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The Great Simplification

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-xr9rIQxwj4

I thought I'd post this for anyone interested in the human predicament (energy, the economy and envirnoment).

It could be posted in multiple forums eg. technology, economics, education. I'll leave that up to the mods.

Background

Nate is a well-known speaker on the big picture issues facing human society and currently teaches a systems synthesis Honors seminar at the University of Minnesota ‘Reality 101 – A Survey of the Human Predicament’

He holds a Masters Degree in Finance with Honors from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. Previously Nate was President of Sanctuary Asset Management and a Vice President at the investment firms Salomon Brothers and Lehman Brothers.

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Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058246636/the-great-simplification

If you are expecting people to watch a 32 minute vid then please post a synopsis or why you think it's worth watching. :-)

IMHO this is yet another PowerPoint presentation that's preaching to the choir.

To oversimplify the traditional hunter - gatherer breakdown, women gather calories and men hunt protein and fat. Humans can travel long distances too so aren't dependent on carrying capacity in a new environment in the same way as original inhabitants. Humans have been able to use energy resources from one environment to harvest other resources from other environments since before were were human. From fossil records we harvested the largest animals first as that was the most efficient way. Gradually moving down in size as we wiped out anything that didn't run from us on sight. We went from spearing elephants close up to using bow and arrow on gazelles because we'd eaten most of the bigger animals. It's been the same way with fuel. We only looked at coke from coal for iron after we ran out of forests to make charcoal.

The good news is that the EU is accelerating fossil fuel replacements for various reasons including because it's the right thing to do. China is accelerating fossil fuel replacements for reasons including to save on imports and improve air quality and stimulate the economy. Between the two it means there will be better and cheaper tech available globally regardless of what the US does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xr9rIQxwj4 - look at comments or the transcript below to see if worth checking the video. Which is what I do to save time and energy ;-)

Capt'n Midnight

Transcript

0:03

[Music]

0:13

the world to come will be different from our expectations the arc of human history informs the

0:21

trajectory of our future we need to know who we are

0:27

and how we got here the ecology biology and physics

0:33

to know which paths remain open to us and which lead to dead ends

0:40

four and a half billion years ago stardust coalesced to form a planet

0:46

a billion years later simple life emerged by 500 million years ago a profusion of

0:54

life had exploded on our green planet fast forward to 66 million years ago and

1:02

dinosaurs were taken out by our planet's most recent mass extinction

1:10

and small shrew-like survivors continued an evolutionary line that would

1:16

eventually become us of all our hominid ancestors one species

1:23

would ultimately remain homo sapiens a creature variously curious creative

1:31

kind cruel cooperative competitive combative and

1:38

clever when earth's climate warmed and stabilized around 10 000 years ago homo

1:45

sapiens tribes who pivoted on mass to agriculture and pastoralism out

1:51

reproduce their hunter-gatherer cousins unbeknownst to them and to most of us

1:58

this was a planet-changing event sustained by new agricultural surplus

2:04

these early humans slowly spread out around the globe expanding trade and

2:10

technology [Music] for thousands of years the average

2:15

annual growth in the size of the human economy would be unnoticeable from one

2:21

generation to the next by the 16th century however more complex

2:28

social organization and advanced navigational technology kick-started a unique period in human

2:35

history yet even with these advances human cultures remained powered by

2:42

biomass and the muscles of humans and our draft animals limiting growth

2:49

until in the early 19th century 10 000 years after the agricultural revolution

2:56

humans discovered how to extract fossil energy and materials

3:01

from under earth's surface to boost their economies [Music] this new discovery of geologically

3:09

stored sunlight in the form of coal oil and gas changed

3:16

everything for the first time human and animal labor played second fiddle to the power of these new energy

3:24

sources when combined with a machine a gallon of

3:29

gasoline could output the same work in a few minutes as a person laboring for an

3:36

entire month we increasingly replaced manual human

3:41

tasks with machines at a tiny fraction of the cost

3:46

the result higher profits higher wages and cheaper

3:51

goods sudden access to this bank account of stored carbon energy turbo charged our

3:59

populations access to good services and technology and quadrupled our economic

4:06

growth rate yet humanity's great acceleration was still ahead

4:12

in the latter half of the 20th century with this new power source and an upgrade from coal to higher quality

4:20

liquid oil the human economy's average growth rate doubled yet again

4:26

to now over 30 times what it had averaged during the last few thousand years

4:33

compared to a global labor force of around 5 billion real humans

4:39

the machines and work powered by access to buried carbon energy

4:44

added the equivalent power of 500 billion human workers

4:51

access to these fossil energies and materials brought billions more humans into existence and brought billions more

4:59

out of poverty and led to the creation of new myths

5:05

institutions and expectations ancestors lives were tightly linked to

5:12

the natural flows of the earth the sun the rain and the soil

5:19

but during this moonshot of growth and consumption our fundamental tether to nature was

5:26

first neglected and then forgotten the main inputs to our economies were

5:33

now mostly free we nearly had to pay for the cost of

5:38

their extraction not the cost of their creation their true worth nor their pollution

5:47

to our ancestors the benefits from carbon energy would have appeared

5:52

indistinguishable from magic and instead of appreciating this giant

5:59

one-time windfall we developed stories that our newfound wealth and progress

6:06

had emerged purely from human ingenuity we had become

6:12

energy blind

6:18

energy is and always will be the currency of life

6:23

animals were the first investors obtaining a larger energy surplus

6:29

gives an animal a competitive advantage for survival and reproduction

6:35

this role of surplus energy is a core driver of the natural world and dictates

6:41

what can and can't happen we rarely think about it or talk about

6:46

it but we're all alive during the carbon pulse the few hundred years where humans are

6:53

drawing down earth's energy battery millions of times faster than it was

6:58

trickle charged by daily photosynthesis hydrocarbons at a vast scale have

7:05

enormously increased the surplus energy available to human economies

7:12

pulses by definition don't last forever high quality ores and energy deposits

7:18

are now mostly things of the past plenty remains but it's lower quality

7:24

and both more costly and ecologically destructive to extract

7:30

in nature there are countless examples where energy exists but the effort to

7:35

obtain it is so large that the meal is effectively off the menu

7:41

in our lifetimes society will have to redirect increasing amounts of our

7:46

energy surplus towards obtaining the surplus itself leaving less affordable energy to

7:52

support many of our current economic activities one day the energy it will cost to

8:00

extract energy will be so large it won't make sense to do so

8:05

even though resources remain energy depletion will act as a growing

8:11

tax on human societies in this unprecedented era of large

8:18

surplus we have excelled at combining energy and materials into technology and inventions

8:24

that improve the human experience new technology can allow us to use

8:29

resources more efficiently or it can transform natural flows into energy

8:35

but mostly technology just creates new ways for humans to consume

8:41

and builds higher future requirements for energy and materials things that are more complex require

8:48

more energy when we add nodes to a supply chain each connection requires energy to maintain

8:56

the complexity of our globally interconnected system currently requires the equivalent of 170

9:04

billion light bulbs constantly turned on burning brightly

9:09

powered by the carbon pulse even rebuildable technology that

9:14

harnesses the sun and the wind grows our total consumption and has not yet

9:20

reduced the use of carbon energy globally most people believe that money is real

9:27

wealth yet everything we spend money on requires energy to mine create deliver

9:34

run maintain and dispose of in this way money is ultimately a direct

9:41

claim on energy and resources our economic stories assert that with

9:47

more money we can create more of anything the truth is we cannot create energy

9:55

we both extract it and burn it faster by using technology and printing money

10:01

natural capital particularly energy is the true foundation of our monetary

10:07

systems as we create more money we don't create more resources we merely access them

10:14

faster the highest sustained growth rate of human economies ever before and likely

10:22

ever again peaked 50 years ago when oil production growth was at its highest

10:29

but rather than living within our means we found creative ways to extend growth

10:34

for a while longer we created complex supply chains

10:40

outsourcing the heavy lifting to countries with cheaper labor we turned to debt in a large way to

10:46

maintain high levels of consumption a behavior that accelerated in 2008 and

10:52

has gone into overdrive since 2020. debt allows us to spend resources from

10:58

the future and call it economic growth this phenomenon has become so pervasive

11:04

in the last 50 years that we think it's normal to consume today and pay tomorrow

11:11

the developed world is now using debt to enable the extraction of things we couldn't otherwise afford to extract

11:19

to produce things we otherwise couldn't afford to consume this strategy has an expiration date

11:26

because all this new money will one day be spent on real things requiring energy

11:34

enabled by an extraordinary but temporary energy surplus

11:39

the human economy is now over 1 000 times bigger than it was just five

11:45

centuries ago most of the benefits of this one-time geological surplus

11:52

now flow to a fraction of people not to the rest of living humans nor

11:57

future generations as we extract minerals and burn fossil

12:02

carbon to support modern living standards their waste streams are in turn

12:08

diminishing the life support systems of other species and future beings

12:14

the impact of our global energy metabolism on nature has been tragic

12:20

and is now accelerating resulting in among other things animal

12:25

bird and fish populations dropping by 50 percent since the 1970s

12:30

plastic now weighing more than all animals on land and in the sea

12:36

and a child born today being expected to outlive earth's coral reefs

12:43

as a culture we have recently but almost entirely

12:48

financialized the human experience not only have we parsed the rich fabric

12:54

of human life into a single monetary marker but in doing so we've used the wrong

13:01

prices the price of money is wrong because we grow it with a keystroke with

13:08

no tether to finite natural capital the price of energy is wrong

13:14

because we don't treat it as the extraordinary irreplaceable resource it is

13:20

non-renewable on any human time scale and in setting prices on everything

13:27

we've lost sight of the large cost their use has on earth's

13:32

ecosystems this biophysical story is all connected in an emergent and unexpected

13:40

way as the carbon pulse boosted our economies our institutions and governments

13:47

self-organized around expectations of growth

13:52

now 8 billion members of a social species collectively seek profits

13:59

which are linked to energy which is linked to fossil hydrocarbons and minerals

14:05

growth as measured by increases in gdp is now required for stability

14:12

we have arrived at a place where we as a culture have outsourced our decisions

14:18

and planning to the financial system the market's compulsion to grow

14:25

now out competes any alternative paths of wisdom or constraint

14:31

the system is no longer in anyone's control the human species

14:37

at least to this point has become a mindless insatiable

14:43

energy-hungry super-organism [Music]

14:51

the super-organism is an emergent phenomenon of the animals that comprise

14:56

it us human beings are related to all other

15:02

creatures on earth we are the product of an unbroken chain

15:07

connecting to the first life which means that hidden beneath our stated motivations of what we do every

15:14

day in industrial society we are driven to pursue the same neurochemical brain rewards our

15:21

ancestors pursued this has huge implications for our behaviors our economies and our futures

15:30

reaching for our phone to see if someone liked our facebook post or to see if bitcoin is up or down aren't really our

15:37

goals we are in reality just seeking the same brain rewards that led to success for

15:45

our hunter-gatherer ancestors dopamine is a molecule that in animals

15:51

and in humans leads to motivation and action in a materially rich modern world the

15:59

habituation to the action of consumption leads to the wanting of things

16:05

culture-wide being stronger than the reward we get from having them

16:11

this is a fundamental problem for an economic system that's turning billions

16:16

of barrels of oil into microliters of dopamine

16:23

as a carryover from ancestral tribal life we are highly tuned to social signals

16:30

comparing ourselves to others seeking approval acceptance and jockeying for

16:36

status with material and now digital wealth as today's primary status signal

16:42

consumerism is now largely based on having as much or more than those around

16:49

us rather than focusing on what we may actually need

16:57

modern humans are still tribal beings we staunchly support those in our in groups

17:02

and easily ostracize out groups from trivial divisions like sports teams

17:08

to political affiliation race or nationality our evolution has primed us to blame

17:15

other humans for situations we don't like or understand

17:22

we have rich creative and colorful imaginations that reside in the virtual

17:29

worlds of our minds the human brain can imagine and

17:34

verbalize limitless combinations of physical impossibilities

17:40

sustainable outposts on mars self-perpetuating energy machines and an

17:45

economy based on physical consumption growing continually for centuries

17:53

in ancestral times these virtual worlds overlapped with the physical worlds we

17:59

inhabited making us more content and effective as a tribal unit but in a culture of vast material wealth

18:08

information overload and social media it's increasingly difficult for us to

18:14

separate fantasy from reality when these individual virtual worlds

18:21

connect with the virtual worlds of others the result is widespread shared

18:27

beliefs that money is real that our current wealth is due mostly to

18:32

our cleverness and that technology will lead to limitless growth

18:40

when we look to others to try and understand our complex modern world as social beings who said it

18:48

becomes more important than logic or the quality of the evidence

18:53

celebrity and group affiliation now matter more than truth

19:01

our stone age brains are no match for the social media algorithms that now

19:06

constantly hijack our attention modern media outlets prey on our

19:11

evolutionary inclinations for novelty and in-group defense via capturing our

19:17

attention and turning clicks and shares into

19:22

consumption computer algorithms optimize for profit are splintering our society by reducing

19:30

attention spans accelerating addiction polarization apathy and mistrust in science

19:39

a metaphorical technology worm driven by exponentially improving

19:44

artificial intelligence is silently eating our minds

19:52

humans are creatures with finite lifespans the future is not a priority to us

19:59

emotionally instead we are focused on the very short term

20:04

this weekend's plans this quarter's earnings this term's election the next set of compelling

20:11

images we're urged to scroll to we often promise to make big changes

20:17

starting tomorrow until tomorrow becomes today and the cycle repeats delaying any

20:25

actual change like other biological organisms humans

20:32

seek gains and are averse to losses we look for undervalued stocks to invest

20:39

in sales on new shoes or two for one cocktails at happy hour

20:44

unlike squirrels or cheetahs we are an extremely social species

20:51

we coordinate as families small businesses corporations and nation states to

20:58

maximize our virtual surplus dollars which we then spend on real things

21:06

our core economic and environmental challenges stem from a mismatch of hunter-gatherer

21:14

minds inhabiting a competitive consumer growth culture

21:20

together these human universals have led to incentives and behaviors which have

21:28

created a metabolic super organism whose objective

21:33

is disconnected from the well-being of its parts us

21:40

it is tempting to look at how we live today and conclude that this is how humans are

21:48

but modern society is only a single brief example out of thousands of

21:54

successful arrangements in human history humans alive today don't choose to be

22:00

hierarchical or greedy many of our choices are constrained by

22:05

the economic system we were born into

22:11

our current high consumption high inequality high technological distraction and low levels of daily

22:18

human connection are a direct product of the carbon

22:24

pulse though human brains don't change quickly under the right circumstances

22:31

our behaviors and cultural norms can move at lightning speed our species is incredibly adaptive when

22:38

we're challenged the way we've been living is an anomaly

22:46

but we take it for granted because as individuals it's all we've ever known

22:53

going forward a lifestyle adapted to lower energy use

22:58

will reconnect our virtual and physical worlds by necessity our lives will become less

23:05

global more interpersonally engaged and more tethered to natural flows

23:15

as a species a global super organism is not our destiny

23:21

who we are has brought us to this precipice who we are capable of becoming as

23:27

individuals and as a society will be the question of our time

23:36

we are alive at a time of wonder peril and possibility

23:42

ahead are a million unknown destinations some dark and foreboding and some

23:48

welcoming and beautiful many of us sense that something is different

23:54

something is coming but we lack a shared understanding of

23:59

the path that brought us here and of the terrain ahead which future we expect

24:06

depends upon which lens we use to see the road modern society is polarized stressed and

24:15

overwhelmed with information good and bad as a result common points of view our

24:21

lenses focus on the road just in front of us for the view to the future we defer to

24:28

culturally accepted guides who are confident they know the way forward

24:34

through the lens of an economist for example we see a glorious road leading to growth that never stops

24:42

any scarcity of energy or material inputs will be solved by price signals

24:48

creating incentives which increase our productivity and growth the economic lens shows us that human

24:55

ingenuity and the market will solve everything

25:01

a financial lens translates stock markets at all-time highs as a sign of

25:07

society's health pretending a rich and virtuous future

25:12

with enough financial capital we'll be able to build roads to anywhere

25:19

a technology lens promises a shiny road of comfort novelty and prosperity

25:25

enabled by future inventions innovation artificial intelligence and a vibrant

25:31

metaverse will sidestep any energy or resource constraints we envision future humans breaking free

25:38

from the confines of earth and enjoying high-tech lifestyles where the biggest

25:44

problem is runaway robots these lenses are all optimistic

25:50

but misguided all these lenses are energy blind the

25:56

real paths ahead can only be seen by integrating energy awareness

26:01

with biology sociology physics and everything science has discovered

26:07

we need a systems lens to read the map a systems lens

26:13

reveals the holistic story that explains humanity's path

26:18

in pursuit of the same emotional experiences of our ancient ancestors we transform materials and energy into

26:26

technologies that make our lives more comfortable and fun we keep score of our progress using

26:34

money which has become a psychological stand-in for all the things our ancestors valued

26:41

the massive scale of humanity's consumption is evidenced by the excess co2 being

26:48

absorbed by earth's oceans and atmosphere the emergent result is a metabolic

26:55

superorganism with oil as its hemoglobin transporting goods through the arteries and veins of

27:02

a global supply network like a shark needing to swim to get

27:07

oxygen flowing through its gills our current economic system has an imperative to grow in order to satisfy

27:15

prior financial commitments we can't stop nor can we slow down or

27:21

the system will crash a systems lens reveals that the road

27:26

ahead is closed to our current cultural expectations yet we continue to bear down on the

27:32

accelerator wearing systems lenses removes the blind spots created by any single issue lens

27:41

global economic growth will never meaningfully decouple from energy consumption it cannot because the

27:49

world's gdp by definition has always been a proxy for how much energy we burn

27:56

if we were to grow the global economy at three percent a year as most governments

28:02

and institutions expect we would use as much energy and materials in the next thirty years as we

28:10

have in the past ten thousand stock markets are poor guideposts for

28:16

prosperity when inflated by government and central bank support all the cash stocks bonds and pension

28:25

funds in the world will need energy and materials to be cashed out and turned into real wealth

28:32

creativity and innovation will be central to human futures

28:37

but modern technology requires huge amounts of energy to build and to

28:43

operate as long as gdp is our goal efficiency

28:48

gains from new technology will serve the super organism transitioning from fossil hydrocarbon to

28:56

rebuildable energy won't change this dynamic ultimately in addition to using

29:02

different energy we'll need to use energy differently

29:08

seeing our future through a systems lens changes everything

29:13

we have spent the last century harnessing enormous amounts of fossil

29:18

energy to build a world of complexity like nothing seen before

29:24

in the coming century humanity will experience a great simplification

29:32

there will always be energy on earth as long as the sun burns

29:38

but the amount of surplus energy available to human societies will soon

29:43

be diminishing as the extraction of geologically stored energy becomes more difficult

29:50

everything we're used to in society will become more costly or less available

29:56

we are not planning for this because it's never happened before the onset of the great simplification

30:03

will be financial and economic turbulence followed by contraction when we can no longer grow fast enough

30:11

to maintain all the increased financial claims economies will recede to a scale that

30:17

can again be supported by physical flows without credit complex global supply chains the related

30:26

high consumption lifestyles and many of the conveniences and freedoms we take

30:31

for granted in this era of abundant energy surplus will diminish

30:36

the ensuing simplification will be among the most significant events ever

30:42

experienced by our species those who look through a systems lens

30:47

can serve as early visionaries of a simpler life with new ways of relating to technology

30:54

to consumption to each other and to earth's ecosystems

31:00

there are many pathways wending through a great simplification

31:05

some are wise humane and even preferable to what we have now

31:10

some are so dark as to be nearly unthinkable yet it is precisely thinking about these

31:17

pathways and actively choosing among them which offers the only realistic hope for a

31:24

long and meaningful human future nature has gifted us with a productive

31:31

and beautiful home the ability to understand how we got here

31:36

and the creativity to imagine which paths are possible

31:41

the future need not be dystopian but cleverness alone will no longer

31:48

suffice for the next leg of our journey we will need imagination

31:53

foresight empathy and above all wisdom

31:58

to navigate the path to the future that is arriving the great simplification

32:07

[Music]

32:20

so [Music]

32:55

you

Transcript

"IMHO this is yet another PowerPoint presentation that's preaching to the choir."

Why preach to the choir? Well try preaching to the denialists.

I find a large of portion of the choir can also be delusional or just accepting (techno utopians) the current conventional thinking that Fossil Fuel replacements (renewables) will seamlessly replace FFs and that will allow them to live a life they are used to.

Sure solar panels and wind turbines are cheap now(built with FFs). But will they be cheap in 20-30 years in the future when they need replacing?

I synopsisised my synopsis too much. We all know people that have lost days of their lives to cat videos >-/-0^:

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119094303#Comment_119094303

Oldest array in use was setup in 1982. So could be 40 years or more before they need replacing.

Solar technology has improved since then. Modern panels could produce over twice the power. That and recycling panels for raw materials may be what limits the economic life of older panels rather than them failing. Most of the energy in producing panels is purifying the silicon and Norway are using hydro to do that.

No point in preaching to the deniallists. Wasting your time shouting in the wind. Lobbying politicians would be more effective.

Scotland already gets all it's electricity from renewables. In Feb we got 53% of electricity from wind and at times close to 100% nett from renewables (our exports were close to the fossil fuel being used for grid stability) so we are already heading down the right path.

Insulation is the next big thing.

Thats all good Ive nothing against wind and solar. We could get into efficiency, life cycle analysis etc. Ireland is in a great position and small enough to do great things and thats brilliant, Im not denying that.

I know theres loads of examples of cleaner tech for producing silicon, steel concrete etc. Its scaling these up to meet world demand thats going to be an issue.

Anyway no amount of electricity will solve overshoot(maybe zero🤔), the video is more to do with the bigger picture, how energy, the economy and enviroment interact.

Even if one other boardsie shows it to a lay person, that would be good. 🙀 Im off to the shop to buy one beer, just one.