Energy Descent Culture

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            This week we began looking at the carbon cycle. After last week’s blog about Bill McKibben, I have been thinking a lot about our role in the carbon cycle. Our constantly expanding population is heavily addicted to oil and fossil fuels. The growth of human population actually corresponds to the growth of our ability to harness energy and use it. There are four options for our future: techno-fantasy, green-tech, energy/creative descent, and crash. Techno-fantasy is the general assumption that we will find the technology to allow for us to continue the growth rate and energy use of today. Green-Tech stability says we can continue at this rate using things like biofuels. Crash refers to the straight-up collapse of civilization. Finally, the energy descent culture of earth stewardship shows a decreasing population and more importantly a descent from fossil fuel reliance. 

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            The norm right now is so far from the energy descent culture. The media blinds us from being concerned citizens. It pushes a greedy, materialistic existence (can barely call it life in the biological sense), leading our society to hold a deep seeded entitlement. Yes, today we can buy more than everything we could possibly need, but the costs we pay are nowhere near the true costs of resources and their environmental/social externalities. Most people generally do not know and they do not care. They do not know where the garbage truck takes their waste (4lbs of solid waste/day for the average US citizen). Where does the recycling go? Where do you fit into this system?

             I do not believe people are inherently greedy or power-hungry; however, I question how we can ‘descend’ from our reliance on fossil fuels without the rich staying comfortable in their ways and the poor being displaced and killed. Will not the people with money continue to pay their way through any social or environmental threats, allowing them to sustain their lifestyle while others suffer? It happens now on a less noticeable scale (if you are not trying to notice). I wonder how the broader public, that believes in techno-fantasy or green-tech, could be brought into the conversation? How do we make this relevant and important to them? How do you make a culture that is generally self-centered, think about something so much bigger then them?

            Looking closer at the sloping down curve of ‘energy descent,’ I question if this is saying only the privileged will survive and everyone who does not know or care about sustainable living is doomed? Will changes happen when they really need to happen? Can we begin before it is too late, helping that transition happen smoother? It will involve two big parts: one is building the necessary infrastructural systems in place to make living sustainably easier for the layman, second is changing how we relate to one another to minimize inequalities and to create an atmosphere where we are dependent on each other and not on fossil fuels.