“We have, as a rationalising but not rational story-telling ape, created myths about our place in the universe and how we have contributed to it. Over the past several centuries, and certainly during the most recent one, we story-tellers have weaved narratives that it is our human ingenuity — particularly around technology — that has led to our expansion and apparent ‘successes’ (not the leveraging of a one-time cache of easily-accessible, storable, and transportable dense energy).

Along the way, we have lost sight of our place and dependence upon Nature, and how fundamentally important its complexities are to our very survival. As a result, many continue to cheerlead that which is most dangerous to our and every species existence on this planet; ignoring or rationalising away the signals being sent.”

This story-telling aspect of our species appears to be applicable to every sociocultural institution or school of thought that humans use to help them interpret, understand, and explain the universe and its workings.

As this paper that reviews the evidence surrounding the “…mainstream narrative for achieving socially just ecological sustainability” reminds:

“…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.”

Before unpacking the psychology behind this phenomenon, let’s consider the concept of ‘energy blind spots’.

Energy Blind Spots

The term ‘blind spot’ arises from the idea that there exists a “spot within one’s range of vision but where one cannot see”. It’s initial use was physiological in nature but just as the word ‘blind’ had become used to suggest confusion or not controlled by reason, ‘blind spot’ became a reference to other more figurative aspects of life (e.g., morals, intellectual pursuits, general understanding) that one could not see, was confused about, or just simply ignored — the ‘carbon tunnel vision’ I discuss in Part 1 is an example.

In the sense of ‘energy’, it’s the inability to connect the fact that energy is the fundamental underpinning of all life and life processes but also, as Nate Hagens argues (in this video), our tendency to misattribute or ignore the ‘power’ derived from the energy sources we depend upon: “To our ancestors, the benefits from carbon energy would’ve appeared indistinguishable from magic. And instead of appreciating this giant one-time windfall, we developed stories that our newfound wealth and progress had emerged purely from human ingenuity. We had become energy blind.”

Hagens goes on to point out that everything requires energy from animal physiological functioning to human economic systems and everything in between. The ‘benefits’ that energy — particularly the one-time cache of easily-accessible/recoverable, dense, storable, and transportable hydrocarbon fuels — provides to human complex systems is, in human time scales, virtually indistinguishable from magic (see this video).

One barrel of oil, for example, can provide the equivalent of 4–5 years of human labour, but since we have been growing the supply and creating enormous surplus energy we hardly — if at all — take note of the tremendous impact and benefits of this energy source. It has been taken for granted, particularly as it pertains to our expansion of complex socioeconomic systems and technology. And this extremely unique period of our human existence (where we are drawing down a finite resource to ‘power’ our expansion well beyond the natural environmental carrying capacity of our planet) has been normalised within our social zeitgeist. It is the way things have been and will continue to be…to infinity and beyond.

Much gets discounted/ignored/misattributed by most people in their thinking (or, rather, non-thinking) about the hydrocarbon energy that goes into our existence: the millions of years necessary to create it; the complexity of accessing, extracting, refining, and distributing it; the pollution streams that arise from our extraction and use; and, all the energy that is lost in these processes — let alone the significant complexities of the socio-economic and -political aspects (from financial/monetary manipulation to resource wars).

While we appear to have more of this resource each year, we are also growing in both our population and economies resulting in less actual energy available per capita (NB: this metric has plateaued since 2018 when oil production hit its peak) and the very important surplus energy it provides to ‘fuel’ our continuing pursuit of growth (see Dr. Tim Morgan’s website for great insight into this aspect). But rather than consider these aspects of our energy windfall, we instead tend to focus upon our technology and economies (especially in terms of money) believing our current living arrangements have no limit.

In doing so, we fail to consider the drawdown of this finite resource and also the diminishing returns we are encountering as the cheap and easy-to-access reserves have mostly been extracted. To counter this (and other stressors) we have greatly expanded debt and manipulated interest rates. These financial/monetary manipulations have aided our efforts to access perhaps the last of our reserves via tight/shale oil extraction[1].

This has also helped to make it appear that our reserves are boundless — it’s simply our technology and politics holding back endless extraction — ignoring, of course, the significant fall-off in extraction experienced with these shale wells and thus the necessity to increase exponentially the drilling to maintain rates[2]. As Hagens argues, we are simply widening the straw to drawdown more quickly a finite quantity of our most important energy resource.

In addition, these shale oil reserves are drawn from the source rock that feeds other deposits; and once these are used up there are no other places to extract from except perhaps bitumen deposits — an extremely ecologically-destructive and energy-intensive process[3].

Most people’s views of energy production — be it from hydrocarbons or non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technology — is rather simplistic; in fact, the vast majority probably don’t even think about it at all as with most complex processes in today’s world and thus the ‘magical’ nature that arises with our technologies.

Hydrocarbon refining is rather complex and energy intensive (with intensity and complexity depending upon the source material) with the various products the result of distillation, cracking, reforming, treating, and blending. Basically, crude oil is heated in a distilling column that vapourises the various chemicals with each condensing at different temperatures as it rises in the distiller. Collection trays then siphon off each product.

As some products are in greater demand than others, ‘cracking’ (so named as it breaks up longer hydrocarbon molecules) is used to convert certain liquids. ‘Reforming’ is the process used to increase product quality and volume for some of these liquids. Natural contaminants (e.g., sulphur, nitrogen, various heavy metals) are removed by binding them with hydrogen (produced by the reforming process) and then used in other industries. Finally, ‘blending’ of various refined liquids is carried out to create the different products that get used to power our vast array of technologies.

Another brick in this energy wall that gets lost for most people is the vast array of products that get produced from hydrocarbons[4]. It’s one thing to argue that non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies will replace our hydrocarbons, it’s quite another to then look at the products — some of them quite important to our modern complexities, others quite superfluous — and imagine how these will be produced without oil and gas.

There are compelling stories, especially from economic schools of thought, that virtually everything is ‘replaceable’ if there is the demand — ignoring/denying, of course, the biogeophysical limits that exist upon a finite planet (to say little of the Laws of Thermodynamics).

Perhaps among the most important hydrocarbon inputs (and ones that are most people are blind to) include those into our modern, industrial agricultural and transportation systems (especially those involved in our long-distance supply chains). While there exist competing narratives about whether these inputs can be replaced by non-hydrocarbon ones, the scale and economy of such a transition are often glossed over or completely ignored — I find this particularly true for those advocating for the immediate cessation of hydrocarbon energy extraction and use — and with no real plan in place for the consequences of this approach.

The ‘Green’ or ‘Third Agricultural Revolution’, for example, has been made almost entirely possible because of the Haber-Bosch Process. This industrial-scale process for the creation of agricultural fertilisers, herbicides, and pesticides (as well as other non-agricultural products) converts atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia by a reaction with hydrogen that is produced using natural gas as the feedstock but also requiring significant oil and coal inputs.

And while some have argued that the non-renewable hydrocarbon inputs for this undertaking can be replaced by ammonia production via concentrated solar energy (ignoring the same complexities and ecological destructiveness that accompanies the production, distribution, maintenance, and disposal/reclamation of these non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies), all such bargaining does is attempt to sustain a population well above the natural carrying capacity — a predicament created by our leveraging of hydrocarbons.

As Vaclav Smil highlights in this essay on our population explosion:

“What is the most important invention of the twentieth century? Aeroplanes, nuclear energy, space flight, television and computers will be the most common answers. Yet none of these can match the synthesis of ammonia from its elements…the world’s population could not have grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to today’s six billion [over eight today] without the Haber–Bosch process.”

Removing the hydrocarbon inputs into our global food supplies would be catastrophic without a well-planned and in-place substitute readily available — and probably one that could not support current population levels, let alone be created in a short period of time. And, because of how the world works, such a withdrawal of these inputs would be felt most horrifically by the disadvantaged members of our species.

Blindness to the importance of hydrocarbon energy to almost all of our complex systems is leading us to offer narratives that most assuredly are making our predicament of ecological overshoot worse. They mostly depend upon tales that highlight human ingenuity, especially with respect to technology, and offer ‘solutions’ to maintain for the most part our status quo systems and complexities.

Perhaps the most mainstream stories are that that rally around alternative energy production and technologies but that continue to depend upon ecologically-destructive industrial processes.

Why do we do this? Why do we construct stories that, depending upon one’s perspective, could be considered suicidal in nature? This I will explore in Part 3.

NB: Note that I did not go into detail about our ‘resource- and ecological-blindness’ but remained focussed upon our energy blindness in this essay. My discussion was already getting longer than originally planned so I decided to leave those aspects since the principles are virtually identical.

In our attempts to simplify our perspective on complexities, we create stories to aid our understanding and then view the world through the lens of our socially-constructed narratives that tend to ignore/deny/rationalise away aspects that don’t fit into our preconceived paradigm/worldview/schema. This is as true for material resources and the ecological impacts of our extractive enterprises as it is for the energy aspect.

[1] See this recent article on US shale oil extraction.

[2] See this.

[3] See this, this, this, this, and/or this.

[4] See this, this, this, and/or this.

If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
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Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

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If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.

The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLIX–Carbon Tunnel Vision and Resource/Energy & Ecological Blindness, Part 1

December 29, 2024 / 1 Comment on Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLIX–Carbon Tunnel Vision and Resource/Energy & Ecological Blindness, Part 1

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLIX–Carbon Tunnel Vision and Resource/Energy & Ecological Blindness, Part 1

September 7, 2023 (original posting date)

In my attempt to ‘market’ the article compilation that was recently published, I joined a couple of Facebook Groups in order to post about the document. I subsequently posted my last Contemplation (that shares my thoughts on the extreme difficulties, if not impossibility, of a ‘managed’ contraction by our species) and received some ‘interesting’ comments within one climate-change group, many of which I attempted to respond to (I’ve included some of these conversations at the end of this post).

Most comments were perhaps only marginally connected to my post. They tended to extoll the virtues of technological ‘solutions’ to climate change (not that I discussed climate change).

In reflecting on the ‘pushback’ to my post and my responses to comments, it would appear that the thinking behind the comments were mostly due to what could be viewed as resource/energy and ecological blindness, as well as carbon tunnel vision. These cognitive ‘blinders’, along with much in the way of rampant ‘marketing’ for technological ‘solutions’, have resulted in many viewing the world along the lines of: ‘human ingenuity and technology’ can, will, and is, saving us from ourselves. And, most certainly, the ‘gate-keepers’ for this particular group.

And the following is not to denigrate the perspectives that pushed back against mine (even if some of them wandered into ad hominem territory). We all believe what we believe based on the ‘best’ (and favoured) information available to us, and then we go to significant lengths to rationalise and ‘protect’ our beliefs. All of us.

As this has become a much longer Contemplation than the ‘ideal’ short ones I aim for, it will be at least in two parts (it may be longer as I’ve only jotted down a few brief notes for Part 2).

Carbon Tunnel Vision

There is an evolutionary-advantageous tendency for humans to view our universe through rather narrow keyholes. It’s quite normal and ubiquitous. It is the way we attempt to perceive, in relatively simple terms, the exceedingly complex world that we exist within.

In our attempts to understand the world, we rely upon experience, deductions, and external sources of information (e.g., social milieu). We make relatively quick assessments of the significantly complex world about us and make choices (e.g., should I flee or fight?) or form beliefs using a variety of heuristics (mental shortcuts). This leads to us focussing upon a narrow array of information out of all that is available — usually that which supports our ‘needs’ at the time — and ignoring for the most part superfluous inputs.

Once we’ve gravitated towards a decision or particular interpretation of our environment, we continue to view the world through this lens. We justify/rationalise our decision and/or cling to our beliefs, particularly if it has served us well or it is held by the majority of people. We tend to disregard that information/evidence that challenges our decision/beliefs, creating a bias that serves to reinforce our interpretation of things and maintain the image of ourselves as rational, perceptive, and ‘objective’ individuals.

As Wikipedia states: “Tunnel vision metaphorically denotes a collection of common heuristics and logical fallacies that lead individuals to focus on cues that are consistent with their opinion and filter out cues that are inconsistent with their viewpoint.”

The ‘bias’ that many people (not all) seem to have, including those that have concerns about the impacts of a changing climate and/or atmospheric sink overloading, is what appears to be a hyper-focus upon carbon emissions. To oversimplify, there appear to be two main viewpoints on the issue. There exist many who hold that carbon emissions are not a problem at all because not only have they been higher in the past but they are what our planet’s vegetation requires as food. In stark opposition are those who argue that our fossil fuel burning is leading to excessive emissions that are causing both extreme weather events and long-term global climate anomalies, especially global warming.

As the following graphic demonstrates (with respect to particular aspects of the issue of ‘sustainability’) this tendency to narrow our perspective can prevent the acknowledgement of so many other aspects of our world — and the graphic only includes some of the many others that could be considered, such as land-system change and biogeochemical flows. Perhaps most relevant is that this tunnel vision keeps many from recognising that humans exist within a world of complex systems that are intertwined and connected in nonlinear ways that the human brain cannot fathom easily, if at all.

My own bias leads me to the belief that this hyper-focus on carbon emissions is leading many well-intentioned people to overlook the argument that atmospheric overloading is but one symptom predicament of our overarching predicament of ecological overshoot. As a result, they miss all the other symptom predicaments (e.g., biodiversity loss, resource depletion, soil degradation, geopolitical conflicts, etc.) of this overshoot and consequently advocate for ‘solutions’ that are, in fact, exacerbating our situation.

This rather narrowed perspective tends to be along the lines that if we can curtail/eliminate carbon emissions — usually through a shift in our technology to supposed ‘carbon-free’ ones — then we can avoid the negative repercussions that accompany the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, most prominently climate change. For many this is the only (or, at least, the most prominent) issue that needs to be addressed to ensure our species’ transition to a ‘sustainable’ way of living.

So, let’s try for a moment to open up this rather narrow keyhole and take in a wider perspective. Let’s look at how some of the other significant planetary boundaries are being broached.

When one opens the keyhole wider, the concern with carbon emissions/climate change may be seen as an outsized one in comparison to boundaries that appear to have been more significantly broached, such as: novel entities, biosphere integrity, land-system change, biogeochemical flows, and fresh water change.

This is not to say that the boundary of climate change is not important, it’s to try to better understand why a hyper-focus on carbon emissions is problematic: it’s one of several tipping points that need our attention, and not even the worst. The most pressing areas that we appear to have overshot beyond climate change include:
· Biogeochemical flows: agriculture and industry have increased significantly the flow of phosphorous and nitrogen into ecological systems and overloaded natural sinks (e.g., atmosphere and oceans)
· Novel entities: geologically-novel (i.e., human-made) substances that can have large-scale impacts upon Earth system processes (e.g., chemicals, plastics, etc.) have grown exponentially, even to the point of some existing in all global water supplies
· Biosphere integrity: human demand for food, water, and natural resources are decimating ecosystems (clearing land for mining and agriculture, for example, may have the worst impacts)
· Freshwater change: global groundwater levels in particular have been significantly altered by human activity and expansion (especially our drawdown of aquifers that exceed significantly their replenishment)
· Land-system change: human conversion of land systems (e.g., solar farms, agriculture, etc.) has impacts upon several of the other boundaries (i.e., biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows, freshwater change) and the significantly important hydrological cycle

Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Wang-Erlandsson et al 2022.

Carbon tunnel vision tends to help minimise, or at worst, ignore these other predicaments of our ecological overshoot. In fact, what I sense and what some of my conversations did suggest is that the issue of ecological overshoot itself is completely off the radar for these commenters. One, in fact, admitted he had never read Catton’s book on the subject but in ‘skimming over’ the summary notes I sent a link for he simply saw “a bunch of vague assertions…didn’t learn anything…probably heading towards a hard wall…”. He then added for effect: “I don’t see any solutions from you. I do see almost entirely your focus on smearing renewables with the exact same material the Deniers and carbon pollution people do. Exactly the same.”

Again, my own bias suggests to me that the reason for this hyper-focus (perhaps the most significant one) has been manufactured by a ruling caste and others that have created a means of monetising carbon emissions, mostly through carbon taxes and cheerleading greater industrial production via a narrative around ‘green/clean’ energy technologies. For, if we were to address those boundaries that have been more severely broached and that require curtailing of the causes contributing to this overshoot (which is human growth — economic and population), we would need to curtail industrialisation and its associated revenue streams significantly; something that would undermine greatly the power and wealth structures that benefit a large but very privileged minority class of humans.

And the marketers of this particular point of view know full well the psychological mechanisms that are effective in ‘persuading’ the masses to hold it and support it — especially the human tendency to defer to expertise/authority and engage in groupthink (see my 6-part series on Cognition and Belief Systems). It should be no surprise, given these tendencies, that the profit-/revenue-seekers amongst us have leveraged them to market the narrative, and associated industrial products, extolling the virtues of them while downplaying/denying/obfuscating the ecologically-destructive nature of what they are marketing.

Even those aware of this issue can fail to see the connection to industrial technology, cheerleading ‘sustainable’ development/practices and ‘clean/green’ (and supposedly) non-fossil fuel-based technologies[1].

As the Energy Blind animated presentation on Nate Hagen’s The Great Simplification website suggests: “…To our ancestors, the benefits from carbon energy would have appeared indistinguishable from magic and instead of appreciating this one-time windfall we developed stories that our newfound wealth and progress had emerged purely from human ingenuity. We had become energy blind.”

This energy blindness (along with ecological blindness) is what I will discuss in Part 2.

We have, as a rationalising but not rational story-telling ape, created myths about our place in the universe and how we have contributed to it. Over the past several centuries, and certainly during the most recent one, we story-tellers have weaved narratives that it is our human ingenuity — particularly around technology — that has led to our expansion and apparent ‘successes’ (not the leveraging of a one-time cache of easily-accessible, storable, and transportable dense energy).

Along the way, we have lost sight of our place and dependence upon Nature, and how fundamentally important its complexities are to our very survival. As a result, many continue to cheerlead that which is most dangerous to our and every species existence on this planet; ignoring or rationalising away the signals being sent.

As I stated to another in a subsequent discussion about another post within the same FB Group that was, again, extolling the virtues of ‘green/clean’ technology:

“We’re going to have to agree to disagree over this. Ideally we would not be debating which industrial-produced transport vehicles or energy sources are ‘better’; they are all horrible. We can’t even get a handle on the growth that is killing our planet so this debate, in that context, is meaningless — especially in a world where the dominant species is in Overshoot. Degrowth, especially in our technologies and industries is where our focus should be. Relocalising everything but especially food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs. All else is superfluous at this point.”

Some examples of comments that suggest ‘narrow keyhole’ perspectives:

Electric Vehicles

KFT: DS what really annoys me is the belief that someone’s time is far too precious to spend it charging an ev. Clearly way more precious than the quality of life of their children. You are correct, people refuse to use their agency.

Me: EVs are no help to ecological overshoot; in fact, they are as bad as ICE vehicles.

KFT: nonsense. Evs cancel out their manufacturing carbon in the first year of driving. ICE vehicles add carbon for their lifetime. By the way evs are likely to last much longer than ICE vehicles further reducing their manufacturing footprint. Ev batteries are 95% recyclable, gasoline is 0% recyclable unless they perfect carbon capture. I don’t anticipate that. By the way people who won’t charge an ev sure as hell won’t ride a bicycle. Just FYI I was bike commuting while you were very likely still in diapers so I know a bit about it.

DS: that’s def not true unless you cherry pick emissions and ignore externalities. in fact, it’s literally impossible for an car to “cancel out” their emissions, that’s literally not scientifically possible and a gross misunderstanding.
and even then, lithium mining still causes drought and leaches brine into natural habitat. mining still chops down rainforests and kills animals. electric vehicles are even more deadly than gas vehicles, even very large animals can’t survive a 7,000lb truck at 45 MPH or higher

Me: I think you need to scratch below the surface of the ‘green/clean’ marketing of EVs and the entire ‘electrification of everything’ narrative. I suggest starting with this article by Dr. Bill Rees: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508. I would also suggest this compilation of articles by a number of writers on ecological overshoot (in particular read Max Wilbert’s entitled ‘Climate Profiteers Are the New War Profiteers’): https://olduvai.ca/?page_id=65433. PS — you must be quite old given I’m 10+ years into retirement.
Also: https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/chris-kenny/weve-got-a-problem-here-electric-vehicles-require-a-lot-of-minerals-to-produce/video/e6e3a6c000f8a7890657d5cba2f17324

Overshoot and Food Production

Me: It would appear that you don’t understand that overshoot is a predicament without a solution. The best we might hope for is to mitigate some of the inevitable consequences.

DS: I don’t agree with that, you may not like the solutions but they are available. apathy is the biggest problem we face in society now

Me: DS I don’t agree that there is a ‘solution’ to overshoot except what Nature is going to provide. Most of the ‘solutions’ proposed by homo sapiens make our predicament worse, particularly if they involve more complex technologies/industrial production. In an ‘ideal’ world we could degrow our species and its impacts; unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world and most of the ‘decision-makers’ are steering us in an unsustainable and destructive trajectory because there are power and wealth structures that provide their revenue streams and must be maintained regardless of costs (especially environmental). Given that the ruling castes of large, complex societies have been doing this for the 10,000+ years, I see no chance we will do anything different. Of course, only time will tell…

DS: the world currently produces enough food for 16 billion humans
you think reducing food production to 8 billion peoples will make the predicament worse?

Me: Our food production is going to be reduced a lot more than 50% once fossil fuels are no longer available…and the estimates of how many we can feed currently vary tremendously: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2230525-our-current-food-system-can-feed-only-3-4-billion-people-sustainably/

DS: I have no idea why you think that
earth’s agricultural capacity is …..insane…. the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food in the world next to the USA.

Me: Look into fossil fuel inputs into agricultural. Pesticides. Fertilizer. Herbicides. Diesel machinery. The list goes on. Here’s a paper just on inputs in the UK: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935130/

DS: I can literally do this for ever
indoor agricultural reduces herbicides and pesticides by 95–100%

Technology

DS: you literally said there is no solution to prevent overshoot, I have to assume you’re a techno-solutionist, basically you’re in the same group as elon musk who believes the future of humanity is on mars

Me: No, technology is what has put us in Overshoot. More of it only exacerbates the predicament.

DS: technology is the only way to survive overshoot, I think overshoot should be avoided. you said we can’t stop overshoot

Me: Please read some of Erik Michael’s work at: https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/?m=1.

DS: I’m sorry but this is bullshit
“This new series is critical of the Just Stop Oil Movement, specifically for how the movement makes no real sense to anyone who understands the predicament we are actually part of. Just stop oil means stopping the energy that civilization rests and depends upon — do this and civilization also stops, meaning that 7 billion people and countless millions of other animal species die in rather short order.”
“Just Stop Oil is a British environmental activist group. Using civil resistance, direct action, vandalism and traffic obstruction, the group aims for the British government to commit to ending new fossil fuel licensing and production”
Steve Bull let me repeat that to make sure
“THE GROUP AIMS FOR THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO COMMIT TO ENDING NEW FOSSIL FUEL LICENSING AND PRODUCTION”
I really don’t think it’s worth my effort to debunk this gish gallop, I specifically used my self agency to live in a 15 minute city and it’s possible if people choose it
you should honestly stop reading this bullshit blog

Me: Your 15 minute city is based and depends upon fossil fuels. It cannot survive without it.

DS: that’s also bullshit, buses can run on biofuel, buses can literally run on garbage. my neighbor Mesa Arizona literally fuels their garbage trucks with garbage, they make a fuel from gases.

Me: And the production of said buses and garbage trucks?

DS: most of the production can be done with materials like hemp and because hemp is efficient at phytoremediation it creates a completely closed carbon cycle.
by the way, carbon neutrality does not require eliminating 100% of fossil fuels, we can create strict environmental standards and reduce production by 90% -100%

KP: Advanced technologies helping humankind reduce our footprint is what Ecomodernism is about.
Without killing billions we can reduce the population footprint and travel to the stars. This preserves wild spaces and restores natural biodiversity.

And to top it all off:

Space: The Final Frontier

JN: You said, “technology is what has put us in Overshoot. More of it only exacerbates the predicament”
Yes, because and as long as we are trapped on this ‘closed system’ planet we call Earth. But if we can escape the gravity trap we will have unlimited resources in Space.
Interesting statement:
“‘Opting out’ in today’s world is more difficult as there are no more ‘New Worlds’ to exploit for their resources”
Comment: Collapse Cometh? Yes, unless we do something! But why in 148 years? Not sure if this is saying that opting out is ‘giving up’ or a ‘solution’? Yes, we need a new frontier to explore — and we don’t have any territory left on Earth to do that. The areas still remaining ‘unexploited’ must be preserved to save the biosphere and cannot be used for ‘exploitation’.
And why using the term ‘opting out’? Why not word it as part of a solution instead?
There are new worlds to exploit in Space. 148 years is plenty of time to set that up — as long as we have an economic system that will allow it! We need a space colonization and mining program as a solution to the human dilemma — which is lack of territory on Earth to ‘exploit’ and to ‘blow the fuse’…
Our species needs to become a space faring species, with future colonization in space and with mining of minerals on the Moon, Mars, and the Asteroids.
‘Why the human race must become a multiplanetary species’
(https://www.weforum.org/…/humans-multiplanetary-species/)

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

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Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

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You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

[1] See this, this, this, this, this, and/or this.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXXI–Sociopolitical Agency, Narrative Management, And Collapse

December 29, 2024 / 1 Comment on Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXXI–Sociopolitical Agency, Narrative Management, And Collapse

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXXI–Sociopolitical Agency, Narrative Management, And Collapse

May 22, 2023 (original posting date)

Today’s reflection is a comment I left in response to an article by Bruce Wilds at his Advancing Time site that discusses the increasing anger building across the planet with respect to growing government oppression and the media’s role in suppressing this through purposeful omission of it.

My comment:
Having studied pre/history for some years I’ve come to the conclusion that none of this is novel or unique. It’s just different than in the past as the ruling caste’s scope is wider and the tools they manipulate/leverage are different.

One avenue has been the manipulation of our sense of agency (something all humans desire to have). The elite have sold us the narrative that we have such agency because of our ‘democratic’ sociopolitical systems and the ‘choices’ we make at the ballot box. That’s simply nonsense.

As is the idea that our ruling caste (especially their frontline propagandists — the political system) puts front and foremost the welfare and prosperity of the hoi polloi. Their primary concern/motivation is the control/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that ensure their revenue streams and thus positions of power and prestige.

This has been the way since our first large, complex societies provided differential access to and control of net surpluses to a minority of ‘functionaries’ that helped to organise re/distribution of these resources.

I am also convinced that as we run up against the diminishing returns inherent in resource extraction/use (especially energy, the fundamental resource supporting all these complexities) we will (and are) witnessing a tightening-of-the-screws by the elite since they can no longer rely almost exclusively upon narrative control (their preferred method as it tends to be more efficient and economical, and prevents social unrest) but must increase their use of coercion (mostly via legislation) to keep the masses in ignorance and feeding their insatiable desires for power and wealth.

How this ends is anybody’s guess but in every iteration to date in our experiments with large, complex societies, diminishing returns has led to eventual ‘collapse’ where the masses find the ‘costs’ of remaining in the elite-controlled system greatly outweigh the ‘benefits’ and opt out in whatever way they can.

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
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Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

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If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXXV–Collapse Now To Avoid the Rush: The Long Emergency

December 26, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXXV–Collapse Now To Avoid the Rush: The Long Emergency

(Original posting date: June 6, 2023)

Collapse Now To Avoid the Rush: The Long Emergency

Today’s Contemplation has been prompted by yet another conversation I have had with a person who prefers not to believe the stories I tell about our predicament. Which I am totally fine with. I attempt to present my case and once the person devolves into personal attacks, childish suggestions, or simply ignores/denies the evidence (usually by way of never actually addressing the points I raise), I tend to end the dialogue with an agreement to disagree. We all believe what we want to believe so little point in belabouring the discussion with someone entrenched in their narrative.

Of the rhetorical fallacies that tend to be used against me when I highlight skepticism towards certain narratives, the latest is something along these lines: You want/wish for ‘collapse’ and a massive die-off…why don’t you start by eliminating yourself.

The thing I wish to stress is that I DO NOT wish for any type of decline/collapse, and I’ve most certainly never advocated for it to happen. I am as dependent upon our complexities as the next person, although I am working to lessen that.

As I more-or-less replied to the person: I do not want what I am writing about to occur; I am a student of pre/history observing the world and sharing my story about what I see and occasionally making suggestions on what might be wise actions to help mitigate it. In other words, ‘collapse’ appears to be happening so let’s try to prepare for it.

Do I argue for certain ‘strategies’ that would seem prudent given the biological and pre/historical precedents that suggest where our future is likely headed? Absolutely. If you have the slightest appreciation of the precautionary principle, and even some awareness of what has befallen previous complex societies throughout pre/history and how they have ‘handled’ similar situations, you would too.

But this does not mean I am looking forward to the long emergency/long descent (or worse) that appears increasingly to be where humanity is headed. In fact, given the argument that we are significantly into ecological overshoot this time around the argument for preparatory actions is quite called for. In fact, much of what I argue for is because I believe it would be wise for humanity to pay heed to John Michael Greer’s advice to ‘collapse now and avoid the rush’ so that we are better prepared for the future that we are likely going to get, whether we wish it or not.

If you’re not familiar with Greer’s reasoning for this phrase, I suggest reading the above linked post. For those who wish my take, here it is…

Industrial society (and all the complexities it entails) has been possible primarily because of the “…immense supply of cheap, highly concentrated fuel with a very high net energy…” To replace this foundational energy source in order to maintain our complex, industrial society “…has turned out to be effectively impossible.” While a ‘managed descent’ may have been possible 50+ years ago, sociopolitical decisions (along with continuing unchecked population growth) have closed off that option and instead pushed us significantly into overshoot.

Rather than thoughtfully descend (i.e., the type of ‘managed’ decline the Degrowth movement advocates), we have burned through our fundamental energy resource believing a story that the laws of physics and geology can be suspended via socioeconomic abstractions, human ingenuity, and our technological prowess.

Pre/historical evidence suggests our ‘fall’ will not be sudden in nature (commonly thought of as a ‘collapse’) for “…civilizations take an average of one to three centuries to complete the process of decline and fall…”. This ‘fall’ — that appears to have already begun and will pick up steam — will not be smooth but a series of crises across space and time, with relatively stable interludes (perhaps even some ‘recovery’) between them.

There are still choices to be made in the face of this, particularly between clinging to current lifestyles until the floor drops out from beneath that to learning the knowledge and practising the skills necessary to live well in a world of declining energy and complexities.

“Collapse now, in other words, and avoid the rush.”

What are some of the suggestions Greer makes?

Figure out how to live after the next crisis arrives and begin to live that way now. For example, if your income may be in jeopardy, begin living with less now. Get out of debt. Find much less expensive shelter. Learn practical skills so you can meet your own needs or barter with others. Weatherise your home so utilities cost less. Begin growing some of your own food.

While some envision living on an off-grid homestead away and insulated from the various crises, it is better to look at where one lives currently and how that can be made more resilient and/or self-sufficient. Take note of local resources, including human ones.

As for the utopian dream of a fanciful, high-tech future, Greer argues “There’s quite a lot of money to be made these days insisting that we can have a shiny new future despite all evidence to the contrary, and pulling factoids out of context to defend that increasingly dubious claim; as industrial society moves down the curve of decline, I suspect, this will become even more popular, since it will make it easier for those who haven’t yet had their own personal collapse to pretend that it can’t happen to them.”

And as he concludes: “… if you’re trying to exempt yourself from the end of the industrial age, nothing you can do can ever be enough. Let go, let yourself fall forward into the deindustrial future, and matters are different.”

I would tend to agree with Greer as far as the idea of a cataclysmic future being improbable, not impossible, just highly unlikely on a global scale. There are such issues as nuclear war or a large meteor strike that could occur but are far less likely (although nuclear war is appearing more probable than a large meteor hitting the planet for when hasn’t the latest, greatest weaponry not been used during war).

The highest possibility of ‘collapse’ comes from the process that archaeologist Joseph Tainter lays out in The Collapse of Complex Societies. Basically, as we encounter increasing diminishing returns on our investments in complexity, fewer and fewer benefits are accrued from our support of/investments into the sociopolitical systems that organise our society and a point arises where more and more people withdraw that support until the complexities can no longer function properly and supportive subsystems begin to fail.

As Tainter points out, a society can go a very long time experiencing this decline, with each step down in living standards being relatively minor and, with time, are accepted and adapted to as the ‘new normal’.

I have highlighted in a few multipart posts what may befall humanity as we stumble into the unknowable future:
Infinite growth. Finite Plant. What could possibly go wrong? Parts One & Two.
Energy Future. Parts 1, 2, 3, & 4.
That Uncertain Road. Parts 1 & 2.

And how the psychological mechanisms we have evolved impact our beliefs around all this:
Cognition and Belief Systems in a ‘Collapsing’ World: Part One
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Two — Deference to Authority
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Three — Groupthink
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Four — Cognitive Dissonance
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Five — Justification Hypothesis
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Six — Sociopolitical ‘Collapse’ and Ecological Overshoot

And please note that I do refer to this inevitable simplification as ‘collapse’ not because I believe it will be a sudden, punctuated, and global event but because I tend to view the process in a broader, temporal perspective. While our ‘collapse’ may play out over a number of human generations (and be barely noticeable to many except in the sense of the past being ‘better’), in the grand scope of human 200,000–300,000 year existence, a century or three is a bump in a long and winding road.

View the following graph. If you feel this is sustainable and growth can continue because, you know, human ingenuity, you can ignore everything I’ve written above and carry on. If, however, this suggests to you an impending (or passed) tipping point of unsustainability, then you need to consider the story I’ve shared…and how you will react and act.

As I conclude in one of the posts linked above:

“And, I offer no ‘solution’ to any of the above. I have increasingly come to hold that this is all one humungous predicament without a ‘solution’. The best we might hope for is to increase local self-sufficiency of communities and cross our fingers that some might make it through the impending transition that will be the result of complex society collapse compounded by ecological overshoot. On the other hand, all the other species on our planet might be hoping for our extinction given our track record of destructive tendencies…”

If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

Released September 30, 2024

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

The Bulletin: December 19-25, 2024

December 25, 2024

The Bulletin: December 19-25, 2024

The Great Simplification in Action: Building Resilience Through Local Communities

Antarctica’s tipping points threaten global climate stability

Coal use to reach new peak – and remain at near-record levels for years | Energy industry | The Guardian

Homesteading 101: Regenerative Farming and the American Farmer.

A Predicament With An Outcome

Population Decline & Overshoot – Itsovershoot

American Can’t Escape Its Water Crisis | by Angus Peterson | Edge of Collapse | Dec, 2024 | Medium

How ‘the mother of all bubbles’ will pop

Prices Rise As Food Production is Threatened by Drought, Topsoil Loss, and Overheated Earth

Technocracy Rising: Why It’s Crucial to Understand the End Game – Global Research

Why We Failed

US Shale Nears Limits Of Productivity

Why Hope is Killing the Planet. The belief that “someone” will solve… | by Angus Peterson | Edge of Collapse | Nov, 2024 | Medium

Climate Triggers Earthquakes

Middle East – Towards Endless Chaos? – Global Research

Even NASA Can’t Explain The Alarming Surge in Global Heat We’re Seeing : ScienceAlert

Nuclear Neo-Feudalism – The Honest Sorcerer

Political Economy Forever? – by Steve Keen

Depression, Debt, Default & Destruction in 2025 -Martin Armstrong | Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog

Health Prepping: Stop Poisoning Your Family

Are You Willing To Reduce Your Standard Of Living By 50%, Or Even 10%

Trump’s Trade Wars Will Fail, Currency Wars Will Be Next – MishTalk

Central Banks Will Prioritize Government Spending Over Inflation In 2025 | dlacalle.com

Superorganism – by Nathan Knopp – System Failure

The American Shale Patch Is All About Depletion Now

US Shale Nears Limits Of Productivity Gains

A Debt Jubilee of Biblical Proportions Is Coming — Are You Ready?

The End Of The Age Of Scientism

A List Of 24 Things That You Will Desperately Need In A Post-Apocalyptic World

The Impending Collapse of Modernity: A Stark Warning for the Next Few Decades

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCIII—Societal Collapse, Abrupt Climate Events, and the Role of Resilience

December 13, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCIII—Societal Collapse, Abrupt Climate Events, and the Role of Resilience

Tulum, Mexico. (1986) Photo by author.

This Contemplation comments upon and summarises two short archaeology articles on societal collapse.

The first raises the increasing evidence of abrupt climate events being a precipitating factor in societal collapse over the past dozen millennia.

The second discusses the possibility of identifying Early Warning Signals that indicate declining societal resilience and could be used to suggest when preparations for ‘collapse’ would be advisable.

Summaries of both of these articles follow my introductory comments directly below.

Climate shifts happen. Not only do we have evidence that these shifts occurred long, long before our hominid species evolved (100,000-300,000 years ago) but have been occurring with regularity since we appeared. The planet’s orbit around our star, its geology (tectonic plate shifts and volcanic activity), and solar radiation fluctuations have all contributed to past climate changes.

The last dozen millennia have tended to be seen as a period of relatively stable climate which helped to give rise to large, complex human societies. However, there is increasing evidence suggesting that this is not so and that abrupt climate shifts occurred and contributed to both the emergence of these societies and their eventual collapse.

The argument that relatively sudden climate shifts during the past dozen or so millennia may have been more significant in leading to societal collapse than some acknowledge is interesting on a number of levels, not least of which is the concern over the speed with which our current climate system appears to be shifting.

Archaeologist Joseph Tainter argues that complex societies themselves emerge as a result of our problem-solving strategy of increasing complexity. The innovation of sedentary agriculture, around 12,000 years before present (BP), is perhaps one of our species’ more significant ones. It has been theorised that the main impetus to this particular adaptation was a changing climate–people migrated from drying environments, gathered in more suitable areas (particularly in terms of water availability), and these denser populations eventually led to groupings requiring food production innovations and organisational complexities.

The research evidence presented in the first article argues that, regardless of where and when during the past dozen millennia, abrupt climate shifts have served to disrupt this relatively new food acquisition technique to the extent that prehistoric societies that depended upon it were unable to adapt and subsequently collapsed–settlements were abandoned with populations dispersing or dying off.

While the article focuses upon possible disruptions to food production for those that continue to engage in subsistence and small-scale agriculture (a still substantial number on our planet) and the consequences for them, it fails to consider the negative impacts for those in modern complex societies.

Rather than an abrupt climate event being problematic for modern, industrial societies, the authors conclude that they have an advantage over past ones and current small-scale agriculturalists of being capable of tracking and thus predicting potential deleterious environmental changes that would negatively impact food production and thus respond appropriately.

What ‘appropriate responses’ might be is not delved into by the authors but rather they close with the suggestion that strategies be designed to minimise the impacts for those areas to be impacted by impending climate events.

Without getting into the psychological mechanisms that suggest such a proactive and widespread shift in human behaviour and action in the face of impending environmental shifts is unlikely (the second article touches on some of these), complex systems by their very nature are virtually impossible to predict with much accuracy–particularly with regard to timing–and thus why some dismiss modelling predictions of climate change as mostly fear mongering. So there’s this not unsubstantial hurdle.

And, even if we could predict where and when such impacts may occur with precision there may not be adequate time nor capacity for adaptation–particularly given the significantly increased population densities of our modern world and lack of fertile, arable lands to shift to as some past societies did–and, of course, there are some models that suggest that future climate shifts will be of an amplitude that is unadaptable.

The past practice of simply migrating our food production system to suitable areas for agriculture is not only inhibited by political borders and vested interests, but humanity has already leveraged all the best food production regions of the planet and there is little, if any, in the way of rich, arable lands to shift to should significant and/or abrupt climate shifts disrupt currently-used regions.

The standard option of increasing complexity via technological innovation is also problematic given the limits that such an approach has encountered in terms of resources–especially energy–but also the tendency to experience diminishing returns on the investments made: innovations are becoming ever more costly and less effective.

Throw on top of these basic impediments that our current industrial system of food production is destroying the present environments and ecosystems it is using via significant water drawdown of underground aquifers and application of massive amounts of petrochemical-based products, and our societies are in even more of a dire position with regard to feeding everyone in the present let alone at a future time that may experience an abrupt climate shift.

To say we are on a knife’s edge with regard to our global food production systems being capable of adapting to significant environmental disruptions is not hyperbole, particularly in the face of a growing global population and increasing geopolitical turmoil as we encounter limits to growth and resource extraction–especially of our master resource: oil.

The ability to adapt successfully to such changes raises the issue of resiliency, which the second paper discusses. It suggests using Early Warning Signals (EWSs) to identify periods of low resilience in a society so that preparations for impending collapse can be made proactively.

While a commendable suggestion, the roadblocks to the successful widespread adoption of such preparations are in all likelihood insurmountable–for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the vast chasm of disagreement over the recognition or acknowledgement of low societal resiliency and impending ‘collapse’.

It is quite likely our modern, complex societies are well into a low-resilience regime and there exist a number of EWSs that could confirm this. It is also likely that the recognition of and ‘preparations’ for impending and widespread collapse should have begun decades ago.

Instead, as I have argued previously, we have pursued a doubling/tripling of our propensity to pursue more complexity via investments in technological innovations and institutional growth rather than consider the alternative of choosing less complexity and avoiding the pursuit of perpetual growth.

Regardless, in a somewhat hubristic and narcissistic manner, many humans in today’s societies hold on to the notion that our species stands above and separate from Nature, and that we can conquer and control what is for all intents and purposes a completely unpredictable and chaotic world–including threats to our food production systems from a changing climate. There is, then, no need for heeding any warning signals nor preparing for impending collapse through any kind of resilience building nor simplification. For some, the entire ‘impending collapse’ narrative–especially as it concerns resource limits–is a conspiracy by the world’s elite to maintain and extend control over the masses.

For those that perceive there are no limitations to humanity’s increasing prosperity, it is through the pursuit of greater complexity via human ingenuity, technological innovation, and institutional growth that humanity will ‘solve’ any potential societal stresses. The issues of finite resource limits and ecosystem destruction are for all intents and purposes meaningless in this worldview: should resource limits hinder our progress and forever-increasing prosperity, we will simply leave this planet for others.

Perhaps, rather than expending resources and time to identify low-resilience regimes as the authors suggest (that I would argue we are well into), we might be ahead by identifying what constitutes high-resilience behaviours and actions, encouraging the widespread adoption of these at this point in our journey, and attempting to ensure these are maintained in perpetuity. I know, I’m dreaming in technicolour here but it does align somewhat with what I’ve been advocating for some years now.

The best one might do given the circumstances of our existence is to encourage and facilitate the increasing need for one’s local community to be as self-sufficient/-reliant as is possible. Particularly in terms of food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs.

We have no agency in what is happening globally, nationally, and/or province-/state-wide. Probably not even much, if any, in one’s local community depending upon its size and/or the people who compose it. Most people are caught up in day-to-day struggles and don’t even ponder the issues raised in this post. And in our so-called ‘advanced’ economies, the majority hold tightly to the mainstream belief that human ingenuity and technology will ‘solve’ our more pressing issues and predicaments, and they have no interest in simplifying their lifestyles or pursuing self-sufficiency.

The denial, bargaining, and purposeful ignorance among many in our complex societies is astounding…but not surprising given the human proclivity to suppress anxiety-provoking thoughts.

Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.

Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.

What Drives Societal Collapse?
H. Weiss and R.S. Bradley
Science, Jan. 26, 2001, New Series, Vol. 29, No. 5504, pp. 609-610
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3082228

The authors argue that there is a significant amount of archaeological evidence demonstrating rather quick collapse of past societies. While social, political, and economic factors have traditionally been identified as the root cause(s), increasing research and improved techniques are pointing the finger at abrupt climate events being a precipitating factor.

They cite several examples from across the planet and throughout the past 11,000 years where sudden changes in environmental conditions due to a changing climate led to settlement abandonment. They assert that “[m]any lines of evidence now point to climate forcing as the primary agent in repeated societal collapse.” (p. 610)

The climate during the past dozen or so millennia has tended to be viewed as relatively stable but paleoclimatic data is now showing this not to be true and that there was significant instability. This unstable situation appears to have repeatedly disrupted food production with societies unable to adapt to the rapidity, amplitude, and duration of the changing conditions.

Models of future change suggest that modern societies may face environmental shifts of even greater magnitude as a result of human activity and for a greatly increased and more dense population. And despite modern technology and industrial agriculture, many communities in the world continue to live as subsistence or small-scale agriculturalists who may be greatly affected by such changes.

The habit-tracking adaptations of past societies and communities will not be an option in our increasingly crowded world. Modern societies may have some advantage in their capacity to track these changes and possibly predict where issues may arise. The authors conclude by suggesting that data be used to design strategies to minimise the impacts of these shifting conditions otherwise unprecedented social disruptions are likely to occur.

The more detailed summary notes for this article can be found here.

Anticipating Societal Collapse; Hints From the Stone Age
M. Scheffer
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 113, No. 39 (September 27, 2016), pp. 10733-10735
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26471823

New research has demonstrated that just prior to collapse prehistoric societies exhibit reduced resilience. Several examples are cited where growing societal stress caused by a variety of factors builds over a number of years/decades. This reduces the resilience of the society with a sudden stressor tipping it into a fairly abrupt collapse.

The author wonders if there may be indicators of such a loss of resilience that might signal that collapse is imminent and thereby provide some time to prepare.

This research is based upon systems theory that proposes subtle changes occur in a complex system’s dynamics as it approaches a tipping point. Systems naturally experience fluctuations in their conditions with fairly quick recovery when their resilience is high, but when their resilience is low recovery is much slower. When this occurs near a tipping point, the chances of “an avalanche of self-propelling change” increases. Tipping points, therefore, may be signalled by a noticeable loss in resilience. See Figure 1.

A 2016 paper by Downey et al. claims to have found evidence of such signalling about 8000 years ago. Agricultural societies that spread out from the Tigris-Euphrates region showed rapid growth followed by collapse with population densities just prior to collapse showing rising variance suggesting declining resilience. The data further shows a cyclical boom-bust cycle lasting 400-1000 years.

If it is a case of a user-resource cycle, the declining conditions should have alerted communities to alter their economies and institutions to adapt prior to collapse. However, a number of factors led to societies resisting the necessary change to avoid a crash (i.e., sunk-cost effect, bystander effect, vested interests). These factors may actually become stronger with a more complex and elaborate society.

It may be impossible for a society to avoid collapse via adaptation, if it is in a low-resilience situation. Identifying resilience indicators and scanning for them to determine a society’s level and vulnerability may be a useful endeavour.

The more detailed summary notes for this article can be found here.

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

Released September 30, 2024

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

The Bulletin: December 5-11, 2024

December 11, 2024

The Bulletin: December 5-11, 2024

The Argument for Assisted Collapse – George Tsakraklides

Total Grid Collapse Strikes Cuba (Again) | ZeroHedge

Yes, Climate Change Is Probably Going To Kill You

Reductionism Doesn’t Work Holistically

It was always about the oil

#294: The perils of extremes | Surplus Energy Economics

Lavrov Warns Europe The New Cold War Is Turning ‘Hot’ | ZeroHedge

Full Lavrov-Tucker Interview: US & Russia Need To Cooperate ‘For The Sake Of The Universe’ | ZeroHedge

‘Scary’ drought empties one of Bosnia’s largest lakes

Chevron Cuts Permian Capex for 2025 | OilPrice.com

Money is a Claim on Energy – Nate Hagens (The Great Simplification)

The war whores of the military-industrial complex are lighting the world on fire

Global Food Prices Hit 19-Month High As Upward Momentum Sparks Fears Of Stickiness | ZeroHedge

The Three Types of Elites – Charles Hugh Smith’s Substack

Ecological Overshoot: Humanity’s Countdown to Extinction

Too Many Elephants In The Room: The Overpopulation Taboo (Readers’ Poll) – George Tsakraklides

Car tyres shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment – urgent action is needed

Lead In Gasoline May Have Caused Over 150 Million Excess Cases Of Mental Health Disorders, New Study Shows | ZeroHedge

Escobar: The Syria Tragedy & The New Omni-War | ZeroHedge

‘An existential threat affecting billions’: Three-quarters of Earth’s land became permanently drier in last 3 decades | Live Science

Grey Swans Are Circling – Charles Hugh Smith’s Substack

The Fall of Assad & What it Means for The Middle East (w/ Alastair Crooke) | The Chris Hedges Report

Oil, Power, and Statecraft: The Geopolitics of Energy in a Changing World | Art Berman

Disarming Propaganda | how to save the world

The future of extraction, energy dominance, and federal lands under Trump – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Shortcut Brains | Do the Math

Ray Dalio predicts global debt crisis, backs Bitcoin, gold

De-Banked: It’s Only a Matter of Time Before It Happens to You

Grass, Roots, and Politics

World Coal Demand and Exports Set for New Record Highs in 2024 | OilPrice.com

East vs. West: A Global Dollar Dump Is Inevitable And The US Must Prepare

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCII–Sorry, folks, but ‘renewables’ are NOT going to save humanity or the planet.

December 1, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCII–Sorry, folks, but ‘renewables’ are NOT going to save humanity or the planet.

Tulum, Mexico. (1986) Photo by author.

In a truly stereotypical Canadian way, I begin with an apology to those who might disagree with or be affronted by what I am about to argue…

I’m sorry, but non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (aka ‘renewables’) are NOT going to save humanity’s modern complex societies from impending ‘collapse’ or the planet’s fragile ecosystems from continuing breakdown.

I could back this up with the increasingly evidence-based assertion that we are so far into the predicament of ecological overshoot (and the vast array of negative consequences that will flow, or should I say are already flowing from this) that there is nothing we can do to avoid the impending ‘population collapse’ that accompanies a species when a finite, primary resource (in our case, hydrocarbons) can no longer support the growth of, or even sustain at its present size, the population–and for humans, this also includes the complexities that support our various societal institutions and modern living standards.

I could also add the burgeoning empirical observations and data that demonstrate the ecosystem destruction being wrought by our attempts to ‘power’ our energy-intensive complex societies and maintain much of our food production.

Yes, hydrocarbons have contributed to and caused the vast majority of this but the industrial processes necessary for ‘renewables’ are only adding to it and not improving things as most believe thanks to massive marketing propaganda–especially the ideas that they are ‘green/clean’ and can be an adequate substitute for hydrocarbons.

But I won’t say much about these things because, for the most part, you either accept what I am arguing or you don’t–evidence be damned. So, the following will either support your confirmation biases or it will challenge them. In fact, chances are that ecomodernists and technocornucopians that hold onto the idea that ‘renewables’ are some sort of technological saviour for our species haven’t even read this far; instead, they probably stopped after the second paragraph.

Regardless, I believe it’s past time for all of us to move beyond the initial grieving stages of denial, anger, and bargaining, and to accept that we are in a self-made predicament that has no ‘solution’ and recognise that it’s all over but the crying. Perhaps, as a result, we should do as Erik Michaels advises: Live Now! Or, as John Michael Greer has argued: Collapse now, and avoid the rush.

Of course, being who and what we are (along with increasing avenues for disseminating our beliefs and defending them), we find ourselves increasingly enmeshed in ‘narrative wars’ about what our issues are and how we might ‘solve’ or ‘mitigate’ them. One of those narrative battles we are caught up in concerns the role of non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies and the industrial products that they would power.

I offer a brief introduction and then comment I posted on a Facebook post in a group I help to administer regarding this conundrum.

The post in question is the sharing of a clip making the social media rounds for those engaged in our energy dilemma from the new television series Landman starring Billy Bob Thornton and as imdb.com states about the show, it is “A modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of West Texas oil rigs.”

Here is a link to the youtube video clip that was shared as well as a transcript of the dialogue in the clip. It gets right to the point of what some of the critics of ‘renewables’ have been arguing for the past number of years. And, of course, raises the hackles of those that support these technologies.

“Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete or make that steel, and haul this shit out here and put it together with a 450 foot crane? You wanna guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that thing or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it.

And don’t even get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery. And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. It would take 30 years if we started tomorrow. And unfortunately for your grandkids, we have a 120-year petroleum-based infrastructure. Our whole lives depend on it.

Hell, it’s in everything… that road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours, tennis rackets, lipstick, refrigerators, antihistamines, anything plastic, your cell phone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers, soap, hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats, you name it… every fucking thing. And you know what the kicker is… we’re gonna run out before we find a replacement.

And believe me, if Exxon thought them fucking things were the future, they’d be putting them all over the goddamn place. Getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world, we don’t do it because we like it, we do it because we’ve run out of options. And you’re out here trying to find something to blame for the danger besides your boss. There ain’t nobody to blame but the demand that we keep pumping it.”

As is typical when ‘renewables’ are criticised, a response to the post stating that all of the above was completely untrue and oil industry propaganda was made.

Now, I understand this ‘instinctual’ response to a firmly held belief. It’s so easy and natural to dismiss/deny the criticisms made about ‘renewables’ as simply oil industry propaganda–especially given the rising awareness that all monied interests engage in such marketing propaganda to sell their products: they highlight and repeat the supposed benefits of their product and/or the drawbacks of any competition (this holds true for ideas and narratives as well).

Only it doesn’t make much sense for this issue since the large hydrocarbon-extraction companies are heavily invested in ‘renewables’…but that’s a whole other kettle of fish that gets overlooked by many/most.

Anyways, humans tend to be loathe to hold conflicting thoughts, almost as much as anxiety-provoking ones. The internal stress due to the cognitive dissonance created ‘motivates’ us to reject ideas that challenge our beliefs/preconceived notions. It doesn’t matter how ‘true’ or reflective of ‘objective’ reality the challenging beliefs/notions are. We deny/ignore them. We then tend to double down on our own beliefs to reduce the stress/anxiety that arises and protect them, sometimes quite vociferously (oftentimes simply internally), against the ‘offending’ opinion/idea/argument.

But the assertions made in the show’s dialogue are not untrue. In fact, virtually every statement is true once one moves aside the opaque curtains that have been drawn around the ‘renewables’ industry by its marketers and supposedly well-meaning, environmentally-supportive advocates of them.

These items are not ‘green/clean’ but finite resource-dependent, industrial products requiring massive energy and material inputs, and creating significant ecosystem destruction and gargantuan waste streams (and again, sorry, but recycling doesn’t eliminate these).

In particular, these ‘renewables’ require significant quantities of hydrocarbons up and down their production chains, meaning the carbon footprint is huge, as is the ecosystem destruction beyond carbon emissions–especially if one considers the massive mining and material refinement necessary (and, no, you can’t electrify most of the equipment or processes required–to say little about the scale of such an undertaking that would be needed, sorry).

In addition, there do not exist the mineral resources to scale these ‘clean’ technologies up and build out the infrastructure to supply the electricity they would produce to the extent being suggested by their advocates (and yes, sorry, but attempting this would create massive ecological-systems destruction–massive).

The reality is that hydrocarbons, and especially oil, are the master resource for the vast array of complexities our modern world has developed over the past 125+ years. They are indeed in almost everything and help to ensure most food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs–the truly fundamental things we need.

Without hydrocarbons our modern, industrialised world and its many complexities are fully and completely fubar. And given it is a finite resource that has encountered significant diminishing returns on our investments in its extraction, the writing is on the wall for what lies ahead…and it’s not pretty, not at all. Sorry.

This is in no way to suggest that we need to or should encourage ‘drill, baby, drill’ for more hydrocarbons. I am not a ‘fossil fuel shill’ as I have been repeatedly accused of when I criticise ‘renewables’.

What I believe we should be doing (but won’t except for some small pockets here and there) is using our knowledge about ecological overshoot and pre/historical episodes of societal collapse to inform our path going forward. For me that means encouraging purposeful ‘simplification’ so that we have some kind of say in our inevitable contraction–as minimal as this input may be.

We should not be (as we seem to be) doubling/tripling down on our standard problem-solving strategy of attempting greater complexity, especially via increased growth and technological innovation. I say this because this approach results in an exacerbation of our drawing down of finite resources and overloading of compensatory sinks that are contributing to an even more precipitous ‘collapse’ when it inevitably appears at our doorstep.

In addition, and perhaps more importantly, I would encourage everyone to be making one’s local community as self-sufficient/-reliant as possible.

Finally, sorry if this argument challenges your beliefs, but that is what the overwhelming evidence shows–not that I need to stress that here at the end of my thoughts given that if you’ve read this far, you probably agreed with most I’ve what I’ve had to say here and already know this.

I close with my comment on that post discussed above:

The ‘electrify everything’ via an ‘energy transition’ narrative is a ruse. It is designed to market industrial products and the idea that we can and will replace hydrocarbons with ‘clean/green’ energy then carry on with our business-as-usual trajectory…growing, expanding, improving, etc., etc..

It is making a shitload of money for those that already sit atop our wealth and power structures while exacerbating our finite resource drawdown and ecological systems destruction. It is not doing any of the beneficial things its marketers claim.

Just as we have been repeatedly lied into wars through massive propaganda, we are being led astray about the efficacy and ‘sustainability’ of ‘renewables’ so that a few can benefit from what is for all intents and purposes just another profiteering racket.

It also attempts to create an Overton Window where the necessary but neglected concept of degrowth with its economic contraction aspect is overlooked/dismissed/ignored.

The ‘renewables’ industry is NOT a friend of the planet nor any kind of saviour. It is a big industrial business selling products.

See: https://stevebull.substack.com/p/todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-16f

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
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Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

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If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

Released September 30, 2024

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCI–The Nexus of Population, Energy, Innovation, and Complexity

November 28, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCI–The Nexus of Population, Energy, Innovation, and Complexity

Tulum, Mexico. (1986) Photo by author.

This Contemplation comments upon and summarises a paper that discusses the impact of a sudden and significant energy surplus upon human population growth and the complexity that arises as denser populations struggle to meet the stresses they subsequently encounter. It also challenges the belief that human ingenuity via innovation and technology can offset finite resource constraints, especially energy, for any prolonged period of time due to the Law of Diminishing Returns.

It seems self-evident that our fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot is a direct result of humanity’s growth with too many people consuming too many resources and producing too many waste products for a finite planet dependent upon healthy ecological systems. And while this doesn’t require much explanation for those who acknowledge that we live upon a world with finite resources and limited capacity to compensate for our waste production, there are still many who believe that Homo sapiens’ rather unique cognitive abilities and technological prowess can and will ‘solve’ the many challenges we appear to be encountering as we reach and surpass the planetary limits of our relatively recent explosive growth, global expansion, and industrialisation.

In a somewhat reductionist formulation of our predicaments one refrain from some is that ‘If only we could reduce the number of people, then our complex, industrial societies and the living standards they provide could become ‘sustainable’ with our ecological systems remaining viable and healthy’-–there exist similar arguments focusing upon singular elements, such as ‘capitalism’ or ‘neoliberalism’. This is obviously an oversimplification of an exceedingly complex issue, but there are many that hold onto this fraying rope of hope and thus call for compassionate population reduction (an approach that would certainly be much less ‘disruptive’ than what we are more than likely to experience in the not-too-distant future with our current business-as-usual trajectory).

Understanding complex systems, however, requires not only a consideration of a nexus of variables but a recognition that they interact with each other in a variety of ways, including in a nonlinear manner and sometimes in a totally unpredictable fashion giving rise to emergent phenomena that cannot be explained via an analysis of the individual components making up the system in question.

What more simplistic approaches fail to overlook, then, is the vast complexity of interconnected variables and their various feedback loops. The paper by environmentalist Temis Taylor and archaeologist Joseph Tainter argue that our understanding of human population growth and the issue of ‘sustainability’ is increased greatly once one includes the all-important variables of energy, innovation, and complexity.

Human population growth, the consequences of this, and the resulting complexity are important topics to bring to the table regarding our various predicaments. Growth of the human species is one of the keystone issues when venturing into the rabbit holes of ecological overshoot, planetary boundaries, peak resources, etc.. The sustainability of humans on our planet, along with the impacts we have upon the fragile natural systems that we depend upon, cannot help but consider–among other things–the number of people that exist along with their affluence, consumption, and technology use.

I found the paper’s argument very interesting in how it addresses the belief that technology and innovation can offset declining material and energy resources. It argues that most advocates of innovation and technology ignore the fact that this predominant problem-solving strategy of our species is also subject to diminishing returns on investments–the most effective technologies and innovations are typically arrived at and put into practice early on with the subsequent ones costing dramatically more, demonstrating a decreasing rate of efficiency growth, and experiencing an ever-increasing time between ‘breakthroughs’.

The message that diminishing returns is as impactful on knowledge production and thus innovation should be noted and appreciated by all those swayed by the idea/narrative that human ingenuity and technology can ‘solve/address’ our predicaments that involve energy, population, consumption, material resource limits, etc.. Holding on to this belief contributes to/exacerbates our dilemmas for a variety of reasons, not least of which is its tendency to increase resource drawdown and compensatory sink overloading. In essence, it contributes to pushing on a string that is gathering potential energy for a subsequent snapback that will leave an indelible, negative impact upon our societies and species.

Our leveraging of a one-time cache of dense and easy-to-exploit energy has buffered us to date from the consequences of expanding too much, too quickly, and subsequently overloading our various planetary sinks. But as diminishing returns on our investments in that problem-solving strategy of increased complexity begin to bite into the net surplus energy required to sustain us, we will experience expanding negative kickback, especially for that significant majority that exist outside the somewhat insulated ruling caste that sit atop societal power and wealth structures.

As I shared on a Facebook post last week of Elon Musk asserting that humanity should be optimistic about the future because we WILL ‘solve’ the ‘sustainable’ energy dilemma: “What’s interesting and almost always ignored about knowledge production and innovation is that it, like other systems that depend upon finite resources, encounter diminishing returns on investment as time passes. The most obvious, easiest-to-apply, and least-costly ‘solutions’ are always used first and then as time goes on, the technologies and innovations become far more expensive, difficult-to-scale up, and take more and more time between them to ‘evolve’. And, what is also conveniently overlooked is that because we rarely if ever consider all the complexities of an issue (if we even can, given the nonlinear feedback loops and emergent phenomena), our ‘solutions’ are typically only tangentially connected with the issue-at-hand leading to further problems that need to be addressed. We eventually reach a point where our ingenuity and innovations are creating a situation where they are leading to more problems than they are solving. That seems to be where we are now.”

Hydrocarbons have been a significant contributor to subsidising growth through net energy gains and buffering humanity from the consequences of its perpetual growth. In our modern societies it would appear that we have been increasingly using the monetization of debt via credit/currency expansion to aid in this as we bump up against the headwinds of Peak Resources. This additional approach, however, seems more akin to a shell game that is hiding the risk behind an opaque curtain. The Law of Diminishing Returns and biogeophysical reality of resource finiteness can only be ‘avoided’ for so long. As the saying goes, sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences and the banquet being laid out before us appears to be growing ever larger.

Below is a summary of the article. More detailed summary notes can be found here.

PS
There’s a running joke on one of the Facebook groups I am a member of (Peak Oil: Twilight of the Oil Age) where a member will post a link to the ‘latest and greatest’ technological innovation/breakthrough announcement with the intro, ‘We’re saved!’. The irony of these posts (many viewed as public-relations/investing-seeking announcements) is not lost on many of us; although, as is typical of the population at large, there are some who continue to believe the propaganda for whatever reason and cling to the belief that high-tech is our saviour and only way out of the bottleneck we have led ourselves into–I, certainly, am not of these.

The Nexus of Population, Energy, Innovation, and Complexity
Temis G. Taylor and Joseph A. Tainter
The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 75, No. 4

September, 2016, pp. 1005-1043
https://www.jstor.org/stable/45129328

Traditional research around the issue of sustainable population size has tended to focus upon food supply and population pressure leading to the argument that the impact of population size and the resulting consumption and technology greatly impact the environment. This article extends this research by positing that human population issues are the result of the nexus of energy, energy gain, societal complexity, and innovation.

Increasing population densities lead to societal challenges (e.g., social order and security, supply provisioning, etc.) that tend to be addressed via the problem-solving strategy of adding complexity. Complexity requires additional resources, especially energy, and can only support additional complexity with increased net energy. Our proclivity to use the easiest-/cheapest-to-access resources first and more difficult-/expensive-to-access ones later leads to declining net energy over time. Innovations and technology can offset this to a certain extent, but not forever. So, while complexity can provide benefits, especially early on during growth phases, it also carries costs that increase as time passes.

Today’s population and societal complexities have come about because of and continue to be supported by our extraction and use of hydrocarbons. In the time of Malthus, it was held that food was the limiting factor to human population growth. And while food supply is still central to societal stability, the impending crisis Malthus foresaw has yet to materialise. The authors suggest that the tension that exists between Malthus’s view and those who hold that technology and innovation allow us to forever overcome resource constraints can be resolved by viewing the issue through the nexus of energy, complexity, population, and innovation.

The Maximum Power Principle posits that ecological systems that capture and use the most energy have an evolutionary advantage. This helps to explain why systems quickly use surplus energy and tend to expand as a result.

Human societal growth has been a slow process for millennia because energy surpluses are rare occurrences. When they have arisen, significant societal shifts have occurred. Homo erectus’s harnessing of fire may be our hominid species’ first example, with this control of an exogenous energy source leading to major evolutionary changes. Another may be the adoption of sedentary agriculture, then the use of draught animals, and then possibly the global adoption of high-caloric New World foods alongside several food production innovations (e.g., crop rotation, ploughs, landscape engineering).

Another revolutionary shift has been brought about by our use of coal, and later oil and gas, that has subsidised net energy-gain over the last couple of centuries. The labour savings that resulted have led to significant affluence and prosperity but has also resulted in a positive feedback loop where energy and population are reinforcing growth in each other.

With a growing concern regarding inadequate food supply arising again the early 19th century, the application of hydrocarbons to aid food production (especially via fertilisers, pesticides, and mechanisation) averted a Mathusian crisis–but has been criticised for its resulting increase in soil erosion, groundwater depletion, environmental contamination, and reduced biodiversity.

The primary concern of the authors is the chaining of food production with hydrocarbons. Human food production has grown to become significantly reliant upon energy subsidies raising the risk of food supply shortages for everyone.

Growth in human societal complexity has occurred alongside population expansion as adding complexity is our primary problem-solving strategy. This approach carries costs, mostly in the form of energy and has been heavily subsidised by hydrocarbons. Modern society adds to energy subsidies via a number of proxies but particularly time and currency.

What energy can do has limits, especially due to entropy–the dissipation of usable energy. Other resources also encounter limits and while recycling can help extend such limits to a certain extent , material degradation and loss inevitably occur. There are also no known substitutes for some vital materials (e.g., phosphorus for food production).

Energy (and other resources) are necessary to extract, refine, and use resources. It is ‘net gain’ that is important to growing/sustaining human complexities. High-gain energy systems with steep thermodynamic gradients allow human complexities to grow relatively quickly and consistently; low-gain systems result in very slow growth. The easiest-/cheapest-to-access resources are used first and innovation can aid in sustaining net-energy gains initially as difficult-/expensive-to-access ones are increasingly required to be used. But as time passes, innovation gains falter and net-energy gains diminish. This is a fall in the energy return on the energy invested (EROEI).

An increase in complexity requires more energy but diminishing returns eventually occurs as the best energy resources have been used–this creates a shift from a high-gain to a low-gain system (e.g., deeper wells, offshore platforms, tar sands, etc.). “As the most efficient solutions are employed, complexity begins to yield smaller returns on investment. If complexity grows faster than the resources available to support it or to make it worthwhile, societies can no longer sustain themselves. When a society enters a phase of diminishing returns to complexity in problem solving, it becomes increasingly vulnerable to collapse.” (p. 1023)

Societies throughout pre/history have had to confront the energy-complexity challenge. Modern society similarly is having to deal with energy resource decline and the negative consequences that accompany increased complexity, including its requirement of an increasing share of energy.

Energy returns from hydrocarbons have been falling from about 100:1 in the 1940s to around 15:1 at the time of the writing of this article. Anything below about 8:1 becomes an issue for our society and its problem-solving strategy of increasing complexity.

In their conception of the IPAT formula for helping to determine the environmental impacts of human activity (Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology), Ehrlick and Holdren believed population size was the most significant variable. The authors, however, focus upon technology arguing that the belief that successes in technological innovations over the past 100+ years can forever compensate for resource limits is a theory that depends greatly upon hydrocarbons rather than human ingenuity as cornucopians tend to hold.

In addition, knowledge production and innovation are, like resource use, susceptible to diminishing returns on investments. Despite ever-increasing investments in research and education, innovation (as measured by patenting) has been declining for decades. This seems to be due to the easiest/least-costly discoveries occurring early in a field of study with subsequent ‘breakthroughs’ being more costly and taking longer to achieve. Education has similarly encountered declining returns with more and more investments being made and returns on them decreasing.

Hydrocarbons have created a ‘levee effect’ whereby society is somewhat buffered from natural limits leading to a sense of security that removes concerns about risks and encourages continued growth. But since these are finite resources, the security can only be temporary. Biogeophysical constraints cannot be overcome because of thermodynamic laws and biological principles. “Innovation can relieve some pressure on the environment and resources, but it is also subject to diminishing returns. Even if technology could compensate for reduced energy gain and population growth, complexity and its costs would continue to rise. As the amount of energy dedicated to complexity increases, the share of energy available per person dwindles.” (p. 1033)

Sustaining humanity’s current population is impossible using natural biomass and probably very challenging with ‘renewables’. The use and allocation of our remaining resources need to become very purposeful because a future of lower energy gain is inevitable.

To get a better understanding of the varied and complex issues we face, the authors suggest that we must view them through the nexus of energy, complexity, innovation, and population. Human population has exploded over the past two centuries due to hydrocarbon subsidies and resulted in tremendous challenges that have been met through our problem-solving strategy of increased complexity.

Again, the more detailed summary notes can be found here.

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

Released September 30, 2024

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

The Bulletin: November 21-27, 2024

November 27, 2024

The Bulletin: November 21-27, 2024

How Societal Collapse Can Save Humans From Mass Extinction

Our Sixty Days of Nuclear Chicken Have Begun

ZeroHedge Edit: Fort Knox, Egon Von Greyerz, and Zoltan Pozsar

Doug Casey on the Looming Debt Crisis and What Lies Ahead – International Man

Biden’s parting Ukrainian sacrifice – by Aaron Maté

Trump’s science-denying fanatics are bad enough. Yet even our climate ‘solutions’ are now the stuff of total delusion | George Monbiot | The Guardian

Science Snippets: The Reality Of Abrupt, Irreversible Climate Change

Power Play: The Future of Food – Global Research

Why Hope Is Hopium

The Cantillon Effect Explained: Why Inflation Helps the State at Your Expense

UN’s Latest Climate Agenda Sparks Alarms Over Online Censorship

Today In Imperial Recklessness And Insanity

Rooted In Reality: Onions and Building Community

Mining fuels global deforestation and CO₂ surge: Study warns of climate risks

Taking the pulse of beans – by Gunnar Rundgren

Anti-Progress, Breakdown, Reset

If You Want To Help The World, Focus On Fighting The Empire

How Billionaires Manipulate the Public

Fueling the Flames: How the West’s Military Emissions Undermine Climate Action | Common Dreams

How the Global Distribution of Wealth Has Changed (2000-2023)

Rhyming History: Rome’s Hyperinflation

Blissful Ignorance is Blissfully Deceptive

Solutions Without Understanding: Why We’re Asking the Wrong Questions | Art Berman

A Diesel Powered Civilization – The Honest Sorcerer

‘It’s not drought – it’s looting’: the Spanish villages where people are forced to buy back their own drinking water

Population Decline A Challenge Or A Chance For A Better Future?

Does Anyone Think the COP Meetings Are Useful?

Russia’s Final Warning to NATO – You’ll Get your War, but It’ll be Over in 15 Minutes. – Global Research

Ukraine’s Former Top Military Commander Claims ‘World War 3 Has Officially Begun’ | ZeroHedge

Inflation: Savior of the Rich

Days of Thunder

Political Perfection | Do the Math

The Average Person’s Reaction to Collapse – by Lillian

Iraq Invasion – The Biggest Terrorist Attack in Modern History. “Terrorism of US-UK-NATO-Israel” – Global Research

Transfer Of Nukes To Ukraine Would Be Tantamount To Attack On Russia: Medvedev | ZeroHedge

The ‘Empire Killer’ Strikes Again – International Man

Globalists Go For Broke: Plan To Trigger World War III Moves Forward – Alt-Market.us

A Practical Guide to Money During Collapse | by Climate Survivor | Nov, 2024 | Medium

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXC–Beyond Collapse: Climate Change and Causality During the Middle Holocene Climatic Transition

November 15, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXC–Beyond Collapse: Climate Change and Causality During the Middle Holocene Climatic Transition

Tulum, Mexico. (1986) Photo by author.

This Contemplation comments upon and summarises a paper that considers prehistorical periods of rapid climatic transition and societal-level responses to the resulting environmental changes. I thought it interesting to review this research article given the significant concern many have regarding how humans may respond to current/future climatic shifts and the changes that result from them.

Many variables of significant, possibly existential, importance to human existence will increasingly be impacted by a changing climate, including but not limited to: biodiversity loss, extreme weather events, disease propagation, altered geographies, and resource availability and distribution–especially water and arable land. Whether our species, or any for that matter, will or can adapt to these changes in either the short-term or long-term is unknown–there exist diametrically-opposed views on this, from widespread extinction of all life to a ‘clean’ and ‘sustainable’ techno-utopia in balance with nature.

The research article in question looks at the changes that took place during the Middle Holocene Climatic Transition (MHCT), a glacial-interglacial transition period of rapid climate change, and how human societies of the time responded to the resulting environmental shifts.

As the author makes clear the comparison is not perfect, primarily because of the differences in the nature of the climate shifts and the human population density and distribution dissimilarities. However, he also points out that it is somewhat analogous in that complex societies were in existence during the changes, so we can draw some parallels based upon how past societies responded to unpredictable and chaotic changes in their environment.

What’s interesting to me is that the evidence can be interpreted as hopeful for some form of successful adaptation as our world changes due to a shifting climate. While some groups were forced to disperse and others perished in the face of a rapidly changing climate, the emergence of urbanisation and complex societies as a result of adapting to environmental shifts occurred as well. There are, of course, significant caveats that suggest modern-day complex societies will not be so lucky as to adapt to changes in anything like their present form and/or population densities.

There exist a number of impediments for our present-day societies and their adaptability to environmental shifts in comparison to those of the past. Below are three of these.

First, there is a very large segment of today’s global population that is enormously reliant upon industrial technologies for maintenance of a vast array of complexities, particularly food production and distribution. These technologies, in turn, are dependent upon a finite energy resource (hydrocarbons) up and down their supply chains. Disruptions in the complex array of supports to maintain our energy-intensive technologies put many modern human populations at risk.

Second, there are few resource-rich regions left on the planet for human societies to expand into and exploit relative to the past. The hyper-charged population densities and distribution we currently have (thanks to the significant surplus energy of easy-to-access hydrocarbons) make the successful adaptations that past societies exhibited far less likely–to say little about the increasing loss of fertility of much of our arable land due to excessive use of hydrocarbon-based chemicals upon them. There was much greater capacity for growth during shifts in the past with smaller population densities, more sparsely distributed settlements, minimal complexity, and resource abundance. The latitude available for past societies to adapt to environmental changes is gone for 8+ billion (and growing) of our species. Add to this the reality of having encountered diminishing returns on investments whereby greater and greater resources (especially energy) must be used to meet current needs, let alone growing ones.

Third, there exists for large swaths of our global population a general lack of skills and knowledge to survive without our energy-intensive technologies and various logistical/organisational systems. In the past, the vast majority of people were involved in food production and could support themselves and/or their families without complex societal systems sustaining them. That is certainly not the case today with few within our populations capable of providing anyone with the basic necessities of existence–potable water, food, and/or regional shelter needs.

Overall, things do not bode well for modern-day societies to rely upon the adaptations of the past that proved successful in the face of rapid environmental changes.

I, personally, am as confident as I can be that ‘collapse’ of our global, industrialised complex societies is in our future–many argue that it has already begun. I am unsure, however, of what arises in terms of human existence from this predicament; if anything given the degree to which we appear to be in ecological overshoot.

With our propensity to double down on our pursuit of technological innovation and economic growth in the face of perceived problems (rather than pursuing a simplification and contraction of our lifestyles) we are exacerbating our predicaments and creating a situation whereby the likelihood of adapting to changing conditions is being made significantly more difficult and unlikely by the day.

Only time, of course, will tell what the future holds for humanity…

Below is a summary of the research article. The longer summary notes can be found here.

Beyond Collapse: Climate Change and Causality During the Middle Holocene Climatic Transition, 6400-5000 Years Before Present

Nick Brooks
Geografisk Tidsskrift-Danish Journal of Geography
2013
Vol. 112, No. 2, 93-104
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00167223.2012.741881

Our changing climate is expected to mirror the shift witnessed during glacial-interglacial transitions, only more quickly and possibly reach global average temperatures not seen for millions of years. While changes to our oceanic and atmospheric currents are not precisely known, previous transitions do suggest that the availability and distribution of key resources (especially water and arable land) will be altered and likely affect human societies.

Analogues exist from the past 10,000 years, when cyclical climate disruptions have occurred every 1000-2000 years lasting 100-300 years. These are characterised by cooling at high and middle latitudes, and increased aridity at lower ones–especially in the northern hemisphere. These changes have been linked to warfare and population collapse, and the collapse of several complex societies (e.g., Arkkadian, Egyptian Old Kingdom, Neolithic cultures, and others).

The Middle Holocene Climatic Transition (MHCT, 6500-5000 BP) witnessed a significant environmental reorganisation due to an acceleration of cooling and increasing aridity trends. Some regions experienced sudden arid conditions, others glacial advance. Monsoons weakened with rains moving southward, and El Niño reappeared after a prolonged absence. The global climate system appears to have been impacted by summer solar radiation weakening outside of the tropics due to a rotational axis shift.

The present day is different from the MHCT in several ways: warming vs. cooling, increasing greenhouse gasses vs. a solar insolation shift, and retreat of ice and snow vs. glacial advance. The distribution of changes will be different as well and the present day may experience greater aridity, especially outside of monsoon regions.

The societal contexts are very different (e.g., population densities and distribution) but also similar (e.g., large urban centres and state-level societies with hierarchical structures and political institutions, as well as some small-scale agriculture and pastoralism).

All regions studied exhibited societal shifts that coincided with rapid climate shifts. In Mesopotamia, egalitarian village-level farming communities coalesced into a hierarchical culture and agricultural settlements were abandoned with the rise of urban centres. In Egypt, many migrated to the Nile River Valley, and in some areas cattle herding increased but in a mobile sense with populations seeking appropriate pastures due to an unpredictable environment. In the Indus Valley, pastoral societies arose with cyclical migration.

Migration patterns, livelihoods, and settlement and occupation patterns all changed in light of increased aridity. In particular, increasing aridity led to movement towards reliable water sources and/or arable lands, the rise of nomadic pastoralism in order to follow grazable pastures, and increasing exploitation of riparian environments (ecosystem along the edge of water bodies).

“Worsening environmental conditions may well have altered patterns of productivity, resulting in the abandonment of some areas, the agglomeration of populations in others, increased competition over resources, and widespread social disruption.” (p. 98)

Near the end of the MHCT (5300-5000 BP) some cultures in Mesopotamia (e.g., Uruk) collapsed with nomadic pastoralism arising, while some areas witnessed dispersed populations coming together to form urban centres (e.g., Uruk-Warka). Resource competition between protostates in Egypt resulted in a larger, complex society centred on the Nile River Valley, while some regions experienced settlement abandonment and populations perishing. A shift towards greater transhumance (seasonal pastoralism) in the Indus Valley led to the emergence of urbanisation. Migration towards the Yellow River in China witnessed a shift from early complex societies to larger and more complex ones. The river valleys of coastal Peru also saw the emergence of urbanisation as people gathered in such resource-rich locations.

Aridification appears to have impacted migrations towards reliable water sources, where many gathered and resulted in urbanisation and complexity, including social stratification, class/caste systems, and formal political power.

The archaeological evidence points to some complex societies collapsing as a result of environmental changes due to a changing climate. On the other hand, there is also evidence that some complex societies appear to have emerged as a consequence of climate change. It would appear that different contexts had different, even the opposite, outcome when climate changes occurred in the past.

During the MHCT some regions experienced sudden arid conditions, others glacial advance. Monsoons weakened with rains moving south, El Niño reappeared after a prolonged absence. Summer solar radiation weakening outside the tropics due to a rotational axis shift that impacted the global climate system. The present day is different. Rather than cooling and glacial advances due to a solar insolation shift we are experiencing warming with snow and ice retreat due to greenhouse gasses.

The societal contexts are different in terms of population densities and distribution but similar in terms of large, urban centres and state-level societies with social hierarchies and political institutions along with some small-scale agriculture and pastoralism).

All regions studied exhibit societal shifts that coincide with rapid climate changes. In Mesopotamia, egalitarian village-level farming communities coalesced into a hierarchical culture. Migrations to the Nile River Valley in Egypt occurred alongside a rise in nomadic pastoralism that required movement to follow suitable pastures during a time of unpredictable environments. Meanwhile, in the Indus Valley, pastoral societies emerged defined by seasonal migrations.

Depending where one looks, there is strong evidence to support the interpretation that rapid environmental change led to societal-level changes. Migration patterns, livelihoods, and settlement and occupation patterns all changed in light of increasing aridity. In particular, increasing aridity led to: movement towards reliable water sources and arable lands; increasing nomadic pastoralism to follow suitable pasturelands; increasing exploitation of riparian environments; and the abandonment of settlements.

“The evidence from the Middle Holocene discussed here suggests that rapid climate change played a role in the emergence of complex societies, as well as their collapse, and that similar climatic stresses might result in very different outcomes in different societal contexts.” (p. 100)

In some instances, climate change overwhelmed other drivers of societal change and adaptation was not possible. Depending upon the circumstances, however, other societies adapted.

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

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You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

Released September 30, 2024

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.