.
[5] I realise that stating ‘likely’ also opens the door to such bargaining but I attempt to be careful in declarations that suggest certitude. Few, if any, of our stories about our understanding of the world and prognostications about its future are certain — some just more probable than others.
[8] As a Canadian born at the start of the 1960s in a relatively smallish city (182,000 the year I was born), I was introduced to playing hockey at age four. I have played almost every year since (took a few years off when my children were young) and continue to play regularly. I have played alongside some who have been drafted by NHL teams but never made the next step, and I can attest to the fact that despite my wishes my skill set has never been even close to being capable of playing professionally. I am still struggling to pull off a ‘saucer pass’ or ‘toe drag’ regularly and continue to practise them almost every time I play.
Despite Warnings We Have Continued Business-As-Usual and Doubled-Down On Our Avoidance Behaviours
The following is my comment on The Honest Sorcerer’s latest piece that highlights the impossibility of bypassing thermodynamic laws (especially Entropy) in our quest for the Holy Grail of a sustainable civilisation; in this instance via a ‘circular’ economy.
While what you argue appears self-evident for the increasingly unlikely prospects of the ‘green/clean’ utopian future a lot of ‘futurists’ predict will unfold as the seemingly endless stream of technological ‘breakthroughs’ come to fruition, it seems that the vast majority of people who even show some awareness of our predicament will ignore/deny/rationalise away the evidence (universal thermodynamic laws or not) in order to cling to their dreams of infinite growth and ‘progress’ upon a finite planet. I even find the argument about physical, material limits is denied by many/most of these people.
This notion that limits are meaningless appears to have got its legs from economists and business ‘leaders’ who have argued that technological progress and human ingenuity trump material limits, particularly due to the idea of infinite substitutability and recycling. History has apparently demonstrated again and again that humans adapt their technology and resource use by finding alternative and/or new sources for their material wants.
What this approach does, however, is not only focus upon a relatively small slice of human pre/history where the leveraging of a number of catalysts to technological change have occurred (especially the creation of debt-/credit-based fiat currency and hydrocarbon use that both allow the pulling of finite resources from the future into the present), but cherry picks behaviours and events.
The processes that contribute to the recurrent collapse of complex societies are minimised/ignored, with a lot of rationalising that ‘this time is different’. We can recycle. We can elect ‘wise’ leaders’. We can work together. We can avoid past mistakes. We can mine passing asteroids. We can innovate. We can migrate to other planets. We can overcome limits. We can adapt. We can slow/control/halt the growth imperative. We can find a means of creating limitless ‘clean’ energy. We can do anything we imagine and set our minds to.
And while these assertions can make us feel better by avoiding the anxieties that arise when we frame things from a perspective where these ‘hopes’ are viewed as magical thinking that avoids reality, they are leading us to pursue the ‘business-as-usual’ scenario (of the 13 possible) painted by the original Limits to Growth study. A scenario where human ecological overshoot and the consequential collapse of population and industrial society were imminent during our current century.
The Limits to Growth researchers proposed that it was possible to avoid this scenario and achieve a sustainable lifestyle but required significant changes be made as soon as possible. In the intervening years, however, our species seems to have ignored the warnings and ‘motored’ ahead with ‘business-as-usual’. And rather than heed the signals our planet and its other species have been sending us (and increasingly so over the past handful of decades), we’ve doubled down on our avoidance behaviours — especially the stories we share about all this and how everything will be alright…somehow but mostly because of human ingenuity and technology, those god-like qualities we storytelling apes possess.
The entire narrative around ‘electrifying’ everything is primarily about the marketing of ecologically-destructive and completely unsustainable industrial products while leveraging human emotions about well-meaning care and compassion for the world and fellow species.
I believe the reasoning is simple: those who own the industries and financial institutions that are required for such a transition stand to profit handsomely from the belief that we can have our cake and eat it too, so let’s pour all remaining capital into ‘transitioning’ to something ‘green/clean’.
Only this is a fantasy.
The denial of reality required to believe in this tale not only serves to reduce the anxiety from the cognitive dissonance created when we realise that we live on a finite planet that has blown past the natural carrying capacity for humans and have hit significant diminishing returns on the most important resources to support our various complexities, but also leads to significant magical thinking about our ability to ‘transition’ from fossil fuels (that underpin virtually everything in our complex societies, especially food production, transportation, and adequate shelter) to something equally effective but non-destructive and sustainable.
There is nothing ‘resilient’ about this narrative. Humanity (at least in the form of complex, industrial societies) is not going to ‘recover quickly’ from the energy cliff we have likely already begun our descent from. It seems a misguided and misinformed story that serves to dish out ‘hope’ as opposed to the harsh ‘reality’ that we are in significant ecological overshoot and the primary resource that has led us here (fossil fuels) is in terminal decline with no substitute available[1].
We seem to be flailing about telling ourselves and others comforting tales while deferring to our ruling elite who are hell bent on leveraging our various crises to their economic and political advantage.
It’s past time we stop looking for magical solutions and face the looming hardships that are before us.
Let’s divert our remaining energy and resources towards safely decommissioning those dangerous complexities we’ve created (e.g., nuclear power plants and their waste products, biosafety labs and their dangerous pathogens, and chemical production and storage facilities) and relocalising as much as is possible the procurement of potable water, food production, and regional shelter needs.
Telling ourselves and believing in lies and fairy tales is a sure recipe for the consequences of our well-meaning but ecologically-destructive ways to be significantly worse than they could otherwise be. Ramping up our industrial production of unsustainable technologies not only expedites the negative consequences of our overshoot but worsens our plight by further reducing the planet’s carrying capacity.
[1] This avoids the even more difficult discussion that even if we were to stumble upon a ‘green/clean’ energy substitute for fossil fuels, there are a host of other significant impediments to sustaining an 7+ billion population on a finite planet.
Today’s contemplation is based upon a post in a Peak Oil Facebook Group I belong to and the suggestion that the idea of Peak Oil is catching on more broadly and making its way into the ‘mainstream’.
I am not so sure that the idea of Peak Oil will catch on more broadly and make its way into the ‘mainstream’ — except perhaps on the margins during times such as we are currently witnessing where issues pertaining to energy and the cost of it dominates our worldview. This is what has occurred in the past, such as in the shadow of The Great Recession when oil reached it historical high in June, 2008. It will certainly receive more play amongst those who are aware of it and the consequences that flow from understanding it but amongst the general public I am not so convinced.
Not only is it likely that such mainstream recognition and discussions regarding Peak Oil will be limited in nature but I personally have to wonder how much the extent of the significant implications for everything in our complex societies will actually penetrate into a broader awareness, for a variety of reasons. The notion may gain more notoriety amongst an increased portion of the public than it currently does, but very likely not the existential consequences of the limits imposed by waning fossil fuel resources on the sociocultural complexities supported by them (i.e., pretty well everything in our complex societies, including but certainly not limited to food production, transportation, economic/financial systems, trade, etc.); nor is the notion likely to stick around for long or be widely discussed by many in the population given the media’s tendency to ignore/deny its more unsightly impacts on their prevalent narratives (e.g., chasing the infinite growth chalice is a great thing and needs to continue).
In addition, one can already see a wide array of alternative interpretations of our energy ‘crisis’ being put forward[1]. Some of these include: conspiracy by the elite to bring about The Great Reset; insufficient funding/capital towards all forms of energy production; a conspiracy to keep fossil fuel prices high (including the notion that ‘fossil’ fuels are limitless in quantity as they are abiotic/abiogenic in nature); geopolitical uncertainty, particularly in regions where fossil fuels are in significant quantities; misguided investment policy such as Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria; and, of course, the ultimate scapegoat for the world’s woes — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While some leakage of the idea of the finiteness of the resource or limits to its extraction has occurred[2], many mainstream pundits have completely ignored the concern as it seems unworthy of consideration, or have questioned the accuracy/validity of the idea and thereby dismissed it.
Some mainstream media has indeed already discussed Peak Oil and some of its implications[3].
Mostly, the topic has seemed to get more attention when fossil fuel prices, especially oil and gas, begin to experience significant increases. But when the prices stabilise (usually at a higher floor) or the media has moved its focus onto some other crisis, the discussion shifts away and it is quickly forgotten.
Why will the concept and implications of Peak Oil be mostly absent from the mainstream conversation and/or dissipate relatively quickly?
Here’s my take. There are two primary reasons that I believe the concept and certainly the significant consequences of Peak Oil are unlikely to penetrate very deeply in to the zeitgeist of our ‘modern’ society, and they are the two main themes I have tended to discuss previously.
First, the elite, as they invariably tend to do, will attempt to leverage the impending crisis (as they have been for some time) to meet their primary motivation — maintenance/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and thus power/prestige/privileged positions. The status quo power and wealth structures that arise within the organisational imperatives required in a complex society must be preserved!
Since the elite also ‘control’ the mainstream media, and political and education systems, I expect them to keep doing (perhaps with an even hardier push) what they’ve been doing: sell/market the hopium-laced narrative that human ingenuity and our technological prowess can ‘save’ us from the environmental horrors (i.e., global warming/climate change) of burning fossil fuels. It’s no coincidence that they happen to ‘own’ the industrial processes and financial institutions necessary for such an endeavour.
One need only read the majority of ‘news’ or opinions about Peak Oil and it becomes clear that the ‘solution’ is always to transition to ‘green/clean’ energy and to electrify everything.
Second, the psychological mechanisms that impact/influence human beliefs and attitudes will also kick into gear as stress/disorder increases due to the negative consequences of Peak Oil, especially those aspects that lead our thinking/beliefs astray by attempting to: avoid pain and seek pleasure; reduce our cognitive dissonance; lead us to defer to/obey authority; have us go along to get along (i.e., the need to belong to a group); and, perhaps most significantly, the heuristics and biases that simplify complex issues and confirm misplaced beliefs. Basically we tend to gravitate towards the simple narratives offered by our ‘leaders’ and alter our beliefs to avoid painful thoughts.
And all the above doesn’t even touch upon the overwhelming evidence that fossil fuels (and the concomitant leveraging of technology to expedite our drawdown of a number of finite resources) have been the primary impetus leading to our significant overshooting of the globe’s natural carrying capacity for the human species.
What seems to be completely absent in virtually every ‘mainstream’ discussion about Peak Oil is the importance of fossil fuels in supporting virtually all of our complexities.
There are fossil fuel inputs into everything but especially modern industrial agriculture and transportation. These cannot be replaced by non-fossil fuel energy to any significant extent, if at all. Without relocalising food production in particular, we are setting ourselves up for significant food shortages.
Naïve, then, seems the call to abandon fossil fuels forthwith[4]. There appears zero comprehension of the consequences of that for the very dangerous complexities we have created. But it is also a marketing ploy to shift capital towards non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (that depend significantly on fossil fuels). It is increasingly obvious that it is quite counterproductive to continue to chase the perpetual growth chalice (that is one of our greatest challenges that needs confronting) while cheerleading a reduction in fossil fuels.
We have hit significant diminishing returns on our extraction of fossil fuels. This is extremely problematic not only because they support virtually all of the complexities necessary for our very survival but because we continue to be beholden to systems that perpetuate the predicament, especially the pursuit of the infinite growth chalice.
If we do not prepare ourselves adequately and do not abandon our pursuit of growth, we risk massive negative consequences. In fact, it may already be too late to avoid most (all?) of such negative impacts given how far we are likely into ecological overshoot — a predicament I haven’t really touched upon in this contemplation.
A summary of my thoughts is clear from a response I shared this morning on an excellent article by The Honest Sorcerer, entitled Peak Oil Is Back With A Vengeance:
While everything you state is factual and based upon solid data and geological evidence [regarding the reality of Peak Oil], I fear our penchant to deny reality (especially if it is ‘painful’ in nature), reduce our cognitive dissonance (to alleviate stressful thoughts/beliefs), and defer to authority (that we give all too willingly to our ‘elite’) — as well as a potpourri of other psychological mechanisms that impact our beliefs — will once again see Peak Oil discussions/awareness/understanding be sustained/grow only on the margins of society.
Previous bouts of ‘awareness’ have arisen during similar times of stress, especially with regard to energy, but for the most part get lost in the alternative narratives that drown out the clarion calls about Peak Resources and seem directed to distract us from the ugly underside of ecological overshoot and its implications for our misbeliefs about humanity’s future and the magical thinking required to hold that more of what has caused our overshoot — namely technology — will somehow ameliorate/solve our errant ways and existential crises.
The vast, vast majority of people will either choose to ignore/deny the reality of Peak Oil (and especially its implications for our complex societies that completely depend upon fossil fuels for existence) or acknowledge it and then hold on to the rope being dangled by the elite that our ingenuity and technological prowess will ‘solve’ our issues (and, of course, it’s no coincidence that the push by our elite is primarily because they own the industries and institutions that are offered as saviours and stand to profit handsomely from the capital flowing into them).
Even if the concept and some of its significant implications do re-enter the mainstream and actually stick or becomes a common concern, I have to wonder how it will be manipulated by the narrative control managers for the elite. Somehow things are bound to get even more distorted than they are currently, especially given the psychological mechanisms that help to mislead our beliefs (recency, optimism, and confirmation biases particularly).
As with all things, however, time will tell how this plays out…I’m guessing not very well.
For anyone who has been following my writing over the past couple of years, you will know that I have been critical of non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (aka ‘renewables’) and the ‘marketing’ that surrounds them[1]. My critiques are usually focused upon the resource limits and ecological systems-destruction blindness that appear prevalent in many (most? all?) of the mainstream narratives, and the subsequent cheerleading surrounding such products and their ability to transition us smoothly away from hydrocarbon-based fuels/products[2].
On top of this is the argument that as with much (most? all?) in our modern world, the pursuit of controlling/expanding revenue streams to sustain the power/wealth accumulation (and thus privilege/influence) of an ‘elite’ few of our species plays a key role in the narrative management surrounding these industrial products and their uptake; particularly the ‘Electrify Everything’ and ‘Net Zero’ stories[3]. It’s no secret that this is increasingly being accomplished through legislation under the guise of carbon emissions reduction to address concerns with climate change.
As a consequence of my highlighting the biogeochemical restrictions, negative ecological consequences, and the motivation behind the marketing and uptake of these industrial products, I have been the recipient of accusations regarding my motivation for pointing these aspects out. These have ranged from being labelled, in no particular order: a fossil fuel shill, conspiracy theorist, Big Oil accomplice, technophobia cult member, right wing (Republican) supporter, climate change denier, Malthusian doomer, left wing (Democrat) extremist, etc.[4].
And it’s not that I support the ongoing growth in complexities that hydrocarbons has brought. In fact, I have extensively highlighted that this resource has been one of the most significant catalysts to our ecological overshoot predicament and modern societal complexities[5]. Again and again I have pointed out that the rise in complexity of societies through time contributes to the recurring ‘collapse’ processes that pre/history has shown occur, and that hydrocarbons have contributed to this time the phenomena being important on a global scale.
I’ve also pointed out that I don’t criticise these non-renewable, renewable energy-products because I ‘hate’ them, and that I am not unfamiliar with them having constructed my own solar photovoltaic back-up system for my home[6]. I’ve simply come to the realisation and accepted that there are limits to their usefulness in supporting the extremely complex systems of our modern world, and that the industrial processes required to manufacture and dispose of/recycle them are costly in terms of ecological destruction and resource drawdown.
It seems to me that the failure to accept the limitations (and thus consequences) that these industrial technologies bring with them are for the most part ignored/denied or justified/rationalised away[7]. There is little if any recognition that not only is their pursuit adding to the destruction of our very important ecological systems, but that they are contributing to our resource drawdown rather than offsetting it, and making our ecological overshoot predicament worse.
Humanity is not ‘transitioning’ away from its unsustainable path but exacerbating it by both increasing the overshoot and decreasing the natural carrying capacity for our species through the pursuit of these complex, industrial products. And rather than acknowledge our mistaken choices, we are creating stories to double-down on them and attacking the messengers who point out our errant ways.
The vast majority of people are accepting of the dominant narratives because it helps to avoid the anxiety and stress of cognitive dissonance that arises otherwise[8]. What do you mean we can’t have our cake and eat it too? Hang on a minute, that’s not what we were promised…
In our mistaken beliefs that we stand above and beyond Nature, and that our tool (i.e., technology) innovativeness and use can address any issue/dilemma that arises, we continue our journey towards the inevitable consequences that any species experiencing significant overshoot must endure. In our uniquely human way, however, we are sharing stories to avoid this reality — because we can, and by doing so makes us feel better (or, at least, not as bad). We are avoiding pain to pursue pleasure. The most head-scratching to me are the ones that insist physical limits do not exist, and that infinite growth is indeed possible on a finite planet (with zero repercussions, of course).
In the end, we humans tend to believe what we want to believe regardless of evidence that challenges these beliefs. Rather than confront our misguided beliefs, we tend to justify/rationalise them. Our reactions to evidence that contradicts our views tend to be emotional in nature, lashing out at the naysayers and clinging more firmly to our beliefs because having our beliefs challenged is threatening to our personal identity and the social circle/echo chamber we live within[9].
And because we abhor uncertainty, we cling to the certainty espoused by our ‘leaders/authority figures’ even if it is wrong and leading to greater harm. It’s simply our way of avoiding anxiety-provoking thoughts and evidence for as long as we are able — forever if we can.
So, sure, call me a fossil fuel shill or engage in some other ad hominem attack if it makes you feel better when you don’t like what I’m saying about why non-renewable, renewable energy-products are no ‘solution’ to overshoot and that your promotion of them is actually making our predicament worse.
But make no mistake, the future ain’t what it used to be when we imagined it based upon a notion of limitless energy and other resources — not even close. We are, at our peril, ignoring the signals being sent by our planet and its other species in our ongoing narcissistic beliefs that Homo sapiens are in some way ‘special’ and above and beyond the reproach of Nature, the biogeophysical limits of existence upon a finite planet, and laws of the universe.
Payback for our behaviours is sure to be cruel and unforgiving. But then again, I’m just a Malthusian doomer and right-wing conspiracy theorist…or is that left-wing?
[1] See:
– A ‘Solution’ to Our Predicaments: More Mass-Produced, Industrial Technologies. BlogMedium
-To EV Or Not To EV? One Of Many Questions Regarding Our ‘Clean/Green’ Utopian Future, Part 1. BlogMedium – Electrify Everything: Neither ‘Green’ Nor ‘Sustainable’. BlogMediumSubstack – Electrify Everything: The Wrong ‘Solution’. BlogMediumSubstack
[2] See:
– The Pursuit of ‘Renewables’: Putting Us Further Into Ecological Overshoot. Medium – Roadblocks to Our ‘Renewable’ Energy Transition: Debt, Resource Constraints, and Diminishing Returns. Medium – Ignoring Ecological Systems Destruction. Medium – ‘Renewables’: Virtuous Circles, Resource Limits, and Ecological Systems. Medium
[3] See:
– Finite Energy, ‘Renewables’, and the Ruling Elite. BlogMediumSubstack – ‘Renewables’, Electrify Everything and Marketing Propaganda. BlogMediumSubstack – ‘Net Zero’ Policies: Propaganda To Support Continued Economic Growth. BlogMediumSubstack – The Ruling Class: Chasing Growth Regardless Of the Consequences. BlogMedium
[4] See:
– Thou Shall Not Disturb the ‘Renewables’ Force. Medium
– Criticising ‘Renewables’ is Not a Sin. BlogMediumSubstack – Sometimes People Don’t Want to Hear the Truth. BlogMediumSubstack – Differing Opinions On ‘Renewables’. Medium
[5] See:
– Finite Energy, Overconsumption, and Magical Thinking Through Denial. MediumSubstack – Fossil Fuels: Contributing to Complexity and Overshoot. BlogMediumSubstack – Ecological Overshoot, Hydrocarbon Energy, and Biophysical Reality. BlogMediumSubstack – Surplus Energy From Hydrocarbons: Another Predicament Catalyst. Medium
[6] See:
– Personal Experience With ‘Renewables’. Medium
[7] See:
– Infinite Growth, Finite Planet; What Could Possibly Go Wrong?BlogMediumSubstack – Growth Greenwashing: A Comforting Narrative. BlogMediumSubstack – ‘Renewables’ and the Overton Window That Ignores Biophysical Realities. BlogMediumSubstack – Climate Emergency Action Plan: Electrification and Magical Thinking. BlogMediumSubstack
[8] See:
– Grieving: There Are No ‘Solutions’ to Overshoot. BlogMediumSubstack – ‘Clean’ Energy and the Stages of Grieving. BlogMediumSubstack – Magical Thinking to Help Avoid Anxiety-Provoking Thoughts. BlogMedium – Magical Thinking About the Energy Transition. Medium
Infinite growth. Finite planet. What could possibly go wrong? Part Two
This is Part Two of a contemplation regarding what humanity’s future path ‘may’ look like. Part One can be found here.
Based on the evidence found in our pre/history and our biological proclivities (both of which I touched upon in Part One), it would appear we are likely to experience a variety of crises as we increasingly encounter diminishing returns on our investments in complexity and go through the withdrawal of surplus energy[1] that has fed our ‘growth’ and supported our organisational ‘problem solving’ abilities, but also because we have created and come to rely significantly upon systems that require such growth to keep from collapsing (for example, our increasingly debt-based financial/economic/monetary systems that, in turn, support our expanding energy-averaging systems and ensuring overexploited regions can be ‘maintained’ — i.e. globalised trade).
Throw on top of this the overshoot predicament and one should realise that the future is sure to not be the one painted by the techno-cornucopians who optimistically envision more of a Star Trek future than a Mad Max or The Road one.
I, personally, am of the opinion that ‘collapse’ of some type is imminent[2] primarily due to our overwhelming reliance upon important finite resources (especially fossil fuels) that we are now experiencing significant diminishing returns upon (and, yes, it’s an opinion; as is every other view of the future no matter how much ‘science’ is behind it or how sophisticated the model used to project the trends going forward — some are better than others but only the passage of time can ultimately decide which, in retrospect, were accurate).
At the same time we are going to be increasingly impacted by environmental/ecological crises brought about by our ecological overshoot and its concomitant overwhelming of the planetary sinks that previously helped cleanse the waste products of our expansion and technological creations[3] — to say little regarding the impacts that are going to be experienced around diminishing returns on food production and its very real reliance upon fossil fuels. Whether it be increasing frequency of extreme weather events and/or toxic environments leading to physical/physiological consequences for its inhabitants, including humans, the repercussions of our expansion appear to be growing in nature and impact.
How we view ‘collapse’ depends very much on our interpretation of it. It may be ‘the end of the world as we know it’ but that does not mean it will be dark and dreary. That perspective may be one that has been widely propagated in order to ‘scare’ people into believing the status quo economic and power structures need to continue and be supported at all costs. They do not.
‘Collapse’ seems scary because it is mostly about uncertainty, something humans abhor. We don’t know what the future holds and it reduces our cognitive dissonance greatly to cling to some certain future, even if completely and utterly wrong.
I’ve shared before what Tainter says about ‘collapse’ and it’s not all that bad depending upon one’s point of view:
“Collapse…is a political process. It may, and often does, have consequences in such areas as economics, art, and literature, but it is fundamentally a matter of the sociopolitical sphere. A society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity…[It manifests itself] as:
· a lower degree of stratification and social differentiation;
· less economic and occupational specialization, of individuals, groups, and territories;
· less centralized control; that is, less regulation and integration of diverse economic and political groups by elites;
· less behavioural control and regimentation; less investment in the epiphenomena of complexity, those elements that define the concept of ‘civilization’: monumental architecture, artistic and literary achievements, and the like;
· less flow of information between individuals, between political and economic groups, and between a center and its periphery;
· less sharing, trading, and redistribution of resources;
· less overall coordination and organization of individuals and groups;
· a smaller territory within a single political unit.”[4]
Some (most?) of these consequences may actually be welcomed by some, especially those who rail against what appears to be a growing tyranny of the ruling elite as we creep further into the banquet of consequences of our overshoot and diminishing returns on investments in complexity.
However, the ‘collapse’ that may accompany overshoot — a massive ‘die-off’ — seems a tad bit more cataclysmic depending upon how quickly such population reduction occurs. A relatively short recalibration of our population would, for all intents and purposes, appear truly calamitous to those experiencing it and most certainly would create a chaotic disintegration of the complexities we have come to rely upon for our survival. We have recently experienced the knock-on effects of shutting down world trade/economies over the fears associated with a relatively mild novel coronavirus[5]; the disruption of something far more impactful would make this seem very tame in comparison.
It seems clear to me that we have predicaments creating a vice on our continuation of any type of complex society. And my thinking about how this might all unfold has led me to review more closely John Michael Greer’s thesis that attempts to develop an ecological model of ‘collapse’. This ‘catabolic collapse’ suggests, at least in my interpretation, that we will see ‘crises’ that lead to more ‘simplified’ levels of society that then later experience more ‘crises’ resulting in another step down to an even simpler state and so on due to the fact that “production fails to meet maintenance requirements for existing capital…[and as a result get caught up in] a self-reinforcing cycle of contraction converting most capital to waste.”[6]
Given the increasing likelihood of ‘collapse’, it would seem we have two stark choices/strategies (very similar to what Greer argues regarding Catabolic Collapse). Continue on attempting to sustain unsustainable systems, virtually guaranteeing an overshoot die-off of gargantuan proportions. Or, attempt to ‘manage’ our ‘collapse’ as it unfolds by being pre-emptive via purposeful downsizing[7], degrowing[8], and simplifying[9].
What this second option looks like depends almost entirely on those agreeing with this approach. In fact, I sense a growing bifurcation of opinions even within the ‘degrowth’ movement with some arguing for a very slow transition and movement towards ‘green/clean’ technologies and others countering that such an approach is far too late and much more radical shifts need to be made if we are to have any ‘hope’ of making it thru the bottleneck we have created for our species (and others).
Unfortunately, given the lack of consensus, the psychological processes that lead to significant denial and bargaining (to reduce cognitive dissonance)[10], and the fact that the ruling elite will likely fight with all their ‘tools’ to avoid the elimination of their control/expansion of the wealth-generation/extraction systems that provide their revenue streams (their primary motivation), it is most probable we will go with the first option above: attempt to sustain the unsustainable (probably via ‘green’ technology), which will then lead to mother nature choosing how the planet is rebalanced — and our wishes and concerns will be null and void in this scenario.
In addition, given our current geopolitics and the frequency at which a society’s ruling elite choose war during times of stress, rather than diplomacy, I very much see the possibility of a global conflagration of conflict occurring — that could, of course, go nuclear.
As a result of all the above, I am increasingly leaning towards our future being far more dystopian in nature than utopian. The version of dystopia is still very much up to us I believe depending on what we do from this point onwards (my hope is that we make ‘good’ choices but my fear, as I admit above, is that doing so is beyond our capability because of the nature of our society’s power structures and protection of them by those who leverage crises to their benefit; along with the human tendencies to defer to authority and the need to ‘belong’).
Is there a way out of this conundrum? I personally waffle between ‘hope’ (something I wish for but really have no agency in) and despair (see image below).
My ‘hope’ is that we will come to realise that our pursuit of the perpetual growth chalice is taking us to a dark place where few of us survive (and that would be many species, not just homo sapiens) and reverse our trajectory; what can referred to as ‘degrowth’: a purposeful cessation of our current path and ‘deconstruction’ of almost all our socioeconomic and sociopolitical excesses until we reach a standard of living and population level that is ‘sustainable’.
My despair is that we will refuse to do this for a variety of reasons both psychological and biological in nature, but especially because if it is to have any positive impact we likely need to do it deeply and quickly. Instead, we will likely do everything we can to kick-the-growth-can-down-the-road to delay the inevitable and ultimately make the ‘correction’ all the more colossal in its size and scope; especially if, as Catton argues, we will have to undershoot our ‘natural’ carrying capacity by quite a bit given that everything we have done has reduced it significantly[11].
So, basically I believe that if we continue to hold that more technology[12] and money will address our issues, then I tend to think we will drift towards the darker dystopian path. If, however, we begin to ‘collapse’ on our own terms by degrowing, downsizing, and simplifying our societies we might be able to steer our future towards the lighter dystopian future where relatively small, local communities live within their region’s carrying capacity and are in ‘sync’ with the ecological systems within which they live and depend upon. We cannot and should not continue to believe that humans exist above and beyond these systems. Frankly, without them we are destined to disappear as well.
This ‘light dystopian’ vision, if you will, may appear calamitous to many because it is void of most of the technological ‘conveniences’ (what some have termed ‘energy slaves’) we currently embrace and is sure to involve much more manual labour and expose us to many of nature’s uncertainties that we have come to believe we can tame and avoid. But as nature so often reminds us, although we are reluctant to admit it, it always bats last and has the final say.
Given the evidence and my personal inclinations, more and more I’m leaning towards the realisation that it is the ‘scarier’ dystopian future that we, or at least future generations, will experience.
Of course only time will tell since making predictions is difficult, particularly if they’re about the future…
The following image was posted recently by someone on Facebook and I find it is frighteningly apropos to my personal reflections about our predicament:
[4] Tainter, J. The Collapse of Complex Societies. P. 4.
[5] Regardless of one’s perspective on Covid-19 and its political roots and/or implications, the millions of deaths attributed to it are but a fraction of several historical pandemics. The mortality rate for Covid has been relatively low compared to other ‘plagues’ that have spread through human populations and resulted in much more significant ‘die-offs’, such as the Black Death (1347–1351), Spanish Flu (1918–1919), Plague of Justinian (541–542), Third Plague Pandemic (1855–1960). https://www.publichealthonline.org/worst-global-pandemics-in-history/
[10] My second university degree was focused on psychology and anthropology (Honours Diploma, 1987, Western University). An Honours Diploma is equivalent to a Bachelor’s Degree but Canadian universities do not give out second B.A.s to the same student and instead give these. At least that was the case during my 1980s post-secondary years. I also have a Bachelor of Education which is the field in which I spent my formal employment (Brock University, 1989, St. Catharines, Ontario); 10 years as a classroom teacher, 15 as an administrator.
[11] Catton, Jr., W.R.. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press, 1980. (ISBN 978–0–252–00988–4)
Infinite growth. Finite planet. What could possibly go wrong? Part One
Today’s contemplation (a two-parter) was begun a few months ago but I’m just now getting around to completing and posting it. As often happens with me and my ADHD, I get thinking about/reflecting upon a topic or idea, record some thoughts while having my morning coffee and the ideas are flowing, and then move on to something else before finishing the task completely (this habit, unfortunately, also impacts my various house ‘projects’ and drives my wife crazy…but after 36 years together she’s aware I just need the ‘occasional’ reminder about the unfinished work — I had forgotten about this writing until coming across it as I was cleaning up some computer files due to ‘extra’ time on my hands given the loss of Internet with the several-day shut-down of one of Canada’s largest providers recently; a blessing, really, as it reduced my screen-time).
A question posed to me recently was: “What does the path forward look like when we say we have to live within our means on a finite planet?”
The answer to such a question is as varied as the people answering it[1]. I am hesitant to provide a definitive answer about what the transition to ‘sustainable’ circumstances might look like given the uncertainty that abounds. I am inclined to believe that any ‘guess’ about the future[2], regardless of the amount of data/evidence one has or the sophistication of the model or the computing power used, is probably about as accurate as reading tea leaves or a bird’s entrails. Not one of us has a clear picture as to what will unfold in the future, for as a few people have been credited with stating (including physicist Niels Bohr, writer Mark Twain, and baseballer Yogi Berra): “Prediction is hard, especially if it’s about the future.”
I’ve long held that complex systems can neither be controlled nor predicted with their non-linear feedback loops and emergent phenomena[3], so predicting complex systems with any degree of ‘certainty’ is a fools’ errand — especially once human actions/behaviours are involved. On top of this, no matter how sincere our attempts at objectivity in such prognostications, personal biases always impact our processing of information as does the paradigm[4] through which we interpret events and project into the future (and we tend to do so linearly since non-linear systems befuddle our primate brains); and, then, of course there are the Black Swans[5] that are persistently circling overhead — those unknown, unknowns that we can’t even contemplate because they’re outside of our personally-confining and -blinding worldview.
When we read about the future we are confronted with a potpourri of thoughts about how it might unfold — most of them, of course, presented with ‘certitude’. We tend to cling to some over others even if the one we tend to gravitate towards holds little in common with observed reality or experience. For as Dan Gardner argues in Future Babble[6], humans do not like uncertainty and despite so-called ‘experts’ being horrible at predicting the future, human psychology compels us to listen and take them seriously — even if we know the prognosticator to have been wrong on countless occasions (I still look at the long-range weather forecasts even though I know quite well that any outside of about 12–24 hours are bound to be incorrect, some drastically so — something that drives me ‘mad’ when my food gardens are in desperate need of rain and the weather forecasters are calling for rain right up until that actual day/hour it is supposed to rain and then change the prediction to no rain, and I am forced to spend a few hours watering my beds — a tendency that seems to be increasing in frequency the past couple of growing seasons; this year, April and May were great for precipitation in my area north of Toronto but as has been happening, it seems, June and so far in July has been way too dry and the 4000 litres of rainwater I have collected in my 20 rain barrels was getting precariously low up until a very recent overnight rain).
I like what Gardner states near the end of his book about discussing the future:
It is informed by the past, it is revealing about the present, and it surveys a wide array of futures. It is infused with metacognition…It offers hopeful visions of what could be; it warns against dangers that also could be. It explores our values by asking us what we want to happen and what we don’t. And it goes no further. It raises issues, questions, and choices, and it suggests possibilities and probabilities. But it does not peddle certainties, and it does not predict.[7]
Where are we on our path into the future given such uncertainty? Well, we have our choice of competing narratives to believe in.
There are some who argue that it matters little or not at all what we do with respect to the existential predicaments we face, for the future is one where we are all FUBAR. For example, 5–10 degrees of average global temperature increase is quite certainly baked into the cake and will in all likelihood lead to the extinction of most species on the planet, perhaps all with the end result being a ‘hothouse’ Earth with an environment similar to Venus. Responses to this eventuality then also range, mostly dependent on whether one holds that the impact will be sudden or drag itself out over millennia. Dystopia, even widespread extinction, is on the horizon and there is no avoiding it.
Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are those who believe strongly that we can transition somewhat seamlessly to ‘alternative’ forms of energy (or just continue extracting fossil fuels whose ‘scarcity’ is a concerted psy-ops by the ‘powers-that-be’) to keep-on-keeping-on with our status quo complexities and energy-intensive living standards. For most ‘clean/green’ energy aficionados, nuclear fusion or some other as-yet-to-be-discovered technology will provide us with cheap, safe energy; and/or we can mine passing asteroids for any needed finite resources we’ve exhausted, including water. In fact, one day we are bound to leave this over-used rock and colonise other worlds. Perhaps a little bit of tweaking here or there might be needed but given human ingenuity and technological prowess we will solve any and everything thrown our way so there is no need to worry about any ecological system breakdown or resource scarcity ‘problems’ for very long at all. The future is one of unlimited possibilities and utopian dreams, especially if we also redistribute all the wealth tied up in the off-shore bank accounts of the world’s billionaires and slay that evil monster capitalism; then, without a doubt, all eight billion (or much more) of us can live happily-ever-after, holding hands, and singing Kumbayah around the ‘carbon-free’ campfire.
These are perhaps the two extremes of the gamut of possibilities for our future. Where each of us ends up on this continuum of beliefs depends on the worldview we hold and how we process information through that narrow keyhole we necessarily each peer through. And I would argue that what we believe also very much relies upon our personal biases and what we wish to happen, not necessarily upon any ‘factual’ evidence. We are constantly seeking out confirmatory evidence for our beliefs and ignoring or denying counterfactual data or rationalising it to fit into our preconceived notions. There exist very strong psychological mechanisms to ensure ‘facts’ seldom, if ever, alter firmly held beliefs.
So, before I lay out my personal thoughts on what our future may or may not look like (and I am in no way ‘certain’ about any of this, although I do lean towards the more ‘dystopian’ possibilities), let me provide some cognitive context for why I believe what I believe. The paradigm through which I view the world, as it were, and necessarily impacts my perception of this crazy and totally unpredictable world.
I find that pre/history demonstrates pretty clearly that every complex sociopolitical organisation (i.e., complex society) before us has eventually ‘declined’ to a point that it can no longer be considered a ‘society’[8]. The social fabric that held the population together became frayed and people opted out, leading to its eventual ‘collapse’.
In his book The Collapse of Complex Societies[9] archaeologist Joseph Tainter argues that a human society is a problem-solving organisation. This organisation requires energy inputs for its maintenance with increasing complexity necessitating increased energy inputs. These inputs eventually encounter the law of marginal utility or diminishing returns because the solutions we adopt in dealing with problems that arise tend to be the easiest-to-implement and cheapest-to-maintain, but eventually more difficult and costly approaches must be pursued as the ‘easy’ ones have been exhausted. People are attracted to participating in a sociopolitical organisation (i.e., society) so long as the benefits accrued are at least — but preferably better — than the costs incurred. Once the costs exceed the perceived benefits, people choose to withdraw their participation. When a tipping point of participants have opted out, the organisational structures that have held complexities in place ‘collapses’.
It’s obviously much more difficult to abandon the sociopolitical sphere and organisational structures one is born into today than it was in the past. There is not only limited to no space left to flee to as every portion of the planet has been claimed by some nation state or another, but the vast majority of people lack the skills/knowledge to survive without their society’s supports. Self-sufficiency has been ‘bred’ out of us in just a few generations as we have embraced a future based upon different imperatives but especially complex centralised-systems and technology.
This shift has been afforded us by our leveraging of a one-time, finite cache of fossil fuel energy; a cache that has encountered significant and world-altering diminishing returns.
On top of this leveraging of fossil fuel energy and the paradigm shift it has led to in how we perceive the world — and create organisational structures and knowledge within in — we have the very real prospect that we are in the midst of ecological overshoot because we have significantly surpassed the planet’s human carrying capacity[10].
In the past we could overcome carrying capacity limits by migrating to a region as yet unexploited or underexploited by others (wars and colonisation are pretty well always about resources/economics; see U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler’s essay War is a Racket[11] for more on this perspective). When we pushed up against or exceeded the biophysical limits imposed by our environment in the past, this ‘takeover method’ (taking over from other species and eventually other humans) allowed us to expand for many millennia. We spread into virtually every niche across the globe.
More recently, however, we have depended upon a different means of procuring our needed resources termed the ‘drawdown method’, where we have extracted finite resources to supplement our existence. We have pushed human carrying capacity well past its natural limit by relying upon various resources drawn from our environment. The past couple of centuries has seen this approach focused primarily upon limited resources that have been extracted far, far faster than their renewal rate. Such use could only be limited in scope and temporary in time.
As William Catton argues in Overshoot[12], any species that overshoots its carrying capacity experiences a ‘rebalancing’ of its population eventually. Where the takeover method is precluded, a loss of necessary resources (usually food) results in a massive die-off to bring population numbers down to a level where the environment can recover. Sometimes a species experiences physiological changes that reduces fertility. Either way, population is reduced dramatically from its peak and often to a level far below the natural upper limit of ‘sustainability’ because of the damage to the environment that overshoot has caused.
Given our reliance upon fossil fuels, their finite nature, and the diminishing returns we have encountered because of this — and the way in which their use and the industrial processes they have ‘powered’ have overwhelmed the various planetary sinks that normally help to filter and purify the waste products we produce — it is increasingly clear that we have overshot our carrying capacity and have but the negative consequence of that to experience (or as many argue, are already experiencing).
In Part Two of this ‘essay’ I will paint a somewhat blurry picture of our possible future…
[1] Here I am reminded of a statement by a visiting psychology professor at a lecture on human ‘intelligence’ I attended at Western University when I was an undergrad. During his introductory remarks, with a goal of defining what we would be discussing, he stated (and I am paraphrasing given it’s been about 40 years): “Ask a hundred psychologists the definition of intelligence and you are bound to get a hundred different answers, perhaps more.”
[3] I highly recommend some reading on complexity and complex systems. A good beginning text is Donella Meadows’s Thinking In Systems: A Primer. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008. (ISBN 978–1–60358–055–7).
[4] For an introduction to the concept of paradigms see Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, 1962. (ISBN 978–0–22645–811–3)
[5] See Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Improbable. Random House, 2010/2007. (ISBN 978–0–8129–7381–5)
[6] Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail–And Why We Believe Them Anyway. McClelland & Stewart, 2010. (ISBN 978–0–7710–3513–5)
[8] My graduate degree was concentrated in archaeology (Master of Arts, 1988, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario).
[9] The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ISBN 978–0–521–38673–9)
[10] Note that my first university degree was primarily concentrated in biology/physiology (Bachelor of Arts, 1984, Western University, London, Ontario).
Magical Thinking to Help Avoid Anxiety-Provoking Thoughts
Today’s contemplation shares a comment I made to a Facebook Group a number of days ago in response to an article by Dr. Ugo Bardi — whose writing, especially around limits to growth and his proposal about the Seneca cliff decline we are likely to face as we bump into the biophysical limits imposed by a finite planet, I have enjoyed and greatly learned from. While we agree on much, we have a definite disagreement regarding the role and potential of non-renewable, energy-harvesting technologies (what most refer to simply as ‘renewable’ energy — a powerful marketing twist of language given the actual technologies required are in a very limited way ‘renewable’ (i.e., recyclable/rebuildable) and are not energy sources but technologies to harvest ‘renewable’ energy).
Dr. Bardi posted the article I responded to in reaction to another article that was penned by The Honest Sorcerer that I had shared on one of the several Facebook Groups Dr. Bardi hosts. My original comment is in bold below with some links/charts to articles/research that support my perspective and some concluding remarks.
Whether the article is ‘peer-reviewed’ or not (and there are certainly issues with the ‘gold standard’ of peer review), the fact remains that non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies appear to be an extension of our fossil fuel-based energies relying upon them significantly in both the upstream and downstream industrial processes necessary for their production, maintenance, and after-life reclamation and/or disposal.
Ideally, peer review is an objective and forceful gate-keeper that serves to eliminate poor ‘science’ prior to it being widely distributed but the process is certainly less than perfect and has it criticisms, even from within academia (in fact, the mainstay of gate-keeping — that is, repeating the experiment — is rarely, if ever carried out; mostly because there is not one to replicate):
While there exist some small-scale examples of ‘renewables’ producing needed industrial products and ‘fuelling’ heavy equipment (and lots of marketing propaganda by vested interests around these; mostly, I would argue, to attract capital), the scale and cost are prohibitive, especially for a world already drowning in debt — to say little about the finite resources required to ‘convert’ the processes necessary. The bottom line is that in the present, and forgoing some miraculous as-yet-to-be-discovered technology, fossil fuel-based industrial processes are required for energy-harvesting technologies:
These processes also add significant pollutants to a world already experiencing overloading of its various compensatory sinks, to say little of the reality that fossil fuel use has seen little if any contraction in demand despite decades of exponential increase in so-called renewables.
Here are a handful of ‘academic’ articles on how the industrial processes necessary for ‘renewables’ impact negatively the environment. They are neither ‘clean’ nor ‘green’ but are almost always referred to them as such (again, a marketing ploy):
Here are a couple of charts to demonstrate that fossil fuel use has not decreased as ‘renewable energy technologies have increased in use (and significantly increased the past two decades). As this article highlights, the increase in ‘renewables’ has not detracted from our fossil fuel use (our dependence upon fossil fuels has continued to increase), it has simply offset the decline in nuclear-powered energy:
Highlighting the negative aspects of these technologies and the observation that they do not seem to be actually ‘solving’ in any way our fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot, or reducing our dependency upon fossil fuels, or reducing our destruction of the planet, is not ‘a mission received from God’; it is about challenging a narrative that seems quite problematic but is being marketed by many as the ‘solution’ to something that is increasingly looking to be a predicament that cannot be solved — and as William Catton Jr. pointed out in his 1980 text, we seem destined to experience the collapse that always tends to accompany overshoot because: “..habits of thought persist…people continue to advocate further technological breakthroughs as the supposedly sure cure for carrying capacity deficits. The very idea that technology caused overshoot, and that it made us too colossal to endure, remains alien to too many minds for ‘de-collosalization’ to be a really feasible alternative to literal die-off. There is a persistent drive to apply remedies that aggravate the problem.”
*****
My ‘motivation’ for sharing the above is to provide the opportunity for the reader to decide thru their own reading and ‘research’ which story appears more believable. As The Honest Sorcerer recently wrote in this article (and others have similarly argued[1]), it takes some ‘magical thinking’ to believe that non-renewable, energy-harvesting technologies are any type of ‘solution’ for the predicament of ecological overshoot and for attempting to ‘sustain’ our globalised, complex society.
The widespread adoption of magical thinking to avoid anxiety-provoking cognitions is in no way surprising. It is perhaps, as Ajit Varki argues, that “Some aspects of human cognition and behavior appear unusual or exaggerated relative to those of other intelligent, warm-blooded, long-lived social species — including certain mammals (cetaceans, elephants and great apes) and birds (corvids and passerines). One such collection of related features is our facile ability for reality denial in the face of clear facts, a high capacity for self-deception and false beliefs, overarching optimism bias and irrational risk-taking behavior…”[2].
The allure of non-renewable, energy-harvesting technologies is that they can create a story in which a transition to a ‘green/clean/sustainable’ future with most (all?) of our current complexities is not only possible but assured; in fact, for some, it is the only future we should be pursuing if we are to avoid civilizational ‘collapse’.
Such a future may be possible, I suppose, if ALL the right conditions are met — the most significant that I can think of off the top of my head are being far fewer people, far less imperial endeavours by our ruling elite, and the acceptance of far, far lower living standards by those in so-called ‘advanced’ economies.
Revealing the impediments that exist in such a narrative is not a God-inspired mission as Dr. Bardi accuses. But it can create both anxiety and significant uncertainty for those who have hooked their wagon up to the ‘renewable’ horses and are hoping to get to the big sustainable city on the horizon. So it’s not surprising that many (most?) rail against the argument that our current complexities can in no way be sustained via non-renewable, energy-harvesting technologies and our future path is likely going to be far more chaotic and problematic than most imagine — at least for those that ponder such a predicament, since most actually tend not to think about it.
A book I highly recommend to help in one’s understanding of our penchant for clinging to stories that appear ‘certain’ but very often are not is Dan Gardner’s Future Babble (my personal summary notes can be found here).
As he argues:
It is more often than not the confident, self-assured voice providing a simple story (regardless of ‘evidence’ to the contrary) that is the most persuasive and influences beliefs more — one told by the ‘hedgehogs’ as Gardner calls them. Contradictory evidence is rationalised away and certainty assured.
Given our predisposition to avoiding uncertainty and wishing control (to avoid fear and anxiety), we search for certainty, employ magical thinking, and see patterns where none exist; and someone who sounds like they are sure of their story (and especially if they are an ‘authority’ figure or ‘expert’) is preferred to the ‘foxes’ who will acknowledge complexity and uncertainty about their narrative with warnings and unsureness. Research demonstrates, however, that it is the enthusiasm and confidence more than the expert status that persuades people. It instills a sense of trust. Unfortunately, such overconfidence can lead people astray and into accepting false beliefs.
Further, Gardner argues that human cultures have always created stories about themselves and their world. This allows knowledge to be passed from generation to generation, strengthens social bonds, and allows possible outcomes to be practised. These narratives also function to explain and make sense of phenomena but if such stories are left unresolved, we are unsettled and search for resolution. And if the narrative doesn’t fit into our prior beliefs, we tend to ignore it or deny its implications. If we happen upon a ‘trusted’ expert’s story that resonates with our beliefs and values, we cling to it regardless of their prediction record (usually by forgetting failures but celebrating successes).
Misremembering and hindsight bias not only contribute to the illusion that the past was not uncertain but lead us to be less sceptical of prognostications about the future. We don’t recall that we worried about an uncertain future previously and that most predictions never materilaised. We seek certainty about the future and find it in trustful ‘experts’ and their forecasts.
In the end, we all believe what we want to believe; ‘facts’ be damned…
We could ‘debate’ the ‘facts’ forever and in reality be no closer whatsoever to the ‘truth’ as to whether ‘renewables’ could support a complex society, for only the playing out of the timeline can determine which perspective is ‘correct’. From a scientific method standpoint, we would carry out a number of experiments where significant variables would be controlled (hopefully) and eventually reach consensus on an interpretation of evidence.
Obviously, we cannot do such reality-testing for many (most?) of the narratives we create in our attempts to understand the world and sketch a rough picture of the future, so we continue to debate with the psychological mechanisms that impact our perceptions and beliefs influencing us constantly. While it is one thing to recognise that we are affected by these psychological phenomena, it is quite something different to be able to shield ourselves from them no matter how much we try.
In addition, we often have little to no idea about the eventual consequences of a remedy for a perceived problem, especially if it is a relatively newly recognised one — let alone a predicament that has no ‘solutions’. One of the things I have argued about complex systems is that with their non-linear feedback loops and emergent phenomena, they are impossible to predict (let alone control). Even with the most sophisticated models and the most powerful computer systems, the tiniest of errors in baseline assumptions can result in predictive trajectories being completely off-base from what may eventually occur.
I raise the above point because one of the arguments against pursuing non-renewable energy-harvesting technologies is that their production would bolster our overshoot by further withdrawing finite resources and overloading compensatory sinks. It would put us in even worse peril then we already seem to be in. Is this assured? Obviously not since the future is unwritten and unknowable but the danger remains. To argue there is no danger requires some significant denial, bargaining, and magical thinking.
Regardless of the real dangers and the accumulating evidence that our technologies have in fact created our overshoot and pursuing more of them will result in significant ecological damage, I have a feeling that attempting to create more of them is exactly what we will do. For it is the ruling elite who tend to be the ones who steer our economic policies and decisions, and they stand to profit handsomely from the production of such technologies due to their ownership of the industrial processes and financial institutions required for their production and distribution.
The notion of a managed ‘collapse’ which some advocate for is anathema to those that sit atop the power and wealth structures that exist in our globalised complex society. Better to advocate for and cheerlead confidently a path that can be packaged in a shiny techno-box of hope and certainty for the masses while ensuring revenue streams are maintained or even expanded.
The Ruling Class: Chasing Growth Regardless Of the Consequences
Today’s contemplation is in response to an article by the Honest Sorcerer whose writings I discovered not long ago and have enjoyed for their insight and clarity. I recommend reading them[1].
If only the tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine would be a catalyst for our ‘leaders’ to highlight our existential vulnerabilities to the complex systems we have come to expand and depend significantly upon but, alas, I fear this crisis, as always seems to happen, is being leveraged by our ruling class[2] to benefit themselves primarily, not the vast majority of people. A few of the items this latest geopolitical event is being used to rationalise/justify include: the creation of more fiat currency and government spending (most of which will find its way into their investment portfolios); the expansion of the surveillance state (especially focused on those who question or challenge government diktats); as a foil to blame increasing economic and social woes upon (so as to keep their policies and behaviours that have contributed to these problems out of the light of day); as a reason to expand significantly and speed up tremendously our transition to ‘clean’ technologies, or the opposite — the expansion of legacy energy extraction (both of which whose necessary financial and industrial processes are owned/controlled by them); as rationale to expand narrative control/censorship (particularly of viewpoints/perspective that challenge or question the mainstream storyline); etc..[3]
I have zero faith that our governments at any level have solid plans to reduce or even mitigate the chaos of overshoot beyond attempts to keep the various Ponzis they preside over going as long as and in whatever manner they can. More than likely their approach will be to persuade the populace in the name of ‘patriotism’ and other such emotional trigger points to make increasing ‘sacrifices’, mostly in the form of increased taxes[4] but also in terms of weakened or diminished expectations as far as the ‘benefits’ that might accrue from further investments in complexity[5].
I’ve come to believe that the ruling class’s primary motivation is the expansion/control of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems from which they derive their revenue streams, and thus their power and prestige. Everything they do, from policy to legislation to censorship, first and foremost serves to meet this primary catalyst. Everything. It is all marketed differently (in fact, the opposite most of the time) but ultimately it supports or extends upon their primary consideration.
While the future is impossible to predict, the past suggests that as we fall down the Seneca Cliff of resource availability we will witness a continuation (perhaps even speeding up) of the flow of declining resources up the power and wealth structures inherent in our complex societies rather than down them as the ruling class purports to be pursuing. This will, however, be spun (as it has been throughout history), and increasingly so, in true Orwellian fashion as beneficial for the masses and necessary to keep our complex systems functioning. I suppose in a sense it is true that growth must continue to be pursued but this is primarily because of the Ponzi-like structure of our financial and monetary systems[6].
I see this very clearly in my home region north of Toronto where expansive growth is being not only cheered on by our ruling class but increasingly marketed as the only real means of addressing our various predicaments, especially economic expansion. Growth is progress and only beneficial is the common refrain. We need to expand in order to increase revenues and ensure equity. We can grow sustainably[7] without negatively impacting the environment. We have strong and unfaltering supply chains.
There is zero recognition of resource limits or they are waved away as environmental neuroses and/or doomsday conspiracies. Whatever issues might arise can be countered via more growth. The fact that our population of close to 15 million relies upon around 80+% of its food needs via fragile, long-distance supply chains while we continue to pave over our limited arable lands matters not[8]. ‘Sustainable’ growth ensures our prosperity and must be pursued.
As long as we have a ruling class that holds to the historical tendencies to place their interests above that of their constituents, then we have a situation where mitigation/adaptation will only be prevalent in the narratives spun, not the actual actions taken. I see this so clearly in the attempts to sustain the unsustainable via stories about ‘net zero’ growth and a post-carbon transition to ‘clean’ energy. The ruling class profits immensely from these narratives as they own/control the financial institutions and industries needed to fund and produce these technologies. It doesn’t matter that they do not in any way, shape, or form do what they are marketed as being able to accomplish.
Infinite growth (even sustaining our current world complexities) is not possible on a finite planet. Never has been. Never will be. Techno-cornucopian ‘solutions’ only serve to make the rich richer and the coming collapse from ecological overshoot all the more spectacular.
Readers are encouraged to focus on relocalising the basic aspects of living (i.e., potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter needs) as much as possible and reconnect with community members who will be your primary supports as things go increasingly sideways. Do not put your faith in our so-called political ‘leaders’. Despite their propaganda, they do not have your best interests at the top of their agendas; if such an incentive even makes the agenda except perhaps around election time when the marketing of more, more, more really blossoms. Because, you know, more is in your best interest…only it’s not.
[1] Full disclosure: the articles align very much with my own thinking and so serve to confirm my own interpretive biases.
[2] It’s not just our ruling class that is using the situation to benefit from. There are numerous grifters leveraging it as well.
[3] These are a continuation of trends that have been taking place for decades (centuries), most recently with the coronavirus pandemic.
[4] Especially in terms of that ‘hidden’ tax, price inflation — that will be blamed on everything, particularly the ‘enemy’, but their expansion of debt-/credit-based fiat currency and diminishing returns on our resource-dependent complexities; and I expect intensified manipulation of the reported statistics pertaining to price inflation as part of the narrative control taking place, even more than the current obscene and increasing levels.
[5] I highly recommend reading archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s book The Collapse of Complex Societies to get insight into how diminishing returns on investments in complexity seems to be the underlying cause of a complex society ‘collapsing’. You can access my personal summary notes to this and a handful of other books here.
[6] Very, very few people want to destroy the illusion that our financial/monetary systems are robust and NOT Ponzi-like in nature as we are all embroiled in it. But once confidence in such schemes is lost it is only a matter of moments before the entire edifice collapses. I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue once a tipping point of people come to realise that these systems are held together by duct tape and prayer (and A LOT of lies).
[7] The idea of ‘sustainable’ growth is one of those oxymorons that drive me crazy–’clean’ or ‘green’ energy being another. Such language manipulation is quite purposeful as a narrative control mechanism and needs to be highlighted every time it occurs. It significantly distorts one’s perceptions of what is and what is not possible on a finite planet.
[8] The overwhelming majority of Ontario’s prime agricultural land is dedicated to modern industrial agriculture in order to grow corn and soybean for products that do not, for the most part, feed its population.
Today’s ‘contemplation’ is derived from a conversation on a Facebook Group post I was recently involved with[1]. I’ve been reluctant to write anything regarding the current Russian/Ukraine conflict due to the extreme polemic and emotional aspects such events create, especially in the early moments when people are reacting rather than reflecting[2], and the propaganda on all sides has been ramped up to warp speed. Nonetheless, here it is:
War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
So the Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong song goes[3], and this is especially true in times of overshoot given the drain on resources (which have for some time been encountering significant diminishing returns) that modern warfare entails. It is self-evident that military adventurism is heavily resource dependent, and a World War or even a significant increase in a ‘Cold War’ between geopolitical rivals will expedite the coming collapse of our global, industrialised societies as assuredly as a gargantuan ramping up of the industrial processes required to try and replace our fossil fuel-intensive energy needs with non-renewable, renewables[4] that many, even well-intentioned ‘environmentalists’, advocate for[5].
But depending upon one’s perspective, war can be quite good. In fact, fantastic. It is one of the longest lasting means throughout pre/history for a complex society’s ruling elite to maintain and expand power, gain access to resources, and with our current debt-/credit-based fiat currency monetary system and concentration of industrial/corporate ownership ensure gargantuan profits for a select few[6].
Many in the West have jumped upon the patriotic bandwagon to vilify Russian/Putin ‘aggression’ (conveniently ignoring/denying the ongoing aggression of their own elite over the years). This is not surprising given the slanted narratives they are provided by our politicians and their media mouthpieces on a regular basis to garner our support[7]. We are fed lies constantly through both omission and commission. Propaganda is everywhere, all the time[8].
There is a very good argument to be made (based upon history and context) that it has been the West’s ever-expanding encroachment towards Russian borders that has precipitated much of this[9]; to say little about the US-orchestrated coup[10] that led to the current West-leaning Ukrainian regime. And, quite naturally, there has been a full court press on to counter these arguments from US/NATO advocates[11]. The idea that it is unpatriotic to criticise or counter war ‘efforts’ is rampant. The ‘you are with us or against us’ mentality is everywhere. Of course it is nothing new to leverage our ‘natural’ tendency (what some refer to as tribal instincts) of patriotic feelings towards our nation state and her allies; it occurs both in and out of war time[12].
Is Russia innocent in any of this? Absolutely not; they are a nation-state based upon a ruling elite whose primary motivation is the control/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems to maintain their revenue streams and power/prestige like every other. The West’s elite (who are driven by the same motivation) have challenged the East’s elite and many innocents (the vast majority of the rest of us) are caught in the middle of this power play.
These people don’t give a shit about you or me except in terms of extracting labour and wealth to support them. But on some level they also need our consent to participate in such actions given how significantly outnumbered they are. This consent is, for the most part, manufactured by leveraging our fear of the ‘other’ and our sense of ‘patriotism’ — in this vein, we are sold all sorts of emotional narratives about ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘liberty’, ‘duty’, ‘evil’, ‘tyranny’, etc..
It’s all bullshit but because of our tendency to defer to authority[13] and to identify with the elite we imagine it is ‘us’, the ‘average person’, that the ‘other’ hates and wants to fight[14]. We end up standing with our elite ruling class and support/cheerlead their pillaging of the nation’s treasury (both ‘wealth’ and natural resources) to engage in war…while it is them who are profiting given they own the industries and financial institutions that have to provide the ‘loans’ and armaments. It’s all based on lies and manipulation. It is a racket, plain and simple, just as US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler argued[15].
In the meantime, it pushes us further into overshoot through its significant resource drawdowns and sink overloading — to say little about the environmental impacts should this go nuclear.
The best thing the vast, vast majority of us could do is not choose a ‘side’ but walk away from this insanity by not supporting it at all. Refuse to participate. Refuse to repeat their propaganda. Refuse their lies and manipulation. Don’t be a pawn in their game. Reduce drastically your consumption. Reduce your dependency upon long-distance supply chains. Relocalise as much as possible. Build your community’s self-sufficiency and -resiliency. Grow your own food. Trade with your neighbours. Support each other, not the ruling class whose interests and motivations have nothing to do with you, your family, or your local community (unless of course its sitting on natural resources they want).
Refuse to remain in the Matrix as much as possible.
[2] Not that discussing cornucopian techno-fixes to our dependency upon fossil fuels with some is not — it can be very contentious, especially when one is attacked for being a fossil fuel shill/cheerleader for simply highlighting the problems that arise with alternative energy sources to fossil fuels.
[3] Although originally sung by The Temptations in 1969 and then rerecorded in 1970 featuring Edwin Starr, I personally was introduced to the song during my formative years of the 1980s and know it as a Frankie Goes to Hollywood one.
[4] Non-renewable, renewables is a term I have seen increasingly used by people to describe more accurately our energy harnessing technologies of solar photovoltaic, wind, and wave energy. The natural sources we are attempting to harness energy from are, for all intents and purposes, ‘renewable’ but the technologies used to harness and convert this energy to something humanity can use are not given their reliance upon finite resources, particularly the fossil fuel platform but also the many earth-based minerals that go into the components.
[5] From mining to mineral processing to transportation to reclamation and/or waste disposal, these complex energy-harvesting technologies require much in the way of finite resources and energy inputs, and add significantly to the overloading of our planetary sinks.
Energy and Its Interconnections With Our Financialised Economic System
Petroleum geologist Art Berman recently posted an article discussing an issue regarding the mainstream energy transition narrative that I wanted to highlight. This is the connection between our monetary/financial/economic systems and energy, something that as Art argues is apparently not understood by most (all?) of the cheerleaders of this energy transition.
Or, perhaps it’s not that most don’t understand it, but that the complexities and interconnections are (conveniently?) ignored/dismissed/denied/overlooked/simplified as part of the bargaining/magical thinking/avoidance of anxiety-provoking thoughts that takes place in attempts to provide a ‘solution’ for what is for all intents and purposes a ‘predicament’ that at best might be mitigated at the margins — I’m referring to human ecological overshoot here, but also the recurring ‘collapse’ processes that complex human societies have been experiencing since our first experiments with them many millennia ago.
As Art concludes in his article: “Most of the world’s leaders and the public accept that we are in the early stage of an energy transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Few of them understand what that means for our financial system because renewable energy — for all of its progress and benefits — cannot replace our 383 billion fossil energy slaves.
Money creation is nothing but debt. Debt is an IOU on future energy. If future energy can’t provide the same returns as present energy, money supply and credit will radically contract. A future based on renewable energy will collapse the money supply and the financial system.”
The importance of this connection cannot perhaps be overstated given the degree to which our many complexities have grown to be dependent upon our monetary/financial/economic systems. The impending implosion of these systems places the hopes/dreams of a ‘smooth’ energy transition in great peril; in fact, I would argue it’s an impediment that cannot be avoided and may be as or more significant than the hard geophysical limits of Peak Resources. I also believe this aspect helps to connect the dots between a number of themes that I have written about over the past handful of years as I reflect upon and attempt to come to a better understanding of the immense complexities involved in our predicament of human ecological overshoot and the recurring collapse processes that impact our societies.
I’ve written about fiat currency’s role and our economic/financial systems in our predicament and recurring societal collapse a number of times and from a variety of angles[1]. In particular, I’ve highlighted the debt-/credit-based nature of our relatively recent economic growth dynamics and how this is not sustainable since it pulls potential future growth and, more importantly, all the concomitant resources (especially energy) into the present leaving less and less resources to access and use in supporting our complexities down the road — and on a finite planet this self-evidently means the practice is not sustainable, not even close. And, due to the law of diminishing marginal returns, we need to do this resource drawdown more and more quickly just to maintain status quo complexities — to say little about efforts to pursue continuing growth expansion, the biogeophysical limits to this, and the speed at which it adds to already overloaded planetary sinks and degrades our ecological systems.
While many go to great lengths to deny/bargain with/rationalise away this perspective (including the notion of hard biogeophysical limits), it seems these systems have become little more than a Ponzi Scheme as a result of the approach that has been taken — especially their financialisation. We have, for better or worse, been inclined to pursue perpetual, exponential growth to now keep them from collapsing and having to face the consequences of such an implosion. And these consequences will be significant, especially for so-called ‘advanced’ economies who are the main beneficiaries of this arrangement.
Perhaps the most salient and problematic consequence of a monetary/financial/economic systems ‘collapse’ for our complex societies would be a cessation of global energy averaging systems; that is, trade of goods. For families/communities/regions/nations dependent upon import of goods (especially food, potable water, shelter needs, and the energy that underpins virtually everything), this could be disastrous if local circumstances/resources cannot support population needs. And, given the way and amount that humans have expanded across the globe — particularly the last couple of centuries — most localities cannot support their populations with locally-derived resources; again, not even close.
For example, in considering my home province of Ontario, Canada, the 15+ million (and growing) population imports well over 80% of its food needs and a very significant portion of other important goods. Very little of our basic needs are met with local resources indicating our population is well beyond the natural carrying capacity of our immediate environment and almost wholly dependent upon international trade — and the situation is made worse each passing year as more and more of the limited arable lands get ‘paved over’ in the pursuit of human expansion. In no uncertain terms, should trade-based supply chains breakdown for any reason our population will be in a very dire situation. The ‘inconvenience’ of Covid19 lockdown supply chain issues that was recently experienced by many regions was just a drop-in-the-bucket compared to what may arise in the wake of credit-based, supply chain ‘disruptions’ — to say little about geopolitical-based disruptions that are beginning to expand and can be argued to have a base in resource access/control.
I’ve also repeatedly touched upon the ruling class’s abuse/leveraging/manipulation of these systems to meet their primary motivation — the control/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams[2]. In order to maintain their privileged positions atop the power/wealth structures inherent in complex societies, the ruling class have taken control of virtually all of society’s interconnected systems (e.g., government, media, academia, security, etc.), but especially the monetary/financial/economic ones. This provides this relatively small group of individuals/families with, at least for the time being, perpetual income/wealth to sustain their living standards and privileges — particularly because of the very significant dependencies on the various systems by the masses that have been established, especially over the past century+ (i.e,. a loss of skills/knowledge to be self-sufficient breeds total dependency upon those providing basic goods such as food, potable water, shelter needs, and energy).
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
-Edward Bernays
Given these organisational tendencies in large, complex societies it should be no surprise, that at the behest of those that stand to profit significantly from their pursuit (i.e., accumulation of wealth and the power/influence that flows from this), we have been guided towards maladaptive strategies via legislation but also very much by way of narrative management/control[3]. In order to sustain/expand the various wealth-generation/-extraction rackets, the ruling class has created broad-based narratives/stories to not only legitimise their positions atop our sociopolitical and socioeconomic systems but also to dissuade the masses from questioning the pursuit of perpetual growth on a finite planet.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
-Edward Bernays
The world’s ruling class and profiteers are motivated to pursue the infinite growth chalice at every opportunity (making a bad situation worse) and in order to keep the various rackets going/expanding (that they control and profit from) they spin/market this as both inevitable and necessary despite it being the exact opposite path for ‘sustainability’, long-term survival of our species, and health of our planet and its various ecological systems. They insist that growth is ‘progress’, only beneficial, has no limits, and can be accomplished in an ‘environmentally-friendly’ (aka ‘green/clean’) manner. Anyone who challenges this zeitgeist is a tinfoil hat-wearing, doom-loving conspiracy theorist and must be excised from spreading their mis-/dis-/mal-information.
In particular, it is completely against the interests of the ruling class for the masses to be independent and/or self-sufficient as this challenges their wealth-extraction/-generation systems and thus positions of power and privilege (see the most recent denigration of home food gardening as being bad for the environment[4]). Rather than risk a loss of their revenue streams and the influence it brings, they steer beliefs towards the support of actions/policies that in the end create greater and greater dependency upon the complex systems they own and control.
It is because of these interconnections between our energy/resource needs/wants and the ruling class’s control/influence upon these various systems that I have personally come to the conclusion that probably one of the last places we should look to/depend upon for a ‘rational’ approach to our ecological overshoot predicament and pending societal collapse is our sociopolitical systems — a ‘rational’ approach being to pursue degrowth and self-sufficiency policies[5], not continue chasing the perpetual growth chalice and sociopolitical dependencies.
While our sociopolitical systems are marketed/trumpeted as ‘representative’ and ‘for society/the people’, when one wipes away this surface narrative they are anything but[6]. They have been created by and remain controlled by society’s ‘elite’ in order to benefit a relatively small number of our species at the expense of the rest of us, as well as the entire planet and its other species. This group’s motivations are, despite narratives to the contrary, diametrically opposed to human ecological ‘sustainability’.
Not wishing to believe or acknowledge the predicaments/insoluble problems we are mired within and believe that we have agency in our lives and society, we story-telling apes have crafted a variety of soothing, cognitive dissonance-reducing narratives to help minimise our anxiety and avoid reality[7]. It seems it is in our uniquely human nature to avoid anxiety-provoking thoughts by telling and believing in stories that are disconnected from physical realities and also overlooks our ecological systems dependencies. We have tales that put us above and beyond the vagaries of the natural world and capable of overcoming biogeochemical limits at the wave of a wand called human ingenuity and technology. And, not surprisingly, our ruling class have dominated the storytelling and leveraged them to their advantage, creating a number of rackets from which they benefit significantly[8].
In particular, tales have been weaved about smoothly transitioning away from the fundamental resource that has underpinned our significant exponential growth in technology (i.e., hydrocarbons), allowing us to — for the moment — ignore the hard, physical constraints of living on a finite planet and believe we stand outside/above Nature and, as a result, created ‘solutions’ that are exacerbating our dilemma by leading us further into ecological overshoot[9]. They are exacerbating our predicament through the continuing expansion of our global, industrial societies, our population numbers, and the prolonged avoidance/denial of it.
Rather than face the anxiety-provoking thoughts that arise from the realisation/awareness that our most adaptive ability — tool innovation and use to enhance the extractive exploitation of our environment and leverage it to our needs/wants — is, in actuality, facilitating our demise (and perhaps that of most other life on the planet), we have employed protective psychological mechanisms to convince ourselves that our eyes are lying to us[10]; that our tools and the human ingenuity from which they arise are not only our greatest asset but will, regardless of impediments or even physical laws, ‘solve’ all potential difficulties/problems we encounter.
The leveraging of hydrocarbons through our tool innovation/use (along with some other ‘innovative’ catalysts, such as credit-/debt-based fiat currency) and subsequent exponential expansion has helped to put us in the predicament of ecological overshoot with all the associated symptom predicaments a result (e.g., biodiversity loss, sink overloading, resource depletion, etc.)[11]. But rather than recognise and acknowledge the one-time cache of easy-to-access and easy-to-transport dense energy resource as a main reason for our ‘progress’, we have woven narcissistic narratives that place the reasons upon our unparalleled ingenuity and tool-based innovations.
Those of us who have become aware of our predicament and have attempted to speak out/raise awareness of it tend to sit on the margins. Given most people wish their beliefs confirmed as opposed to challenged, we have experienced the emotional ‘reactions’ that accompany the speaking of anxiety-provoking thoughts — particularly ad hominem attacks. I, personally, have experienced this most often when I challenge the mainstream narrative around non-renewable, renewable energy-based technologies and the notion that they can smoothly replace hydrocarbon-based energy and products[12]. I would argue, however, that there is overwhelming evidence that this approach is putting us further into overshoot and reducing the natural carrying capacity of our planet especially as a result of the various planetary boundaries we have already or are close to broaching.
On top of this human ecological overshoot predicament are the recurring processes of complex society collapse, a phenomenon that has impacted every human complex society to date and that also appear to have been sped up by our exploding growth. I’ve written extensively about such complex society collapse particularly through the lens of archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s thesis elaborated upon in his monograph The Collapse of Complex Societies[13]. What’s important to focus upon here and gets us back to Art Berman’s point is the economic nature of ‘collapse’ within Tainter’s framework.
Fundamentally, when the ‘benefits’ of participating in and supporting the sociopolitical system one exists within have for some time been far less than the ‘costs’ associated with it (and, yes, it can take a long, long time — decades to centuries), regions/communities/families ‘abandon’ the behaviours necessary to maintain the system. In one form or another, they ‘opt out’. As more and more people make this choice, the various complex systems of society are undermined eventually resulting in societal ‘collapse’. This recurrent ‘collapse’ process appears to be occurring simultaneously with our human ecological overshoot predicament, creating a double whammy of dilemmas for our species.
Given the pre/historical tendency for the masses to abandon support for their sociopolitical system in the face of ‘costs’ exceeding ‘benefits’, it seems logical to deduce that the breakdown of energy-averaging systems due to diminishing returns on resource extraction (especially energy) will result in a similar loss of support. Maintaining support (in order to sustain privileges/revenue/etc.), even if just passive in nature, is an important consideration for the ruling class and it is increasingly likely (and I would argue we are witnessing this currently) that the ruling class will tighten their grip in order to sustain their privileges for as long as they can.
“Controlling the general population has always been a dominant concern of power and privilege…”
-Noam Chomsky
All of the above is interconnected, and these two phenomena of ecological overshoot and complex society collapse are impacting our species and planet at the same time, creating nonlinear feedback loops that appear to be speeding us towards some consequences we are ill-prepared for — to say little about emergent phenomena and Black Swan events. Uncertainty shrouds the timing and manner in which things will play out. Pre/historical precedents and bio-ecological principles, however, are strongly indicative that the future will not be one of a smooth transition to some technocornucopian-based utopia — not even close.
I have little doubt that the coming phase shift for our global, industrialised world will be transformative in nature, but probably not in a way most are hoping/wishing for; particularly for citizens of ‘advanced’ economies who have ‘benefitted’ the most from our extractive and exploitive behaviours and actions.
[1] See [NOTE: the following is a sampling of my posted Contemplations that discuss the topic/issue referenced and not all have been uploaded to my blog or Substack; it is an ongoing project at this time]:
-Feeding the Growth Monster: Fiat Currency and Technology (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Fiat Currency: Debasement and Infinite Growth (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Fiat Currency, Infinite Growth, Finite Resources: A Recipe For Collapse (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Greenwashing, Fiat Currency, Narrative Management: More On Climate Change and Elite Confabs (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Energy Future, Part 1 (Medium)
-Our Banking System: Government vs. Private Control, Part 1 (Medium)
[2] See:
-Finite Energy, ‘Renewables’, and the Ruling Elite (BlogMediumSubstack)
-’Net Zero’ Policies: Propaganda to Support Continued Economic Growth (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Climate Change And Narratives To Support Continued Economic Growth (BlogMediumSubstack)
-More Greenwashing: ‘Sustainable’ Development (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Are We Being Duped Regarding Climate Change? (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Beware the Snake Oil Salesmen: Climate Change and Elite Confabs (BlogMediumSubstack)
[3] See:
-’Renewables’ and the Overton Window That Ignores Biophysical Realities. June 1. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-On Narrative Control and ‘Fact Checking’. December 21. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Decline of ‘Rationality’. January 15. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-The Road Not Taken. Feb 19. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Primary Motivation For Society’s Elite. Mar 6. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Carbon Tunnel Vision, Externalised Pollutants, And Story-Telling Apes, April 19. (Medium)
[5] See:
-Preparing For Collapse. Apr 4. (BlogMedium)
-It’s Too Late For Managed Degrowth. November 15. (Medium)
-Local Community Resiliency And Political Systems, April 9. (Medium)
-Local Self-Reliance Is Imperative To Pursue In Light Of Ecological Overshoot May 8. (Medium)
-Only Local Leadership Can Help Communities Now, May 20. (Medium)
-Collapse Now To Avoid The Rush: Our Long Emergency, June 6. (Medium)
[6] See:
-Who Do Representative Governments Actually Represent? (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Loss in Trust of Government: A Stage of Collapse (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Ecological Overshoot and Political Responses (BlogMedium) Substack)
-Climate Change ‘Solutions’: Follow the Money (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Faith in Government: A Misplaced Belief (BlogMedium)
-Democracy: It’s Not What You Think It Is (Medium)
[7] See:
-Mythical Narratives Everywhere to Avoid Reality (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Finite Energy, Overconsumption, and Magical Thinking Through Denial (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Cognition and Belief Systems in a ‘Collapsing’ World: Part One (BlogMedium)
-Magical Thinking to Help Avoid Anxiety-Provoking Thoughts (Medium)
-Magical Thinking About the Energy Transition (Medium)
-Reality is an Inconvenience to Beliefs (BlogMedium)
-’Renewables’, Electrify Everything and Marketing Propaganda (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Degrowth, Green Growth, And The Ruling Caste of Society. (Medium)
-Leveraging Non-Renewable, Renewable Energy-Harvesting Technologies To Expand Wealth-Extraction/-Generation. (Medium)
-Ruling Caste Responses to Societal Breakdown/Decline. (Medium)
-Ruling Elite Rackets Everywhere… (BlogMedium)
-Rackets: Keeping the Curtains on Reality Drawn (BlogMedium)
[9] See:
-Electrify Everything: The Wrong ‘Solution’ (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Electrify Everything: Neither ‘Green’ Nor ‘Sustainable’ (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Growth Greenwashing: A Comforting Narrative. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Climate Emergency Action Plan: Electrification and Magical Thinking. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-The Growth Ponzi Must Be Kept Alive (Medium)
-We’re In A Predicament But Insist On Making It Worse (Medium)
[10] See:
-Grieving: There Are No ‘Solutions’ to Overshoot. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-’Clean’ Energy and the Stages of Grieving. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Sometimes People Don’t Want to Hear the Truth. (BlogMedium)
-Overshoot, Hydrocarbon Energy, and Denial: Avoiding the Pain. (BlogMedium)
-Growth and Denial: A Bad Combination. (BlogMedium)
-Avoiding ‘Collapse’ Awareness. (BlogMedium)
[11] See:
-Infinite Growth, Finite Planet; What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Fossil Fuels: Contributing to Complexity and Overshoot. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Ecological Overshoot, Hydrocarbon Energy, and Biophysical Reality. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Overlooking Ecological Overshoot. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Exponential Growth, Natural Carrying Capacity, and Ecological Overshoot. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-The ‘Predicament’ of Ecological Overshoot. (BlogMediumSubstack)
[12] See:
-Criticising ‘Renewables’ is Not a Sin. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-’Renewables’ Are The Solution: Just Ignore All That Ecological Systems Destruction Over There. (Medium)
-Enough Already You Malthusian Doomer! (Medium)
-Non-Renewable, Renewable Energy-Harvesting Technologies (NRREHTs): For and Against…Again. (Medium)
-Critiquing Renewables Is Simply A Right-Wing Conspiracy. (Medium)
[13] See:
-Energy-Averaging Systems and Complexity — A Recipe For Collapse. (BlogMediumSubstack)
-Declining Returns, Societal Surpluses, and Collapse. (Medium)
-What Do Previous Experiments In Societal Complexity Suggest About ‘Managing’ Our Future. (Medium)
-Societal ‘Collapse’: Past is Prologue. (BlogMedium)
Almost everywhere the pursuit of the infinite growth chalice (primarily by the ruling elite) and/or population growth along with a disregard for/ignorance of biophysical limits has put a community/region/nation into ecological overshoot. As a result, the people have become dependent upon fragile and complex long-distance supply chains — to say little about the creation of communities in areas that never should have been occupied by humans as they were never sustainable without such supplied resources.
There’s no ‘transitioning’ to something ‘sustainable’ in such a scenario — at least not for the significant majority of those caught up in it.
Many who are aware of the pending consequences (especially shortages of basic resources) are desperately clinging to the (false) hope that ‘clean/green/sustainable’ energy (non-renewable energy-harvesting technologies) will somehow stave off the inevitable die-off that seems to be charging our way. Although, there also seems to be a growing chorus of others who argue that all we need to do to avoid our situation is allow the expansion of fossil fuel extraction.
Denial, however, is not just a river in Egypt; it is a powerful psychological mechanism to avoid anxiety-provoking cognitions such as the predicament we’ve created for ourselves. And in our mass psychosis it seems we are championing strategies that evidence suggests will serve to exacerbate our plight (and it doesn’t help — in fact, it encourages the false beliefs — that our ruling elite are pushing specific ‘solutions’ for mostly monetary gain; a gain that serves to aid them in maintaining their privileged positions atop the power/wealth structures of our complex societies).
The longer we fail to accept and face our predicament (and abandon the false ‘solutions’), the worse we make the consequences charging our way.
I am increasingly reaching the conclusion, unfortunately, that the path we are on and will take is not towards some utopian nirvana of existence supported by ‘clean’ energy and ‘sustainable’ lifestyles as many believe. We are more likely to waste the last of our one-time cache of ancient energy stores on misguided technologies and resource wars.
This is perhaps not because we humans don’t want to attempt to address our issues but because we, in our uniquely human way, are lying to ourselves about the impediments of a finite world and its biophysical limits and thus are looking in the completely wrong direction for answers. It also doesn’t help that we have lost our realisation that we are not a unique species when it comes to ecological principles and thus can’t have our cake and eat it too.
There are some tremendously difficult decisions to make and the vast, vast majority of us don’t wish to even consider them; better to remain in ignorance or distraction.
As I have written previously:
Personally, I’d like to see our dwindling fossil fuels dedicated to decommissioning safely those significantly dangerous complexities we’ve created (e.g., nuclear power plants, biosafety labs, chemical storage, etc.) and relocalising as much potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter needs as possible rather than attempting to sustain what is ultimately unsustainable given the fossil fuel inputs necessary. Perhaps, just perhaps. by doing these things a few pockets of humanity (and many other species) can come out the other side of the bottleneck we’ve created for ourselves.
As this is unlikely to be done for a variety of reasons, perhaps the best thing for those who have accepted our predicament to do is search for like-minded family/friends/community members and pursue relocalising strategies that might be ‘resilient’ in the face of disrupted supply chains and sociopolitical and/or socioeconomic upheaval.
It is increasingly likely that the unwritten and unknowable future is going to be messy…
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Six — Sociopolitical ‘Collapse’ and Ecological Overshoot
This contemplation is my concluding post regarding several psychological mechanisms at play in our thinking about ecological overshoot and the accompanying societal ‘collapse’ that will eventually result.
In the initial post, I briefly summarised four psychological mechanisms I’ve been reflecting upon in the context of ecological overshoot and in particular the collapse of our global, industrialised complex societies that will (or, as some argue, has already begun to) accompany this overshoot; you can read it here. In Part Two, I began elaborating my thoughts on the first mechanism in my list: Obedience/Deference to Authority; you can find it here. Part three comprises some thoughts about the phenomenon of Groupthink and can be found here. The fourth contemplation in this series looks at the role of Cognitive Dissonance in our cognition and can be read here. In the fifth contemplation, I round out the phenomena I review with a view on The Justification Hypothesis; read it here.
One of the primary considerations in understanding how our cognitions and thus our beliefs and behaviours are going to be affected by the unfolding of the consequences of ecological overshoot and the concomitant ‘collapse’ of our societies is the anxiety/stress that such a future (and present) is going to have (is having) upon us; personally, on a familial level, and on the broader societal scale. Contemplating an unknowable future that is unlikely to provide many of the energetic conveniences most currently depend upon and/or that will challenge our complex systems to the breaking point because of extreme weather events, or supply chain disruptions/breakdowns (especially food, water, energy), etc. can be exceedingly anxiety-provoking.
Mix these (and many other) psychological mechanisms in with Edward Thorndike’s Law of Effect — that postulates all animals have an innate motivation to avoid pain/seek pleasure[1] — and you have an animal whose sense-making abilities are leveraged by its mind to deny/ignore away evidence that challenges them and can cause painful, anxiety-provoking emotions (in fact, there appears to be neuroscientific support for this[2]). In response, we appear to employ all sorts of biases/rationalisations to support our belief systems (a ‘pleasurable’ sensation) regardless of disconfirming evidence (that can lead to painful/stressful emotions).
I must begin by going back to a passage from an article I cited in the introductory ‘essay’ by Megan Siebert and William Rees: “We begin with a reminder that humans are storytellers by nature. We socially construct complex sets of facts, beliefs, and values that guide how we operate in the world. Indeed, humans act out of their socially constructed narratives as if they were real. All political ideologies, religious doctrines, economic paradigms, cultural narratives — even scientific theories — are socially constructed “stories” that may or may not accurately reflect any aspect of reality they purport to represent. Once a particular construct has taken hold, its adherents are likely to treat it more seriously than opposing evidence from an alternate conceptual framework.”[3]
The following is my story that I’ve developed over the past 10+ years in reading relatively extensively and reflecting upon a variety of other stories about our past, present, and future. I am not SO confident in it that I would wager heavily in favour of it being the ‘truth’ — I think it’s close but I also believe that the complexities involved in attempting to understand exactly what is happening is far beyond human comprehension (and certainly mine). Plus my view changes periodically with new information/interpretations. The generality of it tends to remain but the specifics alter; and the more I learn, the more assured I am that my understanding is still quite rudimentary[4]. And then there’s the impossibility of making accurate predictions about how the future will unfold. I am relatively confident that such prognostications are completely beyond the scope of human cognition (even with the aid of computers) given the incalculable non-linear feedback loops and emergent phenomena that exist in complex systems — a single, minuscule faulty base assumption can send the trajectory of any calculation sideways in totally unexpected ways.
Anyways, here is my story beginning with a brief review of ‘collapse’ and overshoot:
Humans are susceptible not only to sociopolitical collapse[5] but collapse of its population via a massive die-off due to ecological overshoot[6]. Both seem inevitable at this point in our evolution[7]. And both are extremely anxiety-provoking regardless of whether one has moved through Kubler-Ross’s Stages of Grief[8] and reached the final stage of acceptance or not.
Let’s begin by looking at what ‘collapse’ means from the perspective of archaeologist Joseph Tainter, who summarises his perspective near the beginning of his text, The Collapse of Complex Societies, on the subject.
“Collapse…is a political process. It may, and often does, have consequences in such areas as economics, art, and literature, but it is fundamentally a matter of the sociopolitical sphere. A society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity…[It manifests itself] as:
· a lower degree of stratification and social differentiation;
· less economic and occupational specialization, of individuals, groups, and territories;
· less centralized control; that is, less regulation and integration of diverse economic and political groups by elites;
· less behavioural control and regimentation; less investment in the epiphenomena of complexity, those elements that define the concept of ‘civilization’: monumental architecture, artistic and literary achievements, and the like;
· less flow of information between individuals, between political and economic groups, and between a center and its periphery;
· less sharing, trading, and redistribution of resources;
· less overall coordination and organization of individuals and groups;
· a smaller territory within a single political unit.”[9]
While Tainter’s analysis of sociopolitical collapse is startling, given that virtually every experiment we have attempted with complex societies over our pre/history have failed and thus our hyper-complex one is likely even more susceptible to the primary factor that leads to its eventual demise (i.e., diminishing returns on investments in complexity), the work of William Catton Jr. on the ecological overshoot of the human species is even more anxiety-provoking[10].
Catton argues that our leveraging of fossil fuels has allowed humanity to expand well beyond the natural carrying capacity of the planet and mirrors quite clearly the type of exploitation that is observed in species that invariably ‘bloom and crash’.
And while in our denial of this inevitability we have created stories that we can avert such a future, Catton asserts that “habits of thought persist…people continue to advocate further technological breakthroughs as the supposedly sure cure for carrying capacity deficits. The very idea that technology caused overshoot, and that it made us too colossal to endure, remains alien to too many minds for ‘de-collosalization’ to be a really feasible alternative to literal die-off. There is a persistent drive to apply remedies that aggravate the problem.”[11]
In fact, he recognises that “…believing crash can’t happen to us is one reason it will. The principles of ecology apply to all living things. By supposing that our humanity exempts us, we delude ourselves…whatever the species, irruptions that overshoot carrying capacity lead inexorably to die-offs. Irruptions can happen to any species that gains access to a previously inaccessible but highly suitable habitat. All it takes is for the habitat to contain an abundance of whatever resources are needed by the invading species, and for there to be little population-checking pressure from predators and little or no competition from other species having similar niche requirements and living in the same area.”[12]
As Catton concludes, when overshoot has occurred there is no avoiding the crash.
Cutting to the chase, we have a globalised world that can be expected to experience sociopolitical collapse (or is already experiencing) and/or a massive overshoot die-off that puts everything at risk, for everyone; but especially for those who live within so-called ‘advanced economies’ that have come to depend fully and completely upon the energy-averaging systems of global trade and its complex and fragile supply chains[13].
Talk about anxiety-provoking!
I have been ‘searching’ for a few poignant thoughts on how to conclude these handful of contemplations on the psychological mechanisms I’ve outlined and how this may impact our thinking (or, at least, mine) about an unwritten and unknowable future. And I think, perhaps, the comment I left at Tom Murphy’s Do the Math site in response to an article he posted recently kind of hits the nail on the head of where my thoughts have led me (at this point in my journey). The comment is in bold with some further connective ideas added:
I’m coming to three (of many) rather ‘anxiety-provoking’ conclusions given everything. First, that our leveraging of that one-time cache of fossil energy has expedited our journey into ecological overshoot — this being our fundamental predicament that is signalling its presence in all the ‘problematic’ symptoms we are experiencing.
Our primary predicament, then, seems to be ecological overshoot. The sociopolitical collapse that Tainter attributes to diminishing returns on investments in complexity appears to resonate with a society’s tendency to overshoot its carrying capacity, be it local, regional, or global. When biophysical limits of the supportive and accessible resources (given the technology of the time) are breached, diminishing returns on investments in complexity begin to arise. Eventually, such diminishing returns hits a point where participants in the society begin to make the economic choice to abandon support for it as the previous benefits gained from living with such complexities falter and no longer make the investments worthwhile. The sociopolitical system cannot function for long without support from the masses — it eventually ‘collapses’.
The unavoidable consequence of such overshoot in our current hypercomplex, globalised society is likely a massive die-off of our species as Catton warns given the fact that the vast majority of humans no longer possess the skills and/or knowledge of basic survival skills such as the procurement of potable water, local food production, and maintenance of regional shelter needs. In fact, many of today’s communities exist in regions where such resources cannot be acquired and they depend entirely upon fragile and complex long-distance supply chains. In the past, most disenchanted people simply migrated and took up existence outside of the sociopolitical realm that was disintegrating. Such an option for the vast majority, if not all, is perhaps completely out of the question nowadays.
Second, our penchant for denial of anxiety-provoking situations is leading us to ignore our predicament and cling to optimistic narratives — even if completely false (or misleading) in nature.
Add to the significant anxiety created by our predicament the profound sense of loss involved when one’s world suddenly moves sideways, particularly in unsuspecting ways, or when a loss is ‘expected’, and we experience the grieving stages Kubler-Ross identified and described — particularly denial, anger, and bargaining.
Moreover, the research around anticipatory loss suggests that the stages of grief that one experiences can actually be much more intense when one is expecting such loss than after the actual loss. There can be greater anger, more significant loss of emotional control, and atypical grief responses[14].
Most importantly it seems that the initial stage of grief, denial (especially of death and anything unpleasant) has been argued to be the defining evolutionary trait that makes us human[15], so it tends to be the most common response by people.
Wanting to avoid/reduce the pain that accompanies the resulting anxiety we search for evidence to confirm any ‘positive/pleasurable’ beliefs we tend to hold as ‘correct’ and deny and/or rationalise away the information that is challenging our ‘faith’. And what could be more anxiety-provoking than the impending collapse of one’s complex society or a massive die-off? As crises erupt and challenges our belief systems, we will search for evidence that any decline/fall is either far off in the distant future, nonsensical, can be ‘solved’ (especially via our ingenuity and technological prowess), the fault of some ‘enemy’ or opposition group within our domestic ranks (or supernatural entity), etc..[16]. This is typical ‘bargaining’ behaviour.
Third, our ruling elite are themselves leveraging our ‘fears’ to do what they do best: seeking to maintain/expand the power/wealth structures that exist in complex societies and provide them their privileged positions; and our tendency to defer to ‘authority’ and desire to alleviate anxiety make us susceptible to the narratives they create, such as human ingenuity and technology will allow us to continue to chase the perpetual growth chalice to infinity and beyond.
It seems clear to me that ‘collapse’ puts directly in its crosshairs the power/wealth structures that support the ruling class. I’ve said a lot about this in previous articles but feel compelled to share a bit more.
I have little doubt that the ruling class will take advantage of all of these well-known psychological mechanisms in their ongoing and ever-present quest to maintain/control the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and privileged status. Narrative control, perhaps one of if not the most important mechanism for sustaining the status quo societal structures, will be ramped up continuously. ‘Threats’ will be vilified. Myths will be created and/or amplified. Means of extending and pretending will likely dominate as the elite kick-the-can-down-the-road as long as they can.
We need to not only be aware and conscious of these psychological mechanisms that influence our beliefs and thus actions, but actively engaging ‘countermeasures’ by resisting our automatic responses (e.g., ‘leaders’ and their courtiers/sycophants/bureaucrats are always correct and/or have the best interest of the people/society at the top of their motivations) and reflecting upon/challenging our beliefs/thought processes periodically. We also need to admit that much of what we believe to be true/factual may, in fact, be conditioned responses and/or ‘programmed’ ideas established by the ruling elite[17].
Cognitive framing in which the way we perceive/interpret events is established for us, perhaps through propaganda or the creation of an Overton Window. We are kept from thinking about alternatives to the established options and made to believe the offered ‘solutions’ are the only ones to consider…thinking outside the box is not allowed, especially if it challenges the status quo power/wealth structures. I expect the totalitarianism that is increasingly defining our sociopolitical systems worldwide[18] to expand significantly as we slide down the Seneca Cliff of resource contraction (especially energy).
The collapse that always accompanies overshoot seems baked in at this point with little if anything we can do about it.
Personally, I’d like to see our dwindling fossil fuels dedicated to decommissioning safely those significantly dangerous complexities we’ve created (e.g., nuclear power plants, biosafety labs, chemical storage, etc.) and relocalising as much potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter needs as possible rather than attempting to sustain what is ultimately unsustainable given the fossil fuel inputs necessary. Perhaps, just perhaps. by doing these things a few pockets of humanity (and many other species) can come out the other side of the bottleneck we’ve created for ourselves.
In my skimming of the topic of denial I happened upon Nate Hagens’ work on this in Reality Blind. I’ll add this to my ever-expanding list of readings…
In addition, here are some useful sites/links for exploring further some of the above concepts:
[4] In my writing and reflecting upon issues/topics in this set of posts I have explored new topics that I had not previously encountered or thought extensively about.
[5] Tainter, J.. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ISBN 978–0–521–38673–9).
[6] Catton, Jr., William R.. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press, 1980. (ISBN 0–252–00818–9).
[7] Although I am fairly confident that this is the case, I say ‘seem’ because the future is both unwritten and unknowable. And keep in mind that recognising this does not necessitate that one has ‘given up’, an accusation common amongst those who disagree with the belief.
[9] Tainter, J. The Collapse of Complex Societies. P. 4.
[10] Although, “less sharing, trading, and redistribution of resources” has enormous implications for the masses of humanity that depend on such energy-averaging systems given their knowledge/skill loss in providing the necessities of life — i.e., potable water procurement, food production, regional shelter needs.
[11] [11] Catton, Jr., William R.. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. P. 174.
[13] I can’t help but ponder the chaos of my Canadian home province of Ontario with its 15 million inhabitants that imports 80+% of its food needs along complex and fragile supply chains and has pursued the ‘paving over’ of its limited arable lands to expand suburban neighbourhoods and dedicated most of its remaining ‘farming’ to industrial agriculture that produces primarily corn/soybean to feed ethanol production and livestock. We grow a very limited amount of our local food needs.
[16] Most are unlikely/unwilling to look in the mirror and see we have contributed to the situation.
[17] See Bernays, E.. Propaganda. iG Publishing, 1928. (ISBN 0–9703125–9–8).
[18] Do not be fooled by the narratives surrounding representative democracies. The notion that we have agency via the ballot box is perhaps one of the most successful scams ever perpetrated on the masses by the ruling elite — along with the control/distribution of fiat currency being done in an equitable and thoughtful manner that serves everyone.
