Recorded July 25th, 2023
Description
In Part 2 of this Frankly Series, Nate breaks down why energy – and specifically oil – is currently the central foundation of our entire modern economic system. There are ecological and energetic laws that apply to all life, including humans and our economies. By accessing a huge surplus of dense carbon energy in the form of fossil sunlight, we’ve effectively turbo-boosted our economies, populations, and material wealth – but what happens if this fossil abundance were to go away? What are the systemic implications of an economy tethered to growth, tethered to carbon? Is it even possible for us to choose to stop using oil? How do these complex constraints on our global systems affect the options – and most likely outcomes – in a future with declining oil availability and rising climate insecurity?
Show Notes
00:00 – Just Stop Oil !? Part 1
01:30 – Nora Bateson TGS Episode + Reality Roundtable
02:40 – Energy Importance in Nature
03:07 – Maximum Power Principle
04:01 – Kleiber’s Law
04:56 – 99% correlation between energy and GDP and 100% correlation between materials and GDP
05:15 – Energy stability 99% correlated with GDP (Section 1.2)
05:45 – Carbon Pulse
06:03 – Tony Barnosky – total animal biomass has increased 700%
06:45 – A barrel of oil can do 5 years of human labor – 450 billion human labor equivalents – Section 4.3
07:54 – The Average American has 40 devices plugged in all the time drawing power
08:18 – We’re adding an additional 4.7 billion human worker equivalents each year to the global economy
08:53 – Solow’s Residual
10:04 – 87% of our energy is from fossils
13:02 – Jevons Paradox
13:18 – We’ve increase energy efficiency by 36% since 1990 by have increased energy consumption by 63%
14:33 – Peak Oil
20:33 – Shareholder value
21:56 – Just Stop Oil
22:15 – UK previously a leading oil producer
24:20 – Inequity of emissions between the global north and global south
28:09 – Dollar Hegemony, BRICS
Comments
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Well stated! This is what I have surmised to be our current state of affairs, and good for you for having the courage to state it as you have. I think you might be “preaching to the choir”, as I suspect most people who follow your work are already on board with the direction you are heading. Perhaps not all of your followers are taking steps to become more resilient, but I suspect they will more quickly make that shift once they experience first hand, the pain and disruption ahead.
Hopefully this message will make a few more people aware of the predicament we face. And the need for a direction shift.
I look forward to your reflections on the possible roads ahead in the coming weeks.
John Craig
The last army to stop using oil will be the one that conquers the earth. So of course there will never be a first. All other considerations are window dressing. And we’re doomed.