We need to define the goal. Is it modernity, with a lower energy footprint. If so, we need to figure out whether that's possible and, if so, what would modernity look like? Personally, it's hard to see how it's possible to hang on to modernity for ever. Even in a steady state economy, if that were a target, mining and refining, and so habitat destruction would have to continue (perfect recycling is not possible and there would always be new infrastructure and goods to power and maintain).
The primary discussion should be what kind of society can be sustainable. If we don't like what that throws up then we have to accept that collapse is certain. If, however, we find that we could live with it, then we should be planning a path to that society that has the least suffering.
I appreciate your making this connection between energy and power. I’ve long thought that the decentralization of renewable energy is in part why the transition is taking so long. Community solar may be one of the best local ways to implement but it’s outside the typical capitalist structure of investment and risk/reward. I know this is important information but whenever I read an article like this about the big picture and the global realities, I despair.
Before I forget ... Thank you Rachel. There is more to this essay than there is in most books. As dense as Plotunium, actually.
I'm no mining expert, but I live in Pennsylvania and know that mining is never good.
But building out and maintaining the renewable energy infrastructure is always going to take a lot less mining than just throwing coal/oil/gas/hydrogen/whatever into a furnace or engine to burn it and do it again tomorrow and then again the day after. It's also never going to be as profitable . As all the corporate owners know.
/rant/ most of our energy consumption is pure waste. Examples: 400 hp cars traveling at 15mph, the energy required to make the packaging, run the marketing, and power the boats to ship disposable junk from the East all over the world ... for stuff that is designed to go into landfills in under a year anyway /end rant/
Growth for growth's sake is the philosophy of a cancer cell. We can do better than that.
As someone who has already made up their mind on the "whether to mine" question--a resounding "No!"--and who sees de-growth as the only practical and ethical way forward, I think that positive messaging could go a long way in collectively pursuing that goal. The theme of "a simpler life" is one narrative that could have wide appeal. So many people are frustrated, depressed and angry about how complicated it is to just get by in our contemporary societies, with all the daily and long-term stressors, including financial ones. As activists, we can paint a picture of other ways to live, where the necessities of existence are de-monetized, and life is about finding an enriching role in an emerging, sustainable, locally-centered social arrangement. Honestly, I think most people really don't like what they're forced to do in our current systems, and would welcome an alternative. "We could be happier" is a message I therefore advocate.
We really are screwed if we continue to see Russia and China as rivals. Or believe that the EU can behave independently of the US (who made it clear that they would not allow NS2 and almost certainly blew up it up in a major act of eco-terrorism). Or that we believe that the EU is capable of investing in its 'partners' or that it can become a geopolitical union on a par with Russia and the States.
Indeed the determination of Von der Leyen et al for centralised power and to include Ukraine in the EU (and therefore de facto in NATO) that has led to the Russian SMO, the slaughter of 100Os of Ukrainians and untold damage to the environment and the climate crisis from missiles and bombs.
Rachel, this essay of yours strikes at the deepest unspoken issue beneath the question of how to create a viable energy transition. So, far, most of the ‘transition talk’ is almost as weak as the “decoupling” argument. It is blind to the material facts of how fossil-fueled economies operate. It even goes beyond the devastation of the additional mining and other materials extraction for ecosystems and health, to feed the so-called ‘renewable’ energy technologies, and even the resource-driven and other environmental conflict.
There are two fundamental components to the conventional illusions over a renewable energy transition. First, ‘downsizing’ fossil-fuel use as the source of energy for both industry and society has revolutionary implications that seem to escape even the more technically astute commentators. All we have to do is look at the everyday operations of any ‘modern economy,’ and we can hardly avoid noticing that EVERYTHING runs on fossil fuel in some way or other. It is not just about “transitioning” from fossil fuels to “renewable” fuels. It must be about severely reducing the quantities of fuel used. What does that mean for the diverse technologies of production? It means that most of those technologies, including a vast array of infrastructure, become largely unusable.
The naïve conventional framing of an ‘energy transition’ is caught between two approaches to causing environmental destruction instead of reducing it. The missing link: energy conservation. I know, many good folks give the idea lip service, but still drive their SUV to the BIG BOX supermarket to pick up a range of food-like substances, or household products, every one of them wrapped in some form of plastic, much like the content of the package. None of this is viable under a regime of reducing fossil-fuel (and plastics) consumption to near zero (don’t get me started on the “net-zero” scam); that reduction, however, is necessary for controlling the GHGs as well as the ecological damage due to all the activities and institutions that operate a “modern” economy.
The second material change that is inherent in any genuine energy transition consists of the necessary total societal reorganization to cope with having to live without all the infrastructure and technology driven by fossil-fuel energy. That is partly because of the almost completely denied material fact that merely replacing fossil-fuels cannot sustain the extant “technosphere” as it is. As you suggest, that prospect is about as political as it can get.
As a society, we have yet to come to the realization that we will either be forced to change our behavior under the conditions of societal collapse because we failed to heed the material facts, or we will have to mobilize a new great transformation of society itself to reach as close to a “soft landing” as we can. Even then, much chaos and population loss will be unavoidable. The government and corporate unwillingness to give up on fossil fuels—that is in part because they have no idea how to “shrink the technosphere” (Orlov) or to politically organize such an effort.
For the reasons you mentioned, a ‘renewables’ based economy at current or near current scale, would drive international conflicts far beyond their present abominable levels.
This is a powerful and devastating summary of where we are. After quite a time trying to work out where to start with all the different issues thrown up by the poly crisis I have been coming round to an analysis which reflects much of what you write here:
The disease is the accumulation of wealth and power
The symptoms are over consumption, environmental destruction, species loss, increasing climate instability and the consequent impacts on food production, livable spaces, and loss of life through weather events, conflict and starvation.
The vector is an economic system that ignores any factors that don't significantly affect short term profit and projects endless growth on the basis of a short historical period of little more than a century.
As with all diseases we need to block the vector and treat the symptoms - and try not to kill the patient in the process!
Boy - I still have so much to process from the last podcast! Now this article of yours on mining has got so much I need to research!
But on Safina's claims - there are 2.4 billion people that identify as Christian in the world. Many of those would be nominal “Cultural Christians” - like some American that does not even read their bible or go to church - but objects to a Mosque being built nearby.
But if even half of them are serious about Christianity - surely you would want what you say about them and their texts to be correct? Now - Plato’s Dualism has influenced Western Culture - but ironically it’s not so much in the bible as in the Simpsons and modern anti-Christian “spirituality” movements where it pops up more.
The Hebrew bible is thoroughly grounded in the material universe - in the flesh. God declares the world GOOD (7 times in the highly symbolic writing of Genesis 1).
The Hebrew idea of a soul is our capacity as PHYSICAL beings to relate to a non-corporeal spiritual God. Indeed - the word for ‘soul’ is nephesh - and is to do with breath in a throat. It is also used to describe many living animals.
“The bottom line, biblically, is that people don’t *have* souls—they *are* souls. They don’t have *nephesh* they are *nephesh*. And the ultimate hope for Christians is not a disembodied existence living as souls but an embodied existence living in their *nephesh*.”
Sure - the main story of the bible is about God seeking out a people for himself after the human race rebels against him.
But the environment is there in the background. There are even laws in the Old Testament about not cutting down trees excessively during times of war - Deut 20:19. Contrast this with Roman warfare. The Roman soldier was half soldier - half engineer. A Roman army could march near your town one day. The next day you wake to find a fort built next door and your forest gone! (What an impressive and frightening empire.)
Platonic thought moves into the ancient Gnostic religion. But surely the biggest contrast with this is in the New Testament claims around Jesus himself? This is going to get a bit theological and I’m not being preachy - no one here has to believe this to be an environmentalist. But they at least need to comprehend it so they don’t unnecessarily alienate their powerful WASP neighbours. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant - who unfortunately seem to dominate the business world.)
Gnostics that tried to infiltrate Christianity corrupted some - but were never the majority Christian religion and were rejected as cults early on. We just went through Easter - let’s remember what that is all about to the Christian. The core idea is God took the bullet for us! To do that - he needed to Judge human sin by himself becoming human! The Triune God became Incarnate in his Son - that is - Jesus took on a fully human material body - so that in his humanity he could represent us to take the bullet we deserved.
The Incarnation is profoundly DISGUSTING to a Gnostic! The pure spiritual creator becoming HUMAN - in this dirty corrupted temporary material universe? How revolting!?
Can you see how utterly contradictory the core Christian gospel itself is with the claims of Platonic Dualism and Gnosticism? The Resurrection claims of the New Testament Jesus visited the disciples in a physical Resurrection body. Jesus did not appear like some spooky Simpson’s immaterial ghost - but as a bloke that would start rummaging around in your pantry for something to eat.
So I find it disturbing that Carl Safina is publishing a book with claims this wrong. Indeed - when a trashy airport thriller like Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” gets more right about the Christian relationship with the Gnostics - (and it’s such bad writing and such bad history who knew I would be referring to it to make a point!) - you can be sure Safina’s got it all wrong. Remember how Brown tried to insist the “Gnostic gospels” were these wonderful texts that a Roman Emperor conspired to have banned in the council of Nicea!? The Church did not embrace Gnosticism - but rejected it and the fake Gnostic gospels (known to have been written about a century later) with them. Indeed - there were even “Gnostic Gospel” burnings. I mean - did Carl even read the Gnosticism WIKI?
The one bit Safina got absolutely right is that a form of “Dualism” shows up in the modern American church about the tension between working for the good now - and waiting for Paradise / the New World to be Resurrected and upgraded.
Apparently modern American Christians never got the memo that John wrote Revelation to the Christians about to suffer persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire. But the average American evangelical is a bit dim these days - and a bit narcissistic - and just WANTS Revelation to be some code to the next 7 years SO BAD they forget everyone that’s tried to read it that way and made predictions has failed.
She is the Katharine Hayhoe who fights climate deniers on Twitter all the time. The one who wrote “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World”
“An optimistic view on why collective action is still possible—and how it can be realized.” — T*he New York Times*
“As far as heroic characters go, I’m not sure you could do better than Katharine Hayhoe.” — *Scientific American*
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that *Saving Us* is one of the more important books about climate change to have been written.” — *The Guardian*
“United Nations Champion of the Earth, climate scientist, and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe changes the debate on how we can save our future.”
She says there are solid biblical reasons to GET STUCK INTO climate activism even as a Christian longs for the new world. One day. We don’t know when. So we have a responsibility to hand over the world to our kids better than the way we inherited it.
I feel like the modern world still accepts Lyn White’s essay on Christianity and the environment - and has not done the scholarship to truly understand what the bible actually says on it - whether or not today’s Trump-voting American Christians have the brains to comprehend it. Just don’t measure Christianity by anything those people say or do - Lord have mercy MAGA types rile me up! https://undeceptions.com/audio/5-minute-jesus-the-importance-of-creation/
Thank you Rachel for doing what you do. On the topic of "transition", I came across this article from a blogger that I think you and your readers will appreciate. It highlights the bare truth that there has never been an energy transition - showing that every major category energy source has only been growing YOY, including COAL!! Link further down below.
I think, under our GDP driven global concerted growth movement and the political landscape you write of, it is very questionable to what extent a real "transition" actually happens.
All I can do is recommend this and write, "What she said." Thanks, Rachel, for writing this so well that I don't need to! It's a great (if depressing) summary of what my presidential campaign is all about.
Hi Rachel. Im grateful for your research and clarity on many of these issues. Lets hope that a genuine climate movement doesnt get hijacked by plutocrats who could then engineer the creation of a Technocratic world system based on a strict control of resources by powerful corporations. Thank you for helping us to see that we all have a role to play in the development of a green movement that benefits the people first and not the power brokers.
We can partially dematerialize our economes by using extremely energy dense nuclear fuels.
Our present zero-carbon options are:
Plan A Renewables
100% Wind, Water and Solar. Mainly hydro with intermittent wind and solar. Requires large amounts of land and materials and thus large environmental impacts. Many wind towers and transmission lines cluttering the countryside, transmitting unreliable electricity from distant sunny or windy areas.
Many large nuclear reactors are planned. Nuclear fuels are extremely energy dense so nuclear reactors use minimal amounts of land and materials and thus have minimal environmental impacts.
Simplify conventional pressurized water reactors and build 10,000 micro-reactors in factories and truck to installation sites. Abundant, inexpensive, reliable energy independence everywhere. Fast construction with no need for long transmission lines.
"equating the loss of fossil fuels to a loss of human rights" wow. i had to pause and think about this for awhile after it sparked a profound insight imo... like, aren't many expectations that many of us have of authorities/government (including "human rights") to ensure rights, welfare, etc. for many/all people actually enabled by living conditions built in a extremely nature-imbalanced, inflated petrol/diesel-supported fashion?
i think this articleblog is a very good reminder, not just about degrowth, relocalizing our way of life, healing the planet and our relationship with nature, but also very important reminder to (as cliche as it is) be better people basically, to be more considerate, loving, strong, and supportive of each other.
We need to define the goal. Is it modernity, with a lower energy footprint. If so, we need to figure out whether that's possible and, if so, what would modernity look like? Personally, it's hard to see how it's possible to hang on to modernity for ever. Even in a steady state economy, if that were a target, mining and refining, and so habitat destruction would have to continue (perfect recycling is not possible and there would always be new infrastructure and goods to power and maintain).
The primary discussion should be what kind of society can be sustainable. If we don't like what that throws up then we have to accept that collapse is certain. If, however, we find that we could live with it, then we should be planning a path to that society that has the least suffering.
I appreciate your making this connection between energy and power. I’ve long thought that the decentralization of renewable energy is in part why the transition is taking so long. Community solar may be one of the best local ways to implement but it’s outside the typical capitalist structure of investment and risk/reward. I know this is important information but whenever I read an article like this about the big picture and the global realities, I despair.
These thoughts swirl around in my head and you manage to articulate it all with amazing clarity. Worth re-reading and internalising.
Before I forget ... Thank you Rachel. There is more to this essay than there is in most books. As dense as Plotunium, actually.
I'm no mining expert, but I live in Pennsylvania and know that mining is never good.
But building out and maintaining the renewable energy infrastructure is always going to take a lot less mining than just throwing coal/oil/gas/hydrogen/whatever into a furnace or engine to burn it and do it again tomorrow and then again the day after. It's also never going to be as profitable . As all the corporate owners know.
/rant/ most of our energy consumption is pure waste. Examples: 400 hp cars traveling at 15mph, the energy required to make the packaging, run the marketing, and power the boats to ship disposable junk from the East all over the world ... for stuff that is designed to go into landfills in under a year anyway /end rant/
Growth for growth's sake is the philosophy of a cancer cell. We can do better than that.
As someone who has already made up their mind on the "whether to mine" question--a resounding "No!"--and who sees de-growth as the only practical and ethical way forward, I think that positive messaging could go a long way in collectively pursuing that goal. The theme of "a simpler life" is one narrative that could have wide appeal. So many people are frustrated, depressed and angry about how complicated it is to just get by in our contemporary societies, with all the daily and long-term stressors, including financial ones. As activists, we can paint a picture of other ways to live, where the necessities of existence are de-monetized, and life is about finding an enriching role in an emerging, sustainable, locally-centered social arrangement. Honestly, I think most people really don't like what they're forced to do in our current systems, and would welcome an alternative. "We could be happier" is a message I therefore advocate.
We really are screwed if we continue to see Russia and China as rivals. Or believe that the EU can behave independently of the US (who made it clear that they would not allow NS2 and almost certainly blew up it up in a major act of eco-terrorism). Or that we believe that the EU is capable of investing in its 'partners' or that it can become a geopolitical union on a par with Russia and the States.
Indeed the determination of Von der Leyen et al for centralised power and to include Ukraine in the EU (and therefore de facto in NATO) that has led to the Russian SMO, the slaughter of 100Os of Ukrainians and untold damage to the environment and the climate crisis from missiles and bombs.
Rachel, this essay of yours strikes at the deepest unspoken issue beneath the question of how to create a viable energy transition. So, far, most of the ‘transition talk’ is almost as weak as the “decoupling” argument. It is blind to the material facts of how fossil-fueled economies operate. It even goes beyond the devastation of the additional mining and other materials extraction for ecosystems and health, to feed the so-called ‘renewable’ energy technologies, and even the resource-driven and other environmental conflict.
There are two fundamental components to the conventional illusions over a renewable energy transition. First, ‘downsizing’ fossil-fuel use as the source of energy for both industry and society has revolutionary implications that seem to escape even the more technically astute commentators. All we have to do is look at the everyday operations of any ‘modern economy,’ and we can hardly avoid noticing that EVERYTHING runs on fossil fuel in some way or other. It is not just about “transitioning” from fossil fuels to “renewable” fuels. It must be about severely reducing the quantities of fuel used. What does that mean for the diverse technologies of production? It means that most of those technologies, including a vast array of infrastructure, become largely unusable.
The naïve conventional framing of an ‘energy transition’ is caught between two approaches to causing environmental destruction instead of reducing it. The missing link: energy conservation. I know, many good folks give the idea lip service, but still drive their SUV to the BIG BOX supermarket to pick up a range of food-like substances, or household products, every one of them wrapped in some form of plastic, much like the content of the package. None of this is viable under a regime of reducing fossil-fuel (and plastics) consumption to near zero (don’t get me started on the “net-zero” scam); that reduction, however, is necessary for controlling the GHGs as well as the ecological damage due to all the activities and institutions that operate a “modern” economy.
The second material change that is inherent in any genuine energy transition consists of the necessary total societal reorganization to cope with having to live without all the infrastructure and technology driven by fossil-fuel energy. That is partly because of the almost completely denied material fact that merely replacing fossil-fuels cannot sustain the extant “technosphere” as it is. As you suggest, that prospect is about as political as it can get.
As a society, we have yet to come to the realization that we will either be forced to change our behavior under the conditions of societal collapse because we failed to heed the material facts, or we will have to mobilize a new great transformation of society itself to reach as close to a “soft landing” as we can. Even then, much chaos and population loss will be unavoidable. The government and corporate unwillingness to give up on fossil fuels—that is in part because they have no idea how to “shrink the technosphere” (Orlov) or to politically organize such an effort.
For the reasons you mentioned, a ‘renewables’ based economy at current or near current scale, would drive international conflicts far beyond their present abominable levels.
We have a lot to do.
This is a powerful and devastating summary of where we are. After quite a time trying to work out where to start with all the different issues thrown up by the poly crisis I have been coming round to an analysis which reflects much of what you write here:
The disease is the accumulation of wealth and power
The symptoms are over consumption, environmental destruction, species loss, increasing climate instability and the consequent impacts on food production, livable spaces, and loss of life through weather events, conflict and starvation.
The vector is an economic system that ignores any factors that don't significantly affect short term profit and projects endless growth on the basis of a short historical period of little more than a century.
As with all diseases we need to block the vector and treat the symptoms - and try not to kill the patient in the process!
Boy - I still have so much to process from the last podcast! Now this article of yours on mining has got so much I need to research!
But on Safina's claims - there are 2.4 billion people that identify as Christian in the world. Many of those would be nominal “Cultural Christians” - like some American that does not even read their bible or go to church - but objects to a Mosque being built nearby.
But if even half of them are serious about Christianity - surely you would want what you say about them and their texts to be correct? Now - Plato’s Dualism has influenced Western Culture - but ironically it’s not so much in the bible as in the Simpsons and modern anti-Christian “spirituality” movements where it pops up more.
The Hebrew bible is thoroughly grounded in the material universe - in the flesh. God declares the world GOOD (7 times in the highly symbolic writing of Genesis 1).
The Hebrew idea of a soul is our capacity as PHYSICAL beings to relate to a non-corporeal spiritual God. Indeed - the word for ‘soul’ is nephesh - and is to do with breath in a throat. It is also used to describe many living animals.
“The bottom line, biblically, is that people don’t *have* souls—they *are* souls. They don’t have *nephesh* they are *nephesh*. And the ultimate hope for Christians is not a disembodied existence living as souls but an embodied existence living in their *nephesh*.”
https://bibleproject.com/podcast/you-are-soul/
Sure - the main story of the bible is about God seeking out a people for himself after the human race rebels against him.
But the environment is there in the background. There are even laws in the Old Testament about not cutting down trees excessively during times of war - Deut 20:19. Contrast this with Roman warfare. The Roman soldier was half soldier - half engineer. A Roman army could march near your town one day. The next day you wake to find a fort built next door and your forest gone! (What an impressive and frightening empire.)
Platonic thought moves into the ancient Gnostic religion. But surely the biggest contrast with this is in the New Testament claims around Jesus himself? This is going to get a bit theological and I’m not being preachy - no one here has to believe this to be an environmentalist. But they at least need to comprehend it so they don’t unnecessarily alienate their powerful WASP neighbours. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant - who unfortunately seem to dominate the business world.)
Gnostics that tried to infiltrate Christianity corrupted some - but were never the majority Christian religion and were rejected as cults early on. We just went through Easter - let’s remember what that is all about to the Christian. The core idea is God took the bullet for us! To do that - he needed to Judge human sin by himself becoming human! The Triune God became Incarnate in his Son - that is - Jesus took on a fully human material body - so that in his humanity he could represent us to take the bullet we deserved.
The Incarnation is profoundly DISGUSTING to a Gnostic! The pure spiritual creator becoming HUMAN - in this dirty corrupted temporary material universe? How revolting!?
Can you see how utterly contradictory the core Christian gospel itself is with the claims of Platonic Dualism and Gnosticism? The Resurrection claims of the New Testament Jesus visited the disciples in a physical Resurrection body. Jesus did not appear like some spooky Simpson’s immaterial ghost - but as a bloke that would start rummaging around in your pantry for something to eat.
So I find it disturbing that Carl Safina is publishing a book with claims this wrong. Indeed - when a trashy airport thriller like Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” gets more right about the Christian relationship with the Gnostics - (and it’s such bad writing and such bad history who knew I would be referring to it to make a point!) - you can be sure Safina’s got it all wrong. Remember how Brown tried to insist the “Gnostic gospels” were these wonderful texts that a Roman Emperor conspired to have banned in the council of Nicea!? The Church did not embrace Gnosticism - but rejected it and the fake Gnostic gospels (known to have been written about a century later) with them. Indeed - there were even “Gnostic Gospel” burnings. I mean - did Carl even read the Gnosticism WIKI?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism
The one bit Safina got absolutely right is that a form of “Dualism” shows up in the modern American church about the tension between working for the good now - and waiting for Paradise / the New World to be Resurrected and upgraded.
Apparently modern American Christians never got the memo that John wrote Revelation to the Christians about to suffer persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire. But the average American evangelical is a bit dim these days - and a bit narcissistic - and just WANTS Revelation to be some code to the next 7 years SO BAD they forget everyone that’s tried to read it that way and made predictions has failed.
Rather, a truer study of “Last Things” is summed up by a famous climatologist. Catherine Hayhoe - who did the TED talk on how to talk about Climate Change (with over 4 million views) - is an evangelical herself - and married to a Pastor. TED talk here. https://www.ted.com/talks/katharine_hayhoe_the_most_important_thing_you_can_do_to_fight_climate_change_talk_about_it
She is the Katharine Hayhoe who fights climate deniers on Twitter all the time. The one who wrote “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World”
https://www.amazon.com.au/Saving-Us-Climate-Scientists-Healing/dp/1982143835
With reviews like:
“An optimistic view on why collective action is still possible—and how it can be realized.” — T*he New York Times*
“As far as heroic characters go, I’m not sure you could do better than Katharine Hayhoe.” — *Scientific American*
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that *Saving Us* is one of the more important books about climate change to have been written.” — *The Guardian*
“United Nations Champion of the Earth, climate scientist, and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe changes the debate on how we can save our future.”
She says there are solid biblical reasons to GET STUCK INTO climate activism even as a Christian longs for the new world. One day. We don’t know when. So we have a responsibility to hand over the world to our kids better than the way we inherited it.
https://undeceptions.com/podcast/good-earth/
I feel like the modern world still accepts Lyn White’s essay on Christianity and the environment - and has not done the scholarship to truly understand what the bible actually says on it - whether or not today’s Trump-voting American Christians have the brains to comprehend it. Just don’t measure Christianity by anything those people say or do - Lord have mercy MAGA types rile me up! https://undeceptions.com/audio/5-minute-jesus-the-importance-of-creation/
Excellent article.
Thank you Rachel for doing what you do. On the topic of "transition", I came across this article from a blogger that I think you and your readers will appreciate. It highlights the bare truth that there has never been an energy transition - showing that every major category energy source has only been growing YOY, including COAL!! Link further down below.
I think, under our GDP driven global concerted growth movement and the political landscape you write of, it is very questionable to what extent a real "transition" actually happens.
https://hipcrime.substack.com/p/there-has-never-been-an-energy-transition?
All I can do is recommend this and write, "What she said." Thanks, Rachel, for writing this so well that I don't need to! It's a great (if depressing) summary of what my presidential campaign is all about.
Hi Rachel. Im grateful for your research and clarity on many of these issues. Lets hope that a genuine climate movement doesnt get hijacked by plutocrats who could then engineer the creation of a Technocratic world system based on a strict control of resources by powerful corporations. Thank you for helping us to see that we all have a role to play in the development of a green movement that benefits the people first and not the power brokers.
Wow. Powerful. Feels prophetic and grounded at this point.
We can partially dematerialize our economes by using extremely energy dense nuclear fuels.
Our present zero-carbon options are:
Plan A Renewables
100% Wind, Water and Solar. Mainly hydro with intermittent wind and solar. Requires large amounts of land and materials and thus large environmental impacts. Many wind towers and transmission lines cluttering the countryside, transmitting unreliable electricity from distant sunny or windy areas.
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/
Plan B Conventional nuclear reactors
Many large nuclear reactors are planned. Nuclear fuels are extremely energy dense so nuclear reactors use minimal amounts of land and materials and thus have minimal environmental impacts.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx#:~:text=Today%20there%20are%20about%20440,capacity%20of%20about%20390%20GWe.
Plan C Molten salt nuclear reactors
Simple, safe, efficient reactor that ran reliably for four years in the 1960s but then abandoned. Many companies are now developing these reactors.
https://www.ornl.gov/blog/ornl-review/time-warp-molten-salt-reactor-experiment-alvin-weinberg-s-magnum-opus
https://youtu.be/27IntvWo4mo?si=HurpM-BUJNM93Dl2
Plan D Micro nuclear reactors
Simplify conventional pressurized water reactors and build 10,000 micro-reactors in factories and truck to installation sites. Abundant, inexpensive, reliable energy independence everywhere. Fast construction with no need for long transmission lines.
https://youtu.be/mbfN_aR-Gno?si=yN3GyQkwgSJmgsDI
Micro-reactors cost about 100 million dollars each so 10,000 cost about a trillion dollars. We propose to spend twice that each year for renewables.
https://climateanalytics.org/press-releases/2-trillion-a-year-needed-to-triple-global-renewables-by-2030-double-current-investment
"equating the loss of fossil fuels to a loss of human rights" wow. i had to pause and think about this for awhile after it sparked a profound insight imo... like, aren't many expectations that many of us have of authorities/government (including "human rights") to ensure rights, welfare, etc. for many/all people actually enabled by living conditions built in a extremely nature-imbalanced, inflated petrol/diesel-supported fashion?
i think this articleblog is a very good reminder, not just about degrowth, relocalizing our way of life, healing the planet and our relationship with nature, but also very important reminder to (as cliche as it is) be better people basically, to be more considerate, loving, strong, and supportive of each other.