Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumJMG: Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush
At a recent conference, John Michael Greer inadvertently coined the phrase "Collapse now, and avoid the rush" as capsule advice on how to address the coming devolution of civilization. He thinks the decline will take the form of a "catabolic collapse" lasting a century or more, in which we will progressively "burn the furniture" to keep the lights on just a bit longer. Here is his background thinking:
First, industrial society was only possible because our species briefly had access to an immense supply of cheap, highly concentrated fuel with a very high net energy—that is, the amount of energy needed to extract the fuel was only a very small fraction of the energy the fuel itself provided. They are nonrenewable over any time scale that matters to human beings, and we are using them up at astonishing rates.
Second, while it’s easy to suggest that we can simply replace fossil fuels with some other energy source and keep industrial civilization running along its present course, putting that comfortable notion into practice has turned out to be effectively impossible. No other energy source available to our species combines the high net energy, high concentration, and great abundance that a replacement for fossil fuel would need. Those energy sources that are abundant (for example, solar energy) are diffuse and yield little net energy, while those that are highly concentrated (for example, fissionable uranium) are not abundant, and also have serious problems with net energy. Abundant fossil fuels currently provide an "energy subsidy" to alternative energy sources that make them look more efficient than they are—there would be far fewer wind turbines, for example, if they had to be manufactured, installed, and maintained using wind energy. Furthermore, our entire energy infrastructure is geared to use fossil fuels and would have to be replaced, at a cost of countless trillions of dollars, in order to replace fossil fuels with something else.
Third, these problems leave only one viable alternative, which is to decrease our energy use, per capita and absolutely, to get our energy needs down to levels that could be maintained over the long term on renewable sources. The first steps in this process were begun in the 1970s. Politics closed off that option in the decade that followed, however, and the world’s industrial nations went hurtling down a different path, burning through the earth’s remaining fossil fuel reserves at an accelerating pace and trusting that economic abstractions such as the free market would suspend the laws of physics and geology for their benefit. At this point, more than three decades after that misguided choice, industrial civilization is so far into overshoot that a controlled descent is no longer an option; the only path remaining is the familiar historical process of decline and fall.
Fourth, while it’s fashionable these days to imagine that this process will take the form of a sudden cataclysm that will obliterate today’s world overnight, all the testimony of history and a great many lines of evidence from other sources suggests that this is the least likely outcome of our predicament. Across a wide range of geographical scales and technological levels, civilizations take an average of one to three centuries to complete the process of decline and fall, and there is no valid reason to assume that ours will be any exception. This ragged arc of decline is already under way; it can be expected to accelerate in the months, years, and decades to come; and it defines the deindustrial age ahead of us.
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GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Several factors influence my attitude towards what’s now upon us.
First, and most obvious, there will be no exemptions issued for the decline. We are all in this together. Our cultural and biophysical interdependencies are far too great to permit any one person, country or region to stand on its own, unscathed, as its neighbours fail.
Second, there is no way to prevent the now-visible denouement – not one I’ve been able to discover at any rate. As Greer notes, the various suggestions are all variations of impotent talk. If a “solution” to the Predicament were possible (a ludicrous idea in itself) it would require a global level of central direction, since the problems making up the Predicament are all global in scope. Last time I looked there were 7 billion of us on this planet, each of us with a different idea of What Should Be Done. In comparison with the task of organizing that mob for collective, directed action, the difficulty of herding cats pales into triviality.
The third factor flows out of the second. The future is inherently unknowable, because it depends on the dynamic interplay of the various actions of all 7 billion people, both as individuals and at various levels of collectivity.
So it looks to me as though the only real option available to any of us is to simply do whatever we think is best. We have no way of knowing whether it will be the “right thing” or not.
Because of this, the two-part “alternative strategy” that Greer seems to dismiss (enjoy life, then die) is in fact the one that we will all follow, like it or not. There is no real “choice” available, because that process essentially describes what we’ve been doing for the last umpty-thousand/million years. The idea that we have ever had a choice, beyond choosing how to “enjoy” our situation, is a conceit.
The choice I’ve made is to become as aware as possible of what’s going on around me, and to respond to those events as wisely as I can manage. In the process I try to encourage others to transcend their own emotional/egoic reactivity, to think deeply, and to become as wise as they too can manage as a result.
The more of us who can make wise decisions (regardless of what those decisions actually are) the better the unknowable future may be, at least in some tiny measure. At the same time, applying wisdom instead of immature knee-jerking to one’s life makes it more satisfying and productive, and reduces the amount of inner stress we feel while doing our best and waiting for the inevitable visit from the Reaper.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)- putting that comfortable notion into practice has turned out to be effectively impossible.
"Has turned out to be"?
We've only begun the effort in earnest with Kyoto in 1998. If 14 years is Greer's idea of the time scale such an effort should take, then he is a blithering idiot.
- No other energy source available to our species combines the high net energy, high concentration, and great abundance that a replacement for fossil fuel would need.
The author has selected an odd assortment of characteristics on which to base his conclusions. Is there confusion between the "concentration" of energy in a cubic meter of moving air and the end use "concentration" of delivered power? If a wind turbine or solar array delivers 5MWh of energy to an end user who needs 5MWh of energy to accomplish a certain task is that somehow inferior to the same work done with fossil derived energy?
If Greer thinks so then then he is a blithering idiot.
- No ... high net energy...
Does Greer do any research at all or does he think that just making it up as he goes along is good enough? The net energy yields for renewables are as good as the fossil fuels being used today and they are steadily improving. For example, the most current data I've seen shows excellent performance (1:40 or so) from wind turbines that are 2-3 generations old. The larger, higher ones starting to roll out now are probably triple that. If he doesn't have any idea of the state of the technologies he is writing about why should we not think that he is a blithering idiot?
The article is tripe.
What does actual analysis show?
We submit that the models provided here present a compelling case that the road to a sustainable future lies in concerted efforts to move from fossil fuels to renewable wind and solar energy sources. This transition can occur in two or three decades and requires very little fossil fuel (on the order of one half of a year’s present global consumption) and no revolutionary technological innovations. Since our model uses conservative estimates, the true renewable potential that is available to our society may be even more optimistic than we show. The primary anticipated obstacles to implementing this transition are non-technical, including lack of political will and economic prioritization. Nevertheless, this transition in the time scale of a few decades is imperative for global climate security.51
A Solar Transition is Possible
Peter D. Schwartzman & David W. Schwartzman
March 2011
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)kristopher
(29,798 posts)When I write, that piece is the product of a blithering idiot, that is an opinion. When We discuss the actual measurable characteristics of energy sources and applications, we leave the area of opinion and enter the realm of fact.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Your perceptions of reality are fatally clouded by your quasi-religious faith in renewable energy, and your unwillingness to accept any critical commentary on that issue. You keep bleating about how everybody who disagrees with you is wrong, or lying, or a right-wing apologist. I don't think everybody whose opinions differs from yours can possibly be wrong (there are too many of them), I don't think we're lying, and I'm pretty sure that the regular long-term contributors on this board aren't RW apologists.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Your "work" speaks for itself.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)
Javaman
(62,497 posts)
pscot
(21,024 posts)and all the adjunct equipment they require to operate on a residential roof. Could the entire energy input be provided by solar? Presumably that would have to include gathering and transporting raw materials as well as marketing and transporting the finished product. Could the system sustain itself, or would it run down over time? Highly developed societies like ours would obviously have to dial it way back, but it seems theoritcally possible.
Of course that doesn't address the problem of AGW, which seems to be going critical right now.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)comes from interpreting what we face as a set of independent problems, rather than what it is - a highly interwoven predicament.
pscot
(21,024 posts)when the woods are on fire. There's quite a lot of that around here.
turtlerescue1
(1,013 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)pscot
(21,024 posts)
NAO
(3,425 posts)Greer is a modern day Renaissance man and his blog posts are always an excellent read.
The Archdruid Report
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
I used to dislike him intensely back when I had hitched my wagon to a peak-oil-driven fast collapse. Now I think he's got a very good handle on things.
zeaper
(113 posts)People have been preaching doom since there were people.
Move on nothing to see here.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)There's lots to see here. Unfortunately, there's precious little we can do about it, since we didn't listen to all the stupid doomers who have been doing their Chicken Little dance for the last 50 years.
Of course you're free to not worry about it. You just shouldn't be surprised if more and more people decide that's exactly the wrong approach.
You could start reading here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-environment-verge-of-disaster-2012-6
Kablooie
(18,605 posts)Oh it will be lots of fun for somebody.
Kinda makes you look forward to leaving this earthly life before it happens.
