Question Everything

Once again into the energy quagmire

Harold Morowitz wrote: "The flow of energy through a system acts to organize that system." (emphasis added).

In Morowitz's statement the word 'acts' doesn't mean causes, as in causes specific organizing work to be accomplished. Rather it means enables work to be accomplished which can result in higher organization. In fact, the flow of energy through a system enables all possible work, both work that results in greater organization and that doesn't. What makes a system tend toward higher organization is that useful work, in this sense, provides the internals of the system with greater stability. More sub-systems acquire longevity and chaos is driven downward (though never eliminated). The fundamental selection force is for systems to find their minimum energy state, to settle. But, of course, in this world we are far from a steady-state for all systems. There is still far more raw energy which is available to capture once a subsystem comes into being that can use it to do useful work (e.g. think of the evolution of chloroplasts).

The key to understanding the way the world works, in general, is to recognize that it is the flow of energy that enables everything to happen. Everything. This is not as well appreciated as I think it should be. The fact is that absolutely nothing moves, develops, or grows without the flow of energy being involved. New potential subsystems, like life, may come into existence by virtue of the noisy jostling of existing systems, but if those subsystems prove beneficial in terms of energy capture and use, they will out compete other systems that are less able to use the flow of energy.

Our entire world is what it is today because of the flows of energy acting over billions of years. The sun has been the major source of energy flow in the form of sunlight, particularly light within the band of wavelengths that make it though the atmospheric optical window (energy is also available in gravitational forces through tidal effects and from geothermal heating due to gravity and radioactive decay in the core and mantle). Some of the photons within this spectrum are able to drive chemical reactions. Of special interest are those reactions that lead to energy stored in chemical bonds. Probably of greatest interest to us are the bonds of carbon chemistry that eventually led to the origin of life. Subsequent to that was the development of photosynthesis in which a narrower band of photon energies drive the production of carbohydrates and free oxygen. Carbohydrates can then be recombined with oxygen in a controlled exothermic reaction to produce the energy currency used by cells to drive metabolism. The sun is the primary source of energy flow through living systems. It is also what enables evolution to pick the most successful energy using processes. Success, here, means extending the genes to the next generation and displacing some less qualified genes. The only way that can be done is by being more competent at acquiring more energy flow.

Human beings have extended their own metabolism into the world external to their own bodies. All animal life depends on obtaining its low-entropy resources (materials and energy) from other living (or recently living) sources. Humans started out as hunter-gatherers. Their total energy intake came from plants and animals. One early trick they learned, when the climate turned cool, was to use animal skins to help retain heat (as warm-blooded animals, internal temperature must be kept within a narrow range and if it falls the body starts using up energy reserves to warm up the core of the body). Then they learned to control fire. This latter allowed them to routinely eat cooked foods from which they acquired a greater number of calories per unit weight of foodstuff. In other words, humans were on track to increase their energy flow such that they were more successful at surviving and procreating (including successfully rearing a significant number of their young to sexual maturity).

History is largely written on the acts of finding new ways to produce more energy flow (burning wood, agriculture) or conserving energy (insulating shelters, better clothing, tools in general). Agriculture was certainly a major burst of energy flow and included the ability to build surpluses of energy resources for future use in the form of granaries and domesticated food animals. The industrial revolution produced what must have been the biggest single burst of new energy in the form of fossil fuels (mostly coal). Coupled with the invention of machines that could make effective use of this energy flow, mankind had discovered the ultimate in energy potential. Machines, using fuels, can make the things that humans need (like clothing and plowshares) and saving human muscle power. The fuels allowed this work to be done at a much faster rate than humans could do by hand alone. The comparison between the ordinary real-time solar input through photosynthesis (and primary consumers eating the plants to become food themselves) and the condensed, fossilized ancient solar input is stark. The energy flow provided by foods from photosynthesis could not begin to match the power supplied by the fuels.

Today the economy is an energy flow system. Goods are produced and moved anywhere on the globe we see fit. Gigantic machines extract our fuels and other gigantic machines use the power from those fuels to do economic work. At the base of all human activity in many parts of the world is the modern industrial agricultural system with its massive inputs of fossil fuels. Fertilizers and tractors/combines, and all other farm equipment with their energy requirements make the kinds of high density food production we have now possible.

There is not one economic activity that you can name, not one, that does not involve high power energy flow. The machines we use to do this work require very high input potentials (e.g. high pressure, voltage, temperatures) to do their work. Fossil fuels work really well for this purpose because they are the concentration of, literally, millions to billions of years of concentration of sunlight through photosynthesis produced carbohydrates and metabolism produced fats and proteins being sequestered, pressed, and cooked to their current forms. The energy density of an average piece of common coal is 24 megajoules per kilogram. Light sweet crude oil, by comparison has roughly 45 megajoules per kilogram (biological fats can have as much as 38 megajoules per kilogram but it takes considerable land area and time to produce that kilogram!). In part this is due to oil containing far more hydrogen per unit weight (which is why coal is so much more a source of carbon dioxide when burned, per unit weight). Additionally, due to their chemistry their ability to release their energy content in a short period of time leads to highly concentrated heat, noted by the high temperatures of the reaction, which is the characteristic needed to drive our machines.

The power density of sunlight is about 1.4kW/m² (on a good day!). Now don't take this too seriously as it is just a rough calculation, but it should give you some idea of what we are up against in thinking about real-time solar energy as an alternative to fossil fuels. Suppose we could capture and concentrate every bit of that power over every second for one hour (power density is an instantaneous value, but humor me here). That would amount to about 5.04 megawatt-hour/m² of energy. If concentrated by mirrors we could focus it on a boiler to generate high temperatures and boil water to produce steam and drive a generator (say). Now that piece of coal would produce the high temperature and 27.8 megawatt-hour and in a lot less time than one hour!

Another, simpler, way of saying it is that you can walk around in sunlight (low power density) but you can't walk around in a coal-fired boiler. OK it's maybe a bad analogy but I hope you get the idea. Fossil fuels represent an incredibly dense energy source that has been matched to our machines for over one hundred years. Sunlight (and wind energy driven by the sun) requires a huge expanse of area to collect equivalent amounts of energy per unit time. And it has the extra deficit in that it is intermittent. It requires substantially more area to collect a surplus while the sun is shining and then storage to hold the surplus.

All of the schemes for alternative energy sources basically fall short of making up the kind of energy flows that our current civilization demands, let alone what will be demanded if we conduct business as usual and grow the economy. I know there are a large number of techno-believers out there who have taken for granted that technology and sunlight will preserve our consumptive ways. But how many of them have actually run the numbers? How many of them have actually built or designed an alternative energy system? If it shows up in Popular Science or Popular Mechanics it must be real, right? I don't like being the bearer of bad news, or the buster of someone's techno-bubble, but what you read in the press is almost surely wrong and what you read in the tech journals is likely leaving something important out. Recent announcements of huge increases in solar photovoltaic efficiency, for example, fail to mention that the technology shows promise but, oh, by the way, requires high energy cost components (like rare earth dopants) and manufacturing processes that might not scale very well. People read the press announcements and say to themselves, "There that will solve the problem!" No need for critical thinking, huh?

That isn't to say we shouldn't be pursuing alternative energy projects. We should. But we need to face a reality. Alternative energy sources will never replace our current fossil fuel infrastructure. They will, however, if properly done, provide a stable, sustainable source of energy for a much scaled-back civilization that has learned to use energy appropriately.

We are now, finally, as a society, recognizing the implications of generating so much CO₂ from our power uses. We know we must somehow cut back. Furthermore, we are beginning to realize that our fossil fuels are dwindling. Indeed we have come to recognize that it is taking more and more energy just to get those dwindling resources. We have a diminishing return on our energy investments in new energy. At some point it will become too energy expensive to get the next unit of oil or coal out of the ground and the fossil fuel age will be at an end. We need the alternative infrastructure in place by that time, just to survive.

Unfortunately there is another serious problem to solve. The number of people in the world and their current consumption rates are so staggering that it is inconceivable that we would ever be able to replicate the combined fossil fuel and all other energy sources with just alternative energies. According to Earthtrends data, the average per capita per year consumption of energy from all sources is about 300.4 kilograms of oil (equivalents) or 7,209.6 megajoules. High income countries consume about 683.3 kilograms per capita and the good citizens of the US consume about 911 kilograms oil equivalents per person per year. If we were really honest about our development goals, we would see that if every person on earth consumed at the high income rate of 683.3 kilograms, with 6.7 billion people we would need the equivalent of 4.6 trillion kilograms of oil (4.6 x 10¹⁵). Do you begin to see the magnitude of this problem.

We can never have a world in which there are this many people consuming that much energy. Even if you argue that we can reduce our usage through efficiency and cutting out all frivolous products to, say, 50% (a very unrealistic assumption), we would still not be able to physically accommodate people at what most would consider a desirable material life. If we want our successors to have a chance at a halfway decent life, we will need to have a lot fewer successors living on this planet.

Lately we humans have been meeting a lot of inconvenient truths. Global warming, peak oil, water and soil depletion, all the results of our own foolish ways. Overpopulation is just another in this series. But it is the one that touches all of the others. When peak oil hits and we are on the downward slide the amount of energy per capita available will decrease at an increasing rate. It will eventually fall below the world average but it will do so by pulling down the rich countries the most. The poor countries rely less on oil and coal, though their reliance on local sources, mainly wood, will soon lead to depletion as well. We are all going to be very much poorer.

Suppose we were to begin right now to use our remaining fossil fuel resources to do a massive project to build as much alternative energy infrastructure as we possibly can as quickly as we can. All of us would have to sacrifice a considerable amount. We would all need to pay taxes to fund this effort since the government is basically bankrupt. A sales/carbon tax is my favored approach, but that is another story. The effort would have to be coordinated by a sapient governance (scroll down to July 20 to start reading the series) process so as to not waste energy and time. If we adopted the attitude that our sacrifices would be for the good of our successors and got to work immediately, then our successors might just stand a chance.

More likely we are going to cling to the notion that we can have our cake and eat it too. We will stubbornly hold onto our delusions of grandeur. We will struggle mightily to keep the current version of the American dream alive. But in the end it won't work and we will realize too late that we blew our chance. And evolution through natural selection will do its work.

A creative solution for the car makers

Here is a wild idea. Rather than bail out the auto makers, the government should buy up all their stock and give it to the employees! Take the companies private and let the employees own the assets. They can then hire whatever management they think will fix the companies. Maybe the union leadership can supply management or at least consultation. This could be accomplished in Chapter 11.

In other words turn the car makers into employee owned corporations. The government can supply the capital in a form of either a loan or, better perhaps, a stake in the companies. The employees can kick out the current management or keep them if they want (or for continuity).

The working principle here is that the employees know better how to run the companies than do the current management. It's a plausible argument. But, perhaps as important, their jobs then depend on their making good decisions. The workers often complain that the companies are in their precarious situations because of bad management. Well, that must mean they know what good management would be. This plan would test that hypothesis! If they do, they keep jobs and rewards from profitability. If they don't then the market will decide the outcome. At the very least it would buy time to give them a chance. It would prevent millions of workers from being laid off in the short term while not rewarding the managers who should go.

If we are determined to throw money (borrowed at that) at problems, let's at least do it with some long-term perspective. It is altogether possible that an employee owned car company could make sweeping changes and start building cars for the new energy and climate realities. It is also possible that they will reflect on their own insistence on encumbering the companies with work rules and benefits that look fair from the perspective of a wage-only employee, but may look very different to someone who is making an income from profitability. At least that is an option they will have if the companies survive for now.

But something like this is not likely to occur to any of the old school who are currently making the decisions about how best to stop the bleeding. They only know one thing: the economy is unhealthy if the GDP is shrinking and the economy is driven by debt-based consumer spending. That mind set will make it nearly impossible to come up with creative solutions that might actually work. Oh well.

Well, aren't you special?

I loved the Church Lady (yes even the Church Lady has a page on Wikipedia!) on the late '80s Saturday Night Live. I mean, of course, enjoyed the persona portrayed by comedian Dana Carvey. She (he) had a great shtick whenever someone would say something she didn't find amusing she would utter those words; "Well, aren't you special?" to deride the ego of the other person.

While Church Lady might have meant it as a put down, it really is a question that should be asked of everyone who asserts their rights, especially when the exercise of those supposed rights actually inconveniences or harms others. In my last blog about the "Plan", I introduced the idea that there might really be no such thing as natural rights as normally assumed by humans (note: John Locke, the philosophical thinker credited with much of the thinking borne in the Constitution actually described the natural right to "defend" one's self and family rather than direct rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). A right is a capability endowed by laws and kings or taken by the biggest dude on the block. They are not things that nature has imbued us with. What nature gives us is capacities to act in order to survive and procreate when the opportunity arises. It doesn't guarantee that we can actualize those capacities. We could be eaten by lions or fail to attract a mate. We evolved a higher statistical likelihood of exercising those capacities but no certainty that we would.

Unlike prior commentators on rights and liberty and such, who have argued that rights are endowed on humans by God (inalienable), and are therefore unimpeachable (when rightly understood in terms of who they applied to, e.g. slaves were not people) I want to question this received wisdom. Since we are the product of evolution, and as indicated above, have no rights other than to attempt to satisfy our biological mandates, how can we argue that we, as a species, have "natural" rights to anything but the right to try? Where does it say we have the right to go shopping, or for that matter the right to due process? And even the right to attempt to satisfy our biological mandates has to be tempered with understanding that under some circumstances that right can be seriously curtailed. Many societies commonly take away the right to attempt to survive when they put someone to death for a heinous crime, or when they send them off to war. Many societies have curtailed the individual's right to procreation at times. The possession of rights is highly situational.

Some people have started to take the argument based on natural rights in the opposite direction, proclaiming rights for non-human actors. Pointing out that since we are a product of nature, and if we have rights, they then claim that all of nature should have rights as well; for example steers have the right to not be eaten (or at least not be treated cruelly), or trees have the right not to be cut down. I submit this is a fuzzy-headed argument that fails to recognize the nature of nature. Nature doesn't give rights to anything in the first place. It gives opportunity to succeed or fail. If an individual succeeds its genotype is passed on to the next generation. If it fails, that is the end of the line.

In other words, it is all evolution. And evolution does not endow rights. Furthermore I strongly suspect there is no higher power that intervenes on behalf of a particular species to grant rights that allow that species to do irreparable harm to the rest of nature, and ultimately to itself.

And therein lies the crux of the Church Lady's question. We aren't special, at least not in terms of so-called rights in nature. The species has to play by the same rules all other species have played by. No special privileges.

If not the species, then what about individuals. Why do some people think they are special and have rights to do things that others don't have? Why is there class structure in human societies? Why do some people feel they are entitled to run red lights, or speed, or cut you off in traffic so they can get ahead? Why do some people feel that they have the right (earned or natural due to class) to control large sums of money (energy) for their own selfish purposes when there are millions who go hungry? Why do some people believe that they have the right to ignore facts and live by their ideology?

Some individuals do harbor a belief that they are somehow not subject to the same laws or the same constraints as everybody else. Some people will aggressively assert their right to not play by the rules most others have agreed to. Most people try to cooperate and get along and follow the rules. But some don't. And that kind of thinking pervades our species-centric way of looking at our status on the world. Somehow we think we are special. We strongly believe that we, as humans, are more special than anything else in nature. This is the basis of the notion of humanism. When push with nature comes to shove, we get to win. I argue that that is nonsense. We may be unique but we don't get to rewrite the rules of the Ecos to our advantage.

Now lest you think me heartless, especially on the issue of whether or not we have rights to not starve, or have clean drinking water and such, let me hasten to make a clear distinction between our faulty assumptions about natural rights and those granted by ourselves to ourselves by acclimation. As a social species we have evolved a cultural stance on taking care of one another which is quite natural (OK then you can say 'see, we do have natural rights!' But the way the word natural is used in the ordinary sense of natural rights implies the rights exist outside the intentions of humans). This should be seen as the source of rights of any kind. We grant rights to ourselves because we need to take care of one another and thrive as a species whose adapted fitness is through being social and caring of one another. We are following the rules of nature in this sense. We evolved these natural moral sentiments (both the good, empathetic side and the bad, retribution and we-them side). As far as we live by them we grant to one another, within our powers to back it up, the rights to live within a social order. This, I think, is the real nature of the social contract. Our species is granted the right to defend itself against the contingencies of the Ecos by organizing cooperative societies and supporting one another. But it is not granted the right to abuse the Ecos.

Libertarian views are quite opposite to this. In this view freedom is essentially being able to do as one pleases as long as one does not harm other human beings (unless in self defense, of course). The philosophy is very appealing because it essentially assumes that one can decide for one's self what is permitted behavior and what isn't. And this assumes the individual has adequate knowledge to know what actions might be harmful to others. Well, therein lies the problem. Individuals can't always know what actions they might take will harm others (at distance in space and time perhaps). Take the current position of many libertarians that there is no global warming. It is a rationalization needed to protect their ideas of freedom. It is predicated on the notion that one should be free to burn any fuel any time to achieve ends decided by the individual. It can't be the case that these actions produce a pollutant, in this case CO₂, or that that gas would warm the planet and lead to climate changes that might actually be killing people! In order to maintain one's freedom, one has to deny the science. Libertarian ideology (as held by Alan Greenspan, for example) is at the root of belief in free markets solving all problems. It is based on a desire not to be shackled or constrained in choices. A nice sentiment, perhaps, but totally against the way nature works. Unfortunately many, probably most people actually are libertarian in this sense. Even people who do accept global warming, for example, still believe strongly in free markets and capitalism and freedom for the individual to do the very things that cause global warming in the first place.

Freedom is always a matter of degree. No system is unconnected to the rest of the universe. There are always constraints and feedback loops. And it matters what you are trying to achieve at the whole system level as to how much freedom any component has.

This is especially true in a crowded world. In a city there need to be more constraining laws to protect the whole than are needed in a farming community. If you were the only human in a hundred mile radius, you could drive your car at 100 mph without worrying about hurting others. But you can't do that on a crowded Los Angeles freeway without putting others at risk. One of the clearest dictates of being a social animal is that you need to behave according to the rules.

Still you see drivers trying their best to go far over the speed limit just because they think they have the ability to do so and they think they are special. Every society has its cheaters.

When we consider a society's rights to pursue economic growth we run into a similar kind of problem. Only here it is the societital assertion of rights over the rights of nature to exist and thrive. In truth, neither have rights and both must operate for the well being of the planet. Nature does this naturally! The negative feedback loops embedded in natural (eco) systems provide for a measure of control in the sense of not letting the system get into undamped oscillations that ultimately cause the system to explode (now I should note that there is some question about this with regard to the major extinction events; not all are explained by external trigger events like the comet that supposedly took out the dinosaurs). What is unique and unusual about humanity is that internal negative feedback loops have been largely eliminated such that the human population and consumption rates have gone off the scale. Our numbers are in excess and our consumption of natural resources (along with polluting the land and sea with our garbage and chemicals) for a significant number of us are way in excess, more than making up for the greater numbers of us who live in poverty.

The human species asserted its rights. It made them up and granted them to itself. But it did so out of ignorance and therefore exceeded its own authority. It gave itself dominion over the earth. It told itself it was the ruler of all of nature. Really very arrogant, don't you think? Like the driver that cuts you off to get ahead of you. We have to reassess our so-called rights. We have to reassess our relationship with the rest of the Ecos. It's OK to talk in terms of rights, but there is more to it than what we can do.

There is also what we can't do. And we need to recognize it. For example we can't reproduce indiscriminately. Since we have done so much to decrease the death rate, people are living longer and thus there are more of us at one time, every one consuming, we need to reduce the birth rate accordingly. Actually, since we've exceeded our numbers relative to our natural ecological footprint we need to reduce our population, and soon, through a more aggressive reduction in birth rates.

This brings me around to the issue of responsibilities. We've all been taught the duo — rights and responsibilities. Rights granted are coupled with responsibilities to use those rights in ways that will not harm others. I wish to add that everyone who is granted a right should have the responsibility to be knowledgeable about the effects their exercise actually has on others. I often get the impression today that many people want to enjoy their rights but put very little effort into educating themselves about the larger impact they have. Wilful ignorance seems to be rampant. Take the climate change issue. The term 'global warming' had been out there for quite a while, but it took a dramatic presentation by Al Gore (along with a few dramatic weather events) to start waking people up. Many people I talked to about global warming back in the early part of this decade simply brushed the subject off and did not want to listen to the scientific explanation.

The same is true today for population issues. Most people do not want to educate themselves about things like ecological footprints. They want to continue to have the 'natural' right to procreate, and in order to maintain that right, they recognize it needs to be granted to everyone. Ergo any discussion of losing that right, a necessary consequence of serious population reductions, is off the table.

I'd like to put it back on the table as a matter of responsibilities coupled with the right. People who claim the right to procreate should also educate themselves about the consequences. It is their responsibility to understand the consequences of population growth in an already crowded world. One would hope that knowledge would inform people's decisions regarding reproduction. There is a testable hypothesis in there somewhere. We could sample the attitudes and beliefs of people who have gotten so educated to see if it works.

I am, unfortunately, a bit more pessimistic about this. I see too much evidence that people refuse to become educated and fulfill their responsibilities in so many area that involve them changing their beliefs and behaviors. I have already concluded that the current species of humans is simply not sufficiently sapient, on average, to be able to process that kind of judgment. If I am right about that, then other measures are indicated.

Somewhere along the line either nature or authority is going to put a block on the supposed right to procreate. Nature will do it by increasing the death rate substantially (I consider war to be a kind of natural reduction process). Famine, pandemics, violent weather, etc. are part of the picture in that scenario. If we choose to introduce our own internal negative feedback loops and reduce the birth rates to a point where the population begins to shrink, then we might avoid the harsher program of increased death rates. But even the authority-based approach has its problems. Do we want a dictator deciding to sterilize certain groups? Probably not. Yet waiting too long, until chaos breaks out is inviting a dictatorship of the most ruthless personages. Wouldn't it be far better to begin now to form a sapient governance that can use wisdom to decide the course of action? We have some choices in front of us; wise judgments to be made. Do we have at least the level of sapience needed to make the right call?

What's the Plan then?

As always I hope I am just another nut case with an overly active imagination and a seemingly compelling story — that is totally wrong. But, I feel compelled to tell the story even if it draws ridicule.

I've been gradually working up to the conclusion, reluctantly, that humanity is in a world of hurt from its own lack of wisdom. And that world of hurt is coming to pass a lot faster than I thought just a year ago (when I started this blog). I keep asking questions like: What does it mean that the Arctic ice cap is melting faster than anybody had predicted? What does it mean that oil production seems to have peaked in 2005 and that the rate of ramp-up of alternative energy technology is pathetic compared to the scale of the need (we need something like 10,000% growth in wind power installations over the next ten years just to keep up with growing demand in electricity at current rates!)?

And now, what does it mean that we appear to be on the brink of entering a global depression? I know the economic pundits keep saying it isn't as bad as it looks. But they have been saying that for over eight years and things just keep getting worse!

So my question now is what is the plan?

What's that? There isn't one? Oh, there is one, but it basically calls for doing more of the same stuff we've been doing and crossing our fingers? Wow! That's the plan? That is the best that our great leaders have been able to come up with? Lawrence Summers is one of Obama's financial advisers. We are really in trouble.

Let me see if I can offer some new ideas.

It apparently has not occurred to anyone (maybe just me?) that this so-called recession cum depression is really a blessing in disguise. Rather than scurrying to fix the economy, as all of our elected and non-elected leaders are doing, we should be considering what the fact that it is broken in the first place means, and then fix that. Fixing the economy means, to the economic and political geniuses, getting it back to the way it was before all this mess started. And most people probably agree with that. But that means growing the GDP again. It means consumers borrowing so they can spend and buy junk. It means creating useless jobs so that people can make enough to pay back some of their debt. That is the plan and to me it sounds about as brilliant as sticking my hand in an open flame to warm it up.

No less a pundit than Tom Friedman, in his Sunday column in the New York Times (11/16/08), says that to fix the economy we need to go shopping (echoing GW Bush after 9/11)! He seems to be saying the real problem is a perception of panic not that there really is a problem. In what has to be the lamest observation yet he says, "The equity crisis made people feel poor and metastasized into a consumption crisis, which is why purchases of cars, appliances, electronics, homes and clothing have just fallen off a cliff [emphasis added]." Of course they feel poor(er). They should feel poor(er). They ARE poor(er). Friedman, like so many other formerly wise pundits just can't bring himself to realize that a growth economy is NOT a healthy economy. He and the others have thought this way for so long that they can't see that this economic downturn is a correction. It is really a reassertion of fiscal reality on a deluded populace. He describes four 'chemicals' that have been mixed as never before to create this 'toxic' brew. 1) massive leverage by everybody and their grandmother; 2) globally intertwined business interests; 3) globally intertwined complex financial instruments that no one understands; and 4) a crisis in the American 'toxic' mortgages. What he fails to note completely is the real cause of the suddenness and extent of the meltdown, the decline in net energy available to the economies of the world. We can't do as much work to create the wealth that would have kept us able to service the principal if not interest on our collective debt. Most of all we cannot afford to run a consumption-based economy any longer. Prescribing a fix based on getting back to people spending for junk is just the opposite of what is needed.

Sooner or later people are going to wake up to the fact that the financial gurus and the pundits and the social commentators who used to seem as if they knew what they were talking about no longer do.

The first thing is, you have to recognize that we are actually in the throes of what Jim Kunstler calls "The Long Emergency". Everything is breaking down. The largest institutions are breaking down. Did you ever think you would hear the words, "G.M. may have to go into bankruptcy"? AIG had to be bought up by the government. Now we're told that may not be enough. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. Home foreclosures at record highs. Not enough capital to invest in alternative energies. We may not even have the capital to invest in expanding oil supplies! So when is someone going to notice that things are really turning to s**t in big way?

To be fair, I think some of the brighter bulbs, especially in the newly forming administration-elect, do recognize that there are deep and disturbing patterns of dysfunction in the economy and the environment. They vocally buy into global warming and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They fully realize that the economy is in the tank (by ordinary definitions). But, unsettling to me, they are also calling for a bailout of the 'Big Three' automakers, ostensibly to save jobs. But I think that logic is all wrong. More on that latter.

Emergencies require emergency crews taking emergency actions. Instead we have, at present, the same players who basically created this mess, grabbing what they think are fire extinguishers but are actually fuel containers, and fighting what they think is just a little fire. Put that out and then we will be back in normal operations! And they throw more fuel on the fire! (My comment about Larry Summers above.)

A better analogy would be cancer and the doctors thinking they are treating a stomach upset. Take some bicarb and call me in the morning. The reality is that we need a completely new way of looking at the collection of global crises and reframing the entire disease by finding the root causes and treating those. In the case of virtually every ill that is facing humanity right now there are several inter-linked root causes. Basically it all comes down to greedy human nature (without wisdom to mediate good judgment; remeber Alan Greendspan's incredulaty at how the markets failed to live up to his libertarian expectations?) and the propensity to use up our high-grade fuels making disposable goods and worthless services in the illusion of wealth. Now we basically think everything we've done has been good, and we just want to keep doing it. Only physical reality has caught up with us. The fuel is running out and it hurts.

OK. Analogies and such aside, what is the plan? Given the systemic nature of the emergencies (their interconnectedness), we need to think systemically and go right to these roots to effect a cure that will actually work. It will be painful. It involves people being forced out of their precious ideological hazes and into what is physically possible. Many may have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into reality. So it won't be painless. Which is exactly why politicians can't really do the job. They are always worried about the next voting cycle.

Here's a plan. It will require leadership — bravery en extremis. This will be painful for all of us, perhaps especially the wealthy. But, that is just too damn bad. We've let things go too far and so the contrast between a reasonable standard of living and what we have been spoiled by will be stark. Of course this is only an outline, a brief overview of the kinds of things I think will need to be done. The goal is to do what is necessary to salvage an acceptable level of civilization in spite of the troubles ahead. We either do this of our own volition, or nature will exact its own price and we may not like the result.

First, the economy: The overall objective will be to power down to a steady-state (no growth) economy with sufficient redistribution of obscene wealth to provide a basic fair standard of living to everyone. I make no bones about my moral sentiment on the unseemly disparity between the haves and have-nots in our society. The rich have gotten overly rich and generally on the backs of the lower and middle class workers. This, by the way includes me. I'm not obscenely wealthy. Actually I'm not wealthy at all, but far better off than most. And as soon as the mechanisms for fair distribution are in place I expect to give up a fair amount of what I have (of course my wife says over her dead body!). Just to be clear, I have no consumer debt other than my mortgage. I've always paid cash or used a credit card like a debit card, paying off the bill when it came due (allows a bit of a float as well as convenience). Even autos were paid off from savings. I've been buying small gas-efficient (mostly Toyota) cars since the 70's. So I'm a practitioner of what I preach re: fiscal responsibility!

In what follows I am thinking the overall organization of society will tend toward localization of production, food, clothing, and other staple resources. This will be the most energy efficient way to maintain any kind of economic activities. Certain activities like scientific research may be organized differently, but for now let's look at basic living conditions. So here is what I think FWIW.

For starters, forgive all consumer debt, judiciously. Bad behavior shouldn't be rewarded, but on the other hand the whole society condoned debt-based consumption, so people were just following commonly accepted practices even if they were incredibly stupid. One way to approach this might be to repossess some kinds of durable goods, like big TVs and motor boats, and recycle the materials. Banks, for their parts, should become savings institutions only. Consumers can only make future purchases on cash, not credit. If people save for that special must-have widget and they are willing to forego other purchases then, fine, they should have that choice. But they can't get it to satisfy their immediate desires by the use of credit.

The stock markets should be shut down for the time being (read this very interesting article by Michael Lewis in Portfolio.com). When (and if) these markets are re-opened they should be for marketing stocks as companies need funds and only a minor role in providing liquidity — no speculation AT ALL. Corporations should no longer be given the legal status of persons. Managers and directors need to be held fully accountable for their decisions. Businesses that do not provide essential consumer products, e.g. food, should be ramped down (again the automakers will provide an example). Laid-off workers should be provided with on-going unemployment benefits that will maintain their households as needed. They will also be provided with free education beyond whatever level they had previously attained. This education will NOT BE JOB RETRAINING! It will be general qualitative systems science and liberal arts! It will be geared to get people understanding what went wrong and what need to be done about it. And, perhaps most importantly, cease all advertising, especially that attempting to sell unnecessary products and services. Advertising has been the lubricant that facilitates minds believing they need something that they really don't. By definition advertising has become the means for getting people to buy stuff.

The monetary policy to be developed should be based on a standardized value for the monetary currency. I still advocate using an energy standard. I will be doing some additional research on the notion of using national accounts of exergy — the energy available to do useful economic work — as I have covered in previous posts and in comments on The Oil Drum blogs.

Oh yes, and taxes. There is going to be no avoiding this fact. Things need to be paid for. The aversion to tax increases in this country is sheer paranoid delusion. How does anyone think things they want get done? For free? My salary comes partially from state revenues. Do you want me to work for free? (Well some of my students might think that is what I should be paid!) Taxes will need to be levied to pay for all of the above and below. A progressive sales tax is what I favor. It will help motivate some of the above sacrifices.

Energy: Three basic actions are required. First, in conjunction with the economic issues above, we need to significantly reduce our consumption of non-essential goodies. We are already seeing some consumer electronics companies going down. This is actually a good thing from the standpoint of what is good for the whole economy even if there is some local pain (see above for what to do about job lay-offs). But this includes reductions in many sports and entertainment areas. Reducing the number of movies produced or professional football games played would actually save a huge amount of energy. Stopping production of big TVs and the newest music player and all such personal entertainment products would also help. This is going to seem like tremendous sacrifice to a lot of people. It will seem unreasonable to many, perhaps most at first. But it will happen anyway. One way we crash. The other way, we power down in some kind of planned fashion with measures geared to help those affected by job loss. Perhaps local communities can organize entertainment and sports (amateur, of course) events, like high school games.

The second, next to be initiated action needed is a massive effort to improve efficiencies, particularly building efficiencies, but all process and lighting efficiencies can be addressed. Similarly transportation efficiencies can be improved. It is important to note that improving efficiencies is tricky and cannot be accomplished overnight. Often it will involve replacement of lower efficiency capital equipment (like automobiles) which takes time and 'capital'. Something like a WWII effort to both fund and implement this conversion will be needed, hence, leadership must be strong. On the plus side such an effort is likely to provide many skilled and semi-skilled jobs. No one should expect to get rich from these 'green' jobs or businesses. After all, this is a salvage operation where all wealth is going to be much less.

These two efforts are aimed at rapid and sustained reduction of demand for energy. We should be ready and able to recognize significant reductions in the near term. Lastly, but with even greater need for a war-like effort is the need to produce an energy source infrastructure that will ultimately replace the fossil fuel sources. First among these will be the electric grid and supply. Lots has been written about the build-out of solar and wind sources, so I won't dwell on it here. But I do want to reemphasize that this is not a miracle cure for what ails us. The best we can do is work toward lowering demand substantially and match the lowered demand with alternative supplies. We will all be using a lot less energy overall and a lot less electricity particularly.

Climate: Since the major problem with causing climate change due to global warming is the emissions of CO₂ from the burning of fossil fuels, the above actions on energy should substantially reduce the latter if significant cuts are made quickly. Unfortunately much of the damage has already been done and due to inherent inertia in the system we can expect more climate changes and anomalies in the future. We are unlikely to avoid some significant sea level rise, desertification, weather pattern changes, etc. in the future. Which means a significant part of future energy use will be in doing work to mitigate and adapt civilization to a changed world. This kind of action will play out over a relatively longer time frame than the energy or economic crises so there will be some time to develop our responses. But not a lot. We need to be planning ahead for the necessary work, say, for moving coastal populations to higher ground. Indeed, I expect that adapting to climate change will be THE major activity of humanity for some time to come. Our whole civilization will likely be organized around that adaptation.

Nevertheless, getting off of carbon-based fuels will be the first step in keeping the impacts of climate change from destroying humanity and most of the biosphere — a great die-off. That the latter is a real possibility should be foremost on everyone's mind to add impetus to resolving the energy crisis.

Population: There remain a small number of global warming deniers, a very vociferous but declining minority (even Rex Tillerson - ExxonMobile and George W. Bush now admit that GW is real!). There is a larger majority of people who either deny peak oil, or are simply not educated enough to even understand why there is a problem. But by far the vast majority of people will deny that there is a population problem for the simple reason that everyone believes in their heart of hearts that they have the right to procreate as they see fit. And even if many people sense that there is a problem, and manage to restrict their own reproduction to, say, two children, they still will not be able to get their heads around the dynamics of population growth and its implications.

Humans have assumed that they have the right. This is curious since every creature that has ever lived on this planet has never had the birthright to procreate. They had to earn the right by out competing the competition and surviving long enough to make it count. That is why evolution works. But humans have put themselves above the biological world. They have codified their dominion over the earth and have, indeed, been very successful in being fruitful and multiplying. Only now, we begin to see that it was all an illusion.

It was not wrong to recognize our unique place in the biosphere and our incredible mental capacities relative to the other animals. We clearly are an incredibly intelligent and creative species. What was wrong was the interpretation of that uniqueness and our subsequent development of beliefs in our superiority somehow nullifying the rules of life. Indeed, we came to largely believe that our souls are immortal and therefore we can do anything we want (within the strictures of our social group, of course) while in mortal flesh without consequences in the afterlife. That interpretation and subsequent beliefs and actions were mistakes. We are not, as it turns out, so wise and understanding, and we have blundered into our current state without any foresight. We are just as subject to the rules of life as any creature. The only real difference is that whereas nature provides adequate negative feedback to control populations, we should have been self-monitoring our numbers and self-regulating our population sizes.

It turns out that in pre-agricultural times there actually were several practices that unconsciously acted to limit populations to some degree. Even infanticide has been linked with population control in some so-called primitive cultures. But these were neither strong enough, nor effective enough once agriculture became widely spread. In fact, agriculture created a new pressing need for more people to do the hard work. Slavery and agriculture probably had a lot in common. Working land also required many hands, and children were essential to farming.

Humans have developed the moral sense of inalienable rights. And, anthropocentrically, assigned such rights to ourselves. Rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (which happens to include happily having children) are now assumed even though there is no such set of rights in nature. Our capacity for empathy mandates not letting others suffer so we presume that rights must be maintained. Loss of rights would be seen as causing suffering. And certainly, every individual will assert their own rights. But that is just part of our need to compete. Notice how quickly the maintenance of rights is ignored under the right circumstances (Guantanamo). We've even recently watched otherwise individualist thinking people abrogate their own rights when threatened by terrorists.

The point is that we need to carefully reexamine the notion of natural rights and especially in the case of reproduction. It is really a simple question in many ways. Do the presumed rights of the individual outweigh the presumed rights of a species? I say presumed because neither individuals nor species have any rights in nature. For those who insist that we aren't faced with this conundrum (the population problem deniers) I can only say there is more than adequate evidence that the problem is real, the threat imminent, and the consequences severe is sufficient for any thoughtful person to see the truth of it. If you refuse to look, that is going to make the pain you suffer at the inevitable loss of that supposed right all the more extreme.

Nature will disabuse everyone of the notion of rights if we don't take action.

We need to acknowledge the problem now. And we need to begin taking action soon. Because of the extreme complexity of the issue, linked with human emotions and moral senses the way it is, it isn't going to be easy to come to grips with, but we must. The biology of overpopulation is clear. And while those anti-Malthusians continue to claim that overpopulation has always been proved wrong by technology making it possible to increase without consequences, I can only hang my head in sorrow for the amount of sheer ignorance behind that observation. People have so little understanding of where technology comes from or what is even feasible. They have so little understanding of physical work or where energy comes from and where it ends up. They are guilty of evidence bias — looking for confirmation of their desires rather than reality.

A conclave of scientists, social scientists, ethicists, etc. is needed immediately to discuss the issue and work toward the most humane options for starting a reduction of the global population. There is some point of balance between the total number of people and the per capita consumption rate that will create an optimal ecological footprint for humanity. That may take decades to identify. But it does not take much to understand that we need to begin the reduction right now.

Human nature: The last area to tackle is the hardest; how to manage the human element? With all of the accumulating evidence that human beings are anything but rational creatures (c.f. Gary Marcus' latest book, "Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind" for a rundown on all of the little things that go wrong in human cognition and emotions that foul judgment!) it is clear that the reason we are failing to get to work on solving the problems is that many people don't really understand that we have problems (the cornucopians for example). Or if they do they are certain technology will come to the rescue (the vast majority) even though there is no convincing evidence that it will or can. Consider the average American's response to rising gasoline prices last summer. Rather than recognize that higher gas price was actually a good thing in that it forced people to consume less discretionary travel, hence saved oil and reduced (marginally) the imports of oil, something everyone says is a good thing, people complained bitterly. They looked desperately for someone to blame other than their own profligate consumption habits. Humans can be counted on to mostly only see the short-term situation and completely ignore the global implications. They only care what affects them here and now, and discount their own future steeply. The average human being, as I have said, is not particularly wise or even able to be very wise. And that is going to have to be dealt with wisely.

I have a strong feeling that our experiment with representative democracy is coming to an end. Sapient governance with a council of wise elders at the peak of the hierarchy and mentally qualified functionaries at all other levels is in the offing, I think. Demonstrating sapience and mental capacity is near at hand through neurological testing. Genetic markers for brain development are being discovered as we speak. It won't be long before we can identify objectively those people fit to be philosopher kings. At that time, it would behoove us to organize our governance systems accordingly. Many people will understandably feel they are loosing their freedoms if the authority of a governing system imposes restrictions on them. But it beats the alternative, a cruel, harsh nature versus a compassionate humanism guided by scientifically determined reality. Or if we just let human nature follow its instincts, a dictatorship. It is time for a revolution in human thinking, organization, and governance. Will we have the ability to see it through?

These are the things that I think need to be done. As I said at the beginning I would that this was all delusional thinking on my part. To avoid the pains that I see coming I would gladly accept that I am completely wrong. But I await someone to show me this and not just claim it to be true. Evidence seems to be on my side.

I don't envy Barack Obama one bit. He may have the intellectual horsepower to grasp the problems. He may even have the sapience to guide his decisions in these matters, so far as he can go. The real problem for the president-elect is that he is a politician first and foremost. He was elected. There are expectations for him to solve the problems in ways everyone will see as giving them what they want. And what they want is to go back to the way things were. He will never be able to do that. Not for the long term security of civilization. The fundamentals of physical reality have caught up with us. While a short-term improvement might be possible, if for no other reason than people simply perceive an improvement regardless of underlying conditions, the trend will soon reassert itself. We damned well better recognize it and start doing what reality demands.

Two possible futures and one that is impossible

Outlines of the future are starting to take shape. Taken together, the current various global crises are forces that will shape the future of civilization and humanity. There are two highly likely scenarios as of this juncture in history. And there is one extremely unlikely scenario. Unfortunately, I suppose, for most people's conception of the future, the unlikely one is the one they assumed they would have. There are going to be a lot of very disappointed people over the next several decade.

Let's start with the one most people think is what will be — just like today only more so. That is, the vast majority of people in this world expect that the world of tomorrow will be essentially like the world of today, only the developing countries will have developed and the developed countries will have more toys and services and really nifty new gadgets. Many people have come around to the realization that the power for all of this will have to come from some renewable energy sources. They assume that solar and wind energy will somehow magically replace the current fossil fuels that society runs on now. They sincerely believe that the pattern of cultural evolution that has produced our suburban, motoring, La Vegas world will just keep moving us toward happiness.

But that world will never come to be. First, let's consider the energy flow problem. Our society and the rest of the developed world consume staggering amounts of energy in the form of high quality (meaning high energy density) fossil fuels. There is some small contribution from hydroelectric and nuclear, but the vast majority comes from coal and oil. The magnitude of this consumption is beyond most people's capacity to imagine. Current attempts to install and shift to alternative energy sources based on solar, wind, and geothermal are minuscule by comparison. When reporters state that wind turbine generation grew by 150% last year, it sounds like a lot, but they fail to mention that the generation base to start with was pretty small. Couple this with the fact that alternative energies are dealing with very diffuse (lower density) energy forms, they are largely intermittent (night time!), and the technologies are still relatively short on efficiencies, and you get a much bleaker prospect for what can be accomplished in the short time we have. Alternative energy requires means for concentrating the low density energy into forms that can drive our prime movers (motors and heaters). For example solar photovoltaic generation requires many cells wired in serial form to boost the voltage plus (currently) inverters to change DC to AC for transmission. While that latter could change with the build-out of a new power grid (a smart one presumably), how long do you think that will take. We don't just instantly (like ten years) swap out one kind of transmission system for another. [I know, a WWII level effort could do it. Who will pay and with what?]

Put bluntly, replacing the fossil fuel power sources with alternative forms in any time near what is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change is impossible. I know Mr. Gore thinks we can replace a lot of electricity generation (replacing coal-fired power plants) in 10 years, but he is only talking about a fraction of total generation. Neither Mr. Gore's nor T. Boone Picken's plans take an awful lot of systems integration into account. Both these and most other plans for switching to alternative energy sources assume one impossible thing — that we will be able to build out an alternative energy infrastructure that will fulfill the demand needs of today (or of the future) such that our economic system can happily grow much as it does today (whoops, I mean as it did in the late 1990's).

To be fair, these and other futurists are calling for great reductions in energy uses through improved efficiencies and conservation. They do understand that feasibility involves reducing the energy intensity of the economy. That is, the same amount of economic work (as measured by GDP) being done with less total energy. Energy intensity has gone down over the last several decades. The problem is that the numerator of this computation is GDP, which, as I have noted in blogs-gone-by, is a bogus number. Moreover it has been fudged over the years to make it look better than it would have using methods of years ago. It has been artificially inflated over the same years that intensity has been, supposedly, dropping. In truth we really don't know what the efficiency of energy use has been over the years. But even assuming it has gotten marginally better, how much more efficiency can our work processes obtain? To make a physical process more efficient you have to invest capital into the process. Take automobile mileage (CAFE standards are often mentioned) for example. The automobile companies (if they survive) could improve mileage on their fleets, but they need to reduce weight and size, increase aerodynamics and, perhaps, get a little more efficiency out of the internal combustion engines (ICEs). All of this takes investment in the whole supply chain and time to convert. Then there is the buyer situation. How many people, in these economic times, are ready to just let their SUVs sit in their driveways and go buy a new little gas-efficient car? And, in the end, gasoline efficiency is a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed. Similar arguments apply to all of the usual suspects. Replacing incandescent lights with compact florescent bulbs is a great idea, on the surface. But systemically it isn't the panacea a lot of hopeful people might believe in. Always remember: A local optimum does not necessarily mean a global optimum.

Yet our real energy flow problem doesn't come from slowness to convert to alternative energies (which could lead to enhanced problems from global warming). It comes much sooner than most people recognize because the world's ability to extract that next increment of fossil fuels has already peaked and is headed down. Every year we have less net energy to run our economic engines. Our capacity to pump oil and dig coal has not improved for a number of years now. Not because the technology is letting us down; it is because it is simply getting harder and harder to find and extract the stuff. Each unit of energy (like a BTU or a barrel of specific quality oil) takes more energy to extract. I've mentioned this before or you can go to this Wikipedia article to see why. The combination of declining availability of fuel resources and increased cost to produce each increment (diminishing returns on a diminishing resource!) means we are going to see severe reductions in energy available to do economic work. Indeed, I maintain that a great deal of the current financial and economic crises are the result of already seeing this phenomenon.

The energy flow problem is the thing that is going to hit us sooner than other problems, but the others will be just as catastrophic in terms of maintaining our civilization. Climate change will eventually disrupt our food production, the safety of our costal cities, and who really knows what else — certainly mass extinctions. Water supplies and food shortages will have their own impacts, but they are all tied to climate changes. In short, we are going to have a very different physical world to live in and the transition to that new physical reality has already begun. Our current civilizations, our laws, our institutions, our beliefs, are all predicated on having the physical world we have enjoyed for the past 11,000 to 12,000 years and especially over the last several hundred years of high quality energy from fossil fuels. It is all ending.

So more of today carried into tomorrow? I don't see it.

What of the other two possibilities — the more probable futures?

Given the above scenarios for energy and climate we are left with a certainty regarding population. There will be tremendously fewer people living on this planet in, say, 100 years (it all depends on the rates of change), than there are today. The really big question is how do we get to that lower number? Either we let nature take its course — starvation, thirst, disease, war — or we choose a more, shall we say, humane approach.

Doing nothing and clinging to the belief that things will get back to normal will, with great certainty lead us to the world of Olduvai Theory, a world in which if there are human survivors they will be reduced to pre-holocene status — brutes living in a brutish world.

But choosing to do something is going to be hard (maybe even impossible if my hypothesis regarding sapience is true!). We will have to choose voluntary cessation of reproduction for, perhaps, 90% of humanity! I emphasize the word voluntary because I mean that humanity as a species volunteers. I think it is safe to say that individuals, in general, will not. Clearly this has extraordinary moral and ethical implications. We may not be able to wrestle with them in time to do anything effective. And then Olduvai will be the result. But wrestle with them we must if we are to have any conscious choices to make regarding what kind of society we can have in the future.

The question of overpopulation is debated from all sides. Are there too many of us for the natural world? Is the ecological footprint of humans too large for this planet? It is safe to say that most biologists, indeed most scientists who have looked at the problem, agree that there really are too many now. But my question is what about when the oil runs out? Energy flow is what makes our civilization and population size possible. Without high-grade energy in the form of fossil fuels we could not exist in our current state. As I pointed out above, that is ending. Then the question is how do we support a population of seven to nine billion people (current projections to 2050) without fertilizers (from natural gas and oil) or without tractors (oil)? Also, we are going to have to move billions of people from increasingly uninhabitable locations, intensifying population densities in those areas where climate change has not ruined habitat.

It isn't a question of whether the Earth can sustain 9+ billion people if energy is as available as it is today. It is a question of how many can be sustained on an Earth with only solar flux as its primary energy source (and without further stealing of resources from the rest of the Ecos).

Not only will we need to have far fewer people (some estimates run from 1/2 to 2 billion total) on the planet, but each person will need to consume far fewer natural resources than is currently consumed by, say, the average northern European. In fact there is a tradeoff between consumption and numbers. The fewer beings there are, the more each can personally consume. But there is still a limit on consumption for other practical and technical reasons. For example, our habit of shipping goods and food halfway around the world (so-called globalization) will have to cease.

Imagine a world, in around two hundred years, where there are only about half a billion souls concentrated in climatologically safe regions (assuming there are any), leaving the rest of the world fallow so that nature can undertake a repair of the biosphere. Imagine those people living a comfortable, but not ostentatious life, focusing on mental and spiritual development rather than watching mindless cartoons on televisions. Pretty radical, huh? But I suspect it beats the alternative (Olduvai) by a wide margin. [The reason I couch these scenarios as either/or is that I suspect we are in a chaotic system that is on the cusp of a bifurcation. In such systems there is no in-between.]

The inevitability will soon be clear. Once the world is deep in depression and it is clear that we are unable to muster the alternative energies necessary to re-create the economy of, say 20 years ago, and we are sinking deeper into misery, maybe then people will be willing to make the choices. Or not. As always I admit to being a single individual with a particular perspective and I could be and hope I am completely wrong. Not because I want a future that is just more of this (I personally do feel we are excessive in too many frivolous things) but because I want to avoid human suffering as much as possible. Getting back to the way things were would certainly do that. In my scenarios there would be suffering even with the choice to intentionally reduce our population and consumption. Billions of people will be childless and grieve for the loss of reproductive rights (I will address the issue of rights and responsibilities in the near future). There will be anger and despair. Yet that might be minimized if the public is sufficiently educated by wise leaders.

Perhaps president-elect Obama is capable of becoming a philosopher king of the world. Such leaders aren't elected by a democratic vote. They arise according to the need. Dictators arise according to the opportunity and are usually pretty bad — the antithesis of a philosopher king. The latter are wise (unusually sapient). But, unfortunately, are nearly unknown. We generally get the former (e.g. George W. Bush, with Dick Cheney's prodding would have been the unitary executive, essentially a monarch). But we need the philosopher king, the Solomon of our age, if we are to be led to make the right choices. There is no room for error.

I realize that there are still many, maybe even most, people who will simply reject the idea that the world will be different from what it is today, especially in such radical ways. But as time moves on we will go from one unprecidented or historic tumult to another. We are rapidly descending into a global depression by anyone's (except hopeful economists and politicians) reckoning. This wasn't supposed to happen. We were supposed to develop more and help the underdeveloped nations get to a higher standard (by westerner's perspective) of living. Oil was supposed to flow for years to come. Coal was supposed to be plentiful. The ice caps and glaciers weren't supposed to melt. The green revolution was supposed to feed everybody. But these things that weren't supposed to happen are happening and the things that were supposed to happen aren't. When do you stop clinging to false hope and false beliefs and start working in reality?

What the president-elect SHOULD read

As promised, here is a short list of books I think would help orient Mr. Obama to a reality he may not now perceive. As his transition develops he certainly appears to be gathering conventional (though liberal) thinkers around him. One might reasonably infer that he is therefore convinced that conventional (if liberal) thinking is what is needed. As I have been asserting in these blogs the world is fundamentally changed with a new and developing relationship with the energy flows we have available to do economic work. Conventional thinkers think that when a resource gets too expensive (as oil will surely do over the next ten years due to the combination of peak production and falling EROI) you simply substitute. That, after all, is a law of economics as understood by conventional thinking. But energy flow is fundamentally different from material flows. Sunlight, in real time, is not a substitute for the energy density of oil or coal. The latter got their energy density by millions of years of cooking and compressing organic matter that resulted from sunlight and got buried. I am continually stunned by the seeming lack of understanding (sometimes even by engineers who should know better) of this time vs. energy density issue. People really believe that covering the dessert with solar mirrors to boil water is going to replace all our coal fired electricity plants. See Al Gore's editorial in today's New York Times. What is worse is that people actually believe this can be done virtually overnight. In fact we do need to reduce our carbon emissions virtually instantaneously if we are to reduce the CO₂ concentrations below the 350ppm that James Hansen has called for (see this article). But how realistic is this?

The core problem is our belief that we can have all the energy we need to build all of the toys we desire and produce all of the foods we want (and transport them any distance necessary). This is the crux of the whole climate change/energy crisis situation. Our steadfast belief that we can have it all — no limitations — because capitalism and the unfettered markets of classical economics has already given us such marvels as cell phones and flat panel TVs. We now feel entitled. We have an irrational faith in technology. And when the truth finally catches up it is going to lead to grief and anger at scales such as we have never known on this planet.

This is a turning point in history, as much so as the agricultural and industrial revolutions were. We have to learn to accept limitations on our physical wealth and turn to spiritual/mental wealth as our raison d'etre. We have to learn to live in balance with the rest of the Ecos. There is simply no other choice, other than extinction of course. The President of the United States is the one person who can manage this transition for the planet. And Mr. Obama may rise to the occasion. But he will need to understand what needs to be done. And conventional thinking isn't going to do the trick. So here are some suggested readings that may help orient toward the new thinking that might just get us through this with our souls in tact.

I've divided the readings up into three categories. These readings may disappoint some because they do not include books covering the primary environmental and economic problems themselves; I've assumed that the president-elect has become very familiar with the problems. Rather I am focusing on consequences he may not have considered. They reflect the systems thinking that will be needed to integrate the various problems to see what those consequences might be. The one exception is the category of human nature and lack of wisdom in human mentality. This is an area that actually very few people really think much about. We assume we are smart enough to handle the problems once we understand them. That is why we rely so much on technology to save us. It is also why we have so much difficulty giving up our cherished beliefs in our political/economic systems. A much better understanding of human nature (and I don't just mean how to play the crowd to get elected!) is absolutely prerequisite to any planning for the future.

So let me start with human nature — some things you might not appreciate!

Gary Marcus, a psychologist at NYU, has written a delightful book that might actually cause you depression! He writes clearly and directly to the point that there are a number of less-than-optimal aspects of our minds/brains and consciousness that most of us are happily unaware. The book is called "Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind" (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008). Many psychologists and neurobiologists have been exploring the miss-workings of the brain under various circumstances. What we know today is that our memories are not as good as we would like to believe. We know that our judgment is often badly biased in systemic ways. To put it simply we are not such smart apes after all. We did learn a few good tricks that have made us stupendously different from all other animals and other apes in particular. We learned to represent things and relations with symbols, we developed language and mathematics. These are nothing to sneeze at, of course. Michael Gazzaniga has another book you should read to explore both the good and not-so-good aspects of our uniqueness: "Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique" (Harper Collins, 2008).

Daniel Gilbert's work, "Stumbling on Happiness" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006) similarly shows us that we really don't know our own minds! Gilbert explores the nature of happiness or what we think happiness is relative to what we actually experience. Things that we are sure are going to make us happy (like winning the lottery) one day seem to fail to deliver in the end. We imagine how happy we will be if we just had XYZ (like a huge flat panel TV) only to quickly acclimatize to its presence if we get it. And then we want more. Understanding this phenomenon in human mental life is critical to grasping why the current economic philosophy we live under is just feeding our failure to find happiness.

I like Daniel Goleman's "Social Intelligence" (Bantam Books 2006) for its comprehensive view of how we get along and sometimes fail to get along. He explains a lot of tough neurobiology in a very readable way. Most people would be surprised to learn that so much of their social interactions are mediated at a very deep and non-conscious level.

Marcus makes the point that we are really very flawed thinkers (compared with our self-image as rational creatures) but he doesn't delve into another evolutionary innovation that might be keeping humans from making terrible blunders, at least under the conditions of their evolutionary environment (more than 50 thousand years ago). Sapience, as I have written about, is the brain basis for wisdom. Now I have contended that it just emerged as a potent mental facility not that long ago (between 50 and 150 thousand years ago). Wisdom, itself has been explored over the last two decades by a number of psychologists and neuroscientists. My favorite book on this is Robert Sternberg's "Wisdom, Intelligence, and Creativity Synthesized" (Cambridge University Press, 2003). Sternberg is an eminent psychology researcher who has done a masterful job at distinguishing the nature of wisdom as a mental construct (like intelligence). I also like Howard Gardner's work along somewhat similar lines. If you had to read only one of Gardner's books I would recommend "Five Minds for the Future" (Harvard Business School Press, 2007).

The fundamental idea is that the human brain has evolved a more comprehensive capacity to think about the future and to make judgments (particularly about social situations) that are morally inspired (in the sense that Gilbert explains). Wisdom is based on a special processing competency of the brain (sapience mediated by a patch in the prefrontal cortex) and gaining a lifetime of experiences (a knowledge base, so to speak). The problem for modern man is that the capacity of sapience is still very limited compared with the need for global-scale social life and the complexities of modern life. Humans evolved enough sapience for the tribe but never developed what is needed for the whole planet. Fortunately, like all traits and capacities, sapience is highly variable and is stronger in some and weaker in some. The real question is are there individuals in the population that are sapient enough to tackle our modern world and its problems.

Economics next. As with human nature there are quite a few books I would like the president-elect to read, but we need to be economical here.

If you read nothing else read " An Introduction to Ecological Economics" by Robert Costanza, John H Cumberland, Herman Daly, Robert Goodland, and Richard B Norgaard (CRC, 1997). This book may be described as the systems science approach to economics, with ecology forming the backdrop. But any book where Herman Daly is an author would be good. Daly's influence is to consider the human economic system as simply a sub-system of the whole ecological system of Earth — what I have called the Ecos. His work was heavily influenced by Howard Odum (another must read!) who showed the relationship between energy flows and economic work (among others).

Bill McKibben's "Deep Economy" is another, perhaps more readable, look at the whole issue of a steady-state economy (advanced by Daly). It also ties in with the issues of what true human well being and happiness would be (as mentioned above).

The absolute must read for the consequences of our current conventional thinking about economics is James Gustave Speth's " The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability" (Yale University Press, 2008). Speth is the Dean of the Environmental Sciences and Forestry School at Yale. He has a long and distinguished career in environmental issues and has written about global warming and climate change.

Finally (I promised, only ten) " The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization" by Thomas Homer-Dixon (Island Press, 2008) provides an incredibly insightful analysis of what happens to civilizations under the threat of energy restriction. He analyzes the Roman Empire from the perspective of how their central civilization required increasing flows of energy yet were constrained by the distance and kinds of energy sources available at the outskirts of the empire. He opens the question of how this relates to the whole earth under conditions of restricted oil flow. It is something that a president should think about. Former presidents have indeed thought about oil supplies, from the perspective of maintaining the American lifestyle (America's interests, the rest of the world be damned). But now it is time to think about the world's interest because it is the same as America's interests. We are all on this tiny blue dot together.

I hope the president-elect is a speed reader. These should just whet his appetite. And there are plenty more where these came from. People deeply engaged in a particular activity, like running for offices, have little time to think outside the box, or even to realize that it is necessary to do such thinking. They have little incentive to read outside their realm of interests. The world looks, at a glance, pretty much as it did ten years ago so there is little to prod one to even consider alternative realities to the one we have been used to. But now we know that there are insidious processes at work to undermine our very existence. Yet, until the world starts really looking differently we don't have much prodding us to think more deeply about what may be going on. I would hope that with the energy crisis, the economic crisis (and growing realization that they are related), the financial crisis, and the climate change crisis (among many more) that the world would look different enough now that the leader would begin to question conventional wisdom. Let's hope so. Would that be too audacious?

Now that the dust is settling

How do you change the mind set of a president-elect?

Now that we know who, the questions revolve around what to do.

Let me start with some positive observations about Mr. Obama. I have been circumspect on the central question of Mr. Obama's capacity for wisdom. But I have been reviewing a few aspects of sapience and looking for evidence in Mr. Obama's public persona to see if there are hopeful signs. Happily I think there are some positive things to say. Sapience involves morally-motivated judgment backed up by wide scope systems and strategic thinking styles. It seems to me we can see evidence for the moral imperative in Mr. Obama's addressing of social issues. Likewise, early indications are that he has a propensity to think both systemically and strategically. The scope of his capacity remains a question. Is he a global thinker or a national interest thinker? The latter turns out to be antiquated in this age. That is why the republicans just don't get it.

On the other hand, the early indications are that he is a pretty conventional thinker with respect to many issues. He is starting to put together his transition team and listing candidates for cabinet offices that suggest he buys the standard political and economics mind sets. If Mr. Obama's overall objective is to simply repair our society and economics, to put things back the way they were in Clinton's day, then he really isn't going to succeed and all of this hope will be for naught. The conventional thinkers will want to restore a growing GDP as a sign of health. They earnestly believe that alternative energy solutions will solve the energy independence problem and the greenhouse gas problem. They buy into the notion that we will create all these wonderful green jobs and life will be wonderful.

I suspect those are the sentiments of the vast majority of people who backed Mr. Obama. But if you have read any of my past blogs on the relationship between energy flow and the economy you know that I expect quite a different result. Above and beyond that I have written extensively about the idea that a growth economy is the antithesis of what we need to put the human society in balance with the nature part of the Ecos. The interrelated notions of profit motive, growth of GDP, capitalism, etc. that have formed the basis of classical economic and social thinking are the forces that are killing our world.

So the burning question in my mind is: How can we get the new administration weaned from conventional thinking about the economy and energy and start recognizing that we are in for one hell of a battle just to salvage some semblance of civilization? How do we change a mind set?

The president-elect said three words in his acceptance speech that I was glad to hear. He said, sacrifice and hard work. Does he really understand how much sacrifice we are in for? Does he really understand how much hard work it will take in the future to have a civilization? He has run his campaign on two main ideas; hope and change. Details have been sparse. Hope doesn't change the laws of thermodynamics. Hope doesn't put more fossil fuels in the ground or boost the efficiency of conversion of solar energy past the Carnot limit. Hope will not be enough to get people to stop buying big TVs so they can watch NASCAR races (of course a depression will accomplish that). If he is to lead as president it will take a good deal more than hope and promises of change. It will take actions and most of all understanding.

Does he understand that net energy available to do useful work is now on the decline and that nothing short of a major effort to build alternative sources will stabilize the energy flow? Does he understand that even with that effort there will be significantly less energy available in the future such that we can no longer afford to build junk for fun? Does he understand that our soils are rapidly depleting in quality such that it will take a massive effort to produce food security, throughout the world? Does he understand that climate change isn't just a problem for some future generation but is already having a major negative impact on our world and its biodiversity? Does he understand the relationship between a growing economy and the destruction of our life-support systems?

In his appointments we will see evidence of whether or not he does understand any of these things. If he puts the good ole boys from the Clinton administration into key slots then we will know that his mind set is really no different from the old school. Already, in his economic advisory team, we see the neo-classical thinkers are well represented. Where are the ecological and biophysical economists?

I am going to develop a reading list — the top ten books the president-elect should read before formulating the plans for the nation. Of course, he will be a busy man. No time for the kind of education that would help him avoid making some serious mistakes. But I'll put it together anyway. I'll publish it here so you can at least see the kind of things that I think are going to be needed to lead this world to a feasible tomorrow.