— Herbert Stein
The article is an exerpt from Vaclav Smil's latest book (he has many[2]), How the World Really Works, excerpts, reviews, and interviews of which are appearing in multiple publications.
In a world often divided into technological optimists and pessimists, Smil is someone I consider a technological realist. He focuses on what technology has wrought, here focusing on four specific material contributions, steel, concrete, ammonia fertiliser, and plastics. And a clear message is that if these are solely dependent on fossil fuels then we cannot continue in the same path as we have been without them.
And in a world where we're unable to continue exploiting fossil fuels, whether due to the environmental impacts of their waste, or the lack of future supplies, the present mode of operation will end.
What that means in terms of the set of factors affecting human impacts on the planet --- per-capita wealth and total population --- one or both factors must move.
I've been looking at this question reasonably intensely for about a decade, and in a more general sense since the 1970s, when I first became aware of concerns over energy, pollution, and population in the Zeitgeist of that era. One fact I've become uncomfortably familiar with is that there's a great deal about the issue which has not changed appreciably, most especially as concerns the set of options for energy and resources, though there's been some specific progress in areas: computing and communications capacity, solar PV and LED costs, battery technology, and easing of food/population concerns have been among the largest.
A chief concern though is that political barriers to effectively addressing the problematique in a manner that avoids catastrophic outcomes seem extraordinarily stubborn. I strongly recommend the works of William Ophusl, notably Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (1977, 1994) and Plato's Revenge (2011).[2] Thomas Homer-Dixon is a political science scholar who seems to be continuing the work: https://homerdixon.com/
Global responses over the past two years and counting to a known threat for which well-established response plans existed have made me increasingly pessimistic over how well-prepared we are for the future obligations of a post-carbon age, or its alternatve, a greatly-warmed world.
My own background is a mix of physics, environmental studies, urban economics and planning, and economics. That's given me an awareness of capabilities and constraints, but also of what how economics operates. In particular, economic interactions are largely driven by the relative apparent costs between inputs and options. As fuel-based energy has become vastly less expensive than in previous phases of human development, most especially over the past 200 years, energy has replaced other inputs, and made possible and viable practices, applications, and knowledge, that were previously unattainable. As those energy sources increase in costs, including both sourcing and consequence costs, those economics will change in an absolutely dramatic fashion.
One of Smil's earlier works, Energy and World History, is among a handful of books which looks at history through the lens of energy sources. Smil (and other authors) divide human time into four periods: hunter-gatherer, agricultural, fossil fuels, and post-fossil fuels. Each is a strongly distinct period, with what are effectively singularity-transitions between them. Changes in energy regimes have effects greater than all but the most cataclysmic astronomical events --- both on the way up and down.
In his introduction, Smil writes:
This book is an attempt to reduce the comprehension deficit, to explain some of the most fundamental ruling realities governing our survival and our prosperity. My goal is not to forecast, not to outline either stunning or depressing scenarios of what is to come. There is no need to extend this popular --- but consistently failing --- genre: in the long run, there are too many unexpected developments and too many complex interactions that no individual or collective effort can anticipate. Nor will I advocate any specific (biased) interpretations of reality, either as a source of despair or of boundless expectations. I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist; I am a scientist trying to explain how the world really workds, and I will use that understanding in order to make us better realize our future limits an opportunities.
If you can handle the truth, or don't have access to its alternatives, read this book.
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Notes:
1. https://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=au%3As...
2. https://www.worldcat.org/title/ecology-and-the-politics-of-s... https://www.worldcat.org/title/platos-revenge-politics-in-th... Also available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/search.php?query=william%20ophuls