Future shocks.

Planet Earth’s early atmosphere was probably very rich in carbon dioxide, with corresponding high temperatures. In this environment organic matter began to proliferate. Giant ferns and micro-organisms absorbed the carbon and were buried underground. New life forms appeared and were buried. Carbon dioxide was replaced by oxygen, and more oxygen allowed animals to develop, dinosaurs, mammals and more recently humans. By then plants and animals had reached a fairly stable relationship in their carbon usage. Vegetable absorption, animal exhalations, volcanic activity and occasional fires kept the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content constant during at least the past 400,000 years, as shown by bore holes in the Antarctic ice cap. It began to change less than two centuries ago.

Humans began using fire for cooking. It made roots and cereals digestible and animal fat very tasty. They then learnt to bake pottery and went on to metallurgy. All this heating was first done with wood – in treeless deserts people used dried dung – and then with charcoal as well as some surface coal-seams. (The Early Iron Age kingdom that developed near lake Hallstatt in Austria had mines of salt, lignite and iron ore, all easily availably). As populations grew so did the demand for combustibles and, as the Industrial Revolution got under way, coal became the dominant source of heat. Its abundance was a determinant factor in the industrialisation of nations and, as the smoke from industrial and domestic coal fires enveloped cities causing illness and shortening lives, the atmosphere’s composition began to change.

Originally, fire was just a source of heat. Driving power was muscle, wind and running water, but mostly animal and human muscles. When heat was used to produce steam, or an internal combustion that could be converted into a force, the nature of power took on another dimension. So muscle was confined to sporting events and machines large and small were driving chains, wheels and propellers all over the place, fingertip motors. Most of this energy is generated by fossil fuels. Carbon that was taken out of the air and buried underground millions of years ago is being pumped back at a dizzying rate. The Earth’s climate and ocean acidity are being modified, and its atmosphere is regressing to an ever more distant past, at an ever faster rate.

In 1973 an oil embargo by OPEC showed the industrialised world how dependant it was on the black crude stuff. Alternative sources of energy suddenly seemed attractive. Including the colossal investments needed to generate electricity with nuclear fission. Military nuclear programmes had more or less run their course, and were eager to go civilian on a large scale. These two powerful incentives coincided and were irresistible. Notably in France, where fifty-three reactors were to be built on nineteen different sites, in addition to six existing ones of which only the oldest has been closed down (1985) and is still not decommissioned. That same year, 1973, a film came out called “Year 0ne” (An 01). Its slightly didactic message was that everyone should pause a while and think about where they were going, an idealistic view that only influenced a few urban university drop-outs attracted by neo-ruralness. The world paid no attention and continued its wild race for more.

Forty years have gone by and humanity’s destination is still determined by greed and power. But the force of machines and the speed of communications have reached their material limits. Ships, planes, trucks, trains and rockets will not get bigger – some are already shrinking – and light will not go faster. There is no pristine inhabitable planet to fly to and colonise – there never was, it was all a pipe-dream – and Mother Earth is turning into a junk-yard/trash-heap. Celebrity, power and the accumulation of individual wealth deride the common weal and negate a common destiny. All is for sale, the past, the present and the future. And, as future prices drop with growing uncertainty, the past is in greater demand. Profit has time and again shown itself incapable of creating a social bond, a gain means a loss, but it has never gone so far, so fast. Its effect on the destruction of wealth by speculative bubbles is unprecedented. Currency and Treasury debts are on life- support from central banks with no foreseeable recovery. As predicted long ago, capitalism had to encompass the world before its internal contradictions could come into play. During capital’s phases of expansion, new wealth gives the impression that all will benefit in the long run. When capitalistic concentration occurs, these appearances are unmasked as illusions.

Creating wealth, producing goods and services, is basically an expense of energy in one form or other, from the micro-wattage of cerebral activity and the carbon consumption of muscles to digital clouds and mega horse-power. Coal, oil and gas contain carbon and hydrogen that produce heat when they combine with oxygen. That heat is then harnessed to produce a usable form of energy, either electric or mechanic. Fossil fuel energy has multiplied the productive capacities of individuals and nations. The first nations to use fossil fuels had a historic advantage and are still by far the largest consumers. The burning of coal, oil and gas was multiplied by four in the period between the end of WW2 and the slowdown of 1980, and has doubled again since then reaching some ten billion Metric Tons of Oil Equivalent per year, with the fast growing participation of developing countries.

The accelerated expansion of power and wealth, over the past century and a half, has been fuelled by underground carbon and hydrogen. This process cannot continue indefinitely. Either the resources will run out or the atmosphere’s changed composition will result in unsuitable climatic conditions for most of the present living species. In both cases the path is a dead-end. But, considering the spread of energy sources that are available, there is no alternative. Nuclear, hydro, wind and solar together represent less than 10% of the total mix, and they only concern electricity that is so difficult and expensive to store. It seems inconceivable that they might replace fossil fuels without a complete reorientation of human activities in all their aspects, towards a thrifty usage of energy and a revival of useful muscle power. A do or die decision no one is prepared to make.