TECHNOLOGY AND MOTHER NATURE
[ In posts spanning more than a decade, I've warned about headlines promising technology will save us, that we're "winning" the alternative energy battle. The headlines are wrong. In parallel, technology has become a quasi-religion in public consciousness, promoted with the imagined ability to be mankind's future saviour. Technology is no such thing. For those people and nations that can afford it, that have the energy -- because ALL technology requires energy -- for them, some of the future's worst effects will be mitigated. BUT WE WILL NOT BE SAVED BY TECHNOLOGY. Don't be fooled by the stories and headlines.]
__________________
' That renewable energy sources will increasingly replace fossil fuel is a clear trend. Less clear is the speed at which this replacement will take place. Many experts believe that the change will be too little, too late. Last James Temple, for example, reported in MIT’s Technological Review that, despite the efforts to change the energy model, in 2017 the world still increased carbon emissions by about 2%. At this rate, he alerts, the desired transformation of the energy system would not take three decades, as now planned, but four centuries. The effort required to accelerate the rate of change by a factor of 20 is so enormous, the report notes, that it can be best imagined as the overhaul of the U.S, economy into a war economy without being at war. The incentives to undertake this massive endeavor are largely absent due to lack of the public’s awareness of–or indifference to–the looming threat. Moreover, as is well known, since the effects of carbon dioxide emissions are significantly delayed in time, they become fully apparent to the public only after they have become irreversible.
In conclusion: we need more, different disruption
The energy industry has been disrupted and has changed accordingly. Most of the disruption came from new technologies. This will continue. But a source of disruption far more potent is looming large: Mother Nature. Climate change is bound to create constraints, incentives and requirements that will force governments, corporations and consumers to drastically alter their ways. The world will urgently need disruptions in the politics, institutions, economics and technologies of energy. And will need them sooner than most people expect. That is the disruption for which we should be preparing.'
__________________
" Mother Nature will act, and she will be ruthless."
Jim |
