In terms of energy and for practical purposes, the earth is a closed system. Comprehension of what's coming depends on understanding interdependent factors. We cannot consider just ONE but must consider ALL.
Here's a few:
1 — Growth —
— In terms of population, GDP, consumption and the biosphere's ability to assimilate waste products growth is unsustainable. We're now into OVERSHOOT.
2 — EROI — Energy returned on energy invested
- Has been declining for more than a century, and will continue to decline. When it drops below 5, civilization as we know it will cease.
- When EROI approaches 5, forget about building - or repairing - wind turbines. Forget re-paving. Forget cheap transport and globalization. Forget mining ore and building bridges. Energy becomes a zero-sum game.
3 — Human mass behaviour:
Human mass behaviour is FRACTAL. History NEVER repeats, but by definition behaviour ALWAYS repeats. What will happen -- and is happening today -- is movement down the fractal tree of mass behaviour from abundance, cooperation and freedom to disaggregation, polarization and conflict -- fight, flight, or self-isolate. As scarcity develops -- within nations, and globally -- everyone for themselves.
Yes, I'd like to see the world revert to a one-child policy. Yes, it would be good to eliminate nonessential production -- planned obsolescence, for instance. Obscene energy waste like Bitcoin mining. Yes, it would be wonderful to see humanity unite under political leaders that sponsor sustainability and resilience. Kumbaya!
- Would you, or anyone you know "take one for the team" -- humanity -- and cut your expectations? Reduced income? Fewer, or NO children? Smaller house? No car? Reduced pension?
- What politicians will advocate a lower GDP, lower tax revenues, less consumption, and fewer jobs?
- Even if such politicians existed, who would vote for them?
— Answer these questions honestly, and you have seen the future.
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"Erwin Schrödinger has described life as a system in steady-state thermodynamic disequilibrium that maintains its constant distance from equilibrium (death) by feeding on low entropy from its environment—that is, by exchanging high-entropy outputs for low-entropy inputs. The same statement would hold verbatim as a physical description of our economic process. A corollary of this statement is that an organism cannot live in a medium of its own waste products."
What's needed is a global buy-in for a program of sustainability and resilience. Ain't gonna happen.
So Mother Nature will act, and she will be ruthless.
Jim |
