Once upon a time, Richard Heinberg was a mild-mannered
college professor in northern California.
In 1998, he happened to read an article in Scientific American that revealed the
peak oil theory. A small clan in the
lunatic fringe had been discussing the notion, but it was now being yanked out
of the closet by a number of retired petroleum geologists — respectable experts
having front line experience with an increasingly ominous reality.
Peak oil was terrifying.
The geologists were telling us that our way of life was racing toward
the cliff. Dignified ladies and
gentlemen naturally swept it under the carpet, because the notion was certainly
impossible in this age of techno-miracles.
Anyway, the anticipated calamity was still 20 or 30 years away, so there
was no need to think about it.
In 2003, Heinberg published The Party’s Over, which explained peak
oil to a general audience. Since then,
he’s made a career out of exposing the dark side of growth, progress, and other
mischief. Eventually, he left the
university and joined the Post Carbon
Institute. His message is that
resource depletion, climate change, and economic meltdown will blindside our
way of life in this century. He suggests
that now is a great time to pay closer attention to reality.
Decades of explosive economic growth were only possible
because of cheap and abundant energy, abundant high quality mineral resources,
and highly productive oil-powered agriculture. Today, the perpetual growth monster is kept on
life support by pumping it up with trillions of dollars of debt. Back in the 1960s, a dollar of debt boosted
the GDP by a dollar. By 2000, a dollar
of debt boosted GDP by just 20 cents.
Today, the tsunami of debt is creating a new stock market bubble, and
its collapse may be worse than the crash of 2008. The notion that “growth is over” inspires the
titans of finance leap from tall buildings.
Well-paid goon squads of spin-doctors are effectively
conjuring doubts about peak oil. What
they don’t mention is the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI). A century ago, it took one calorie of energy
to produce 100 calories of petroleum.
The EROEI was 100:1. Today, the
EROEI of U.S. production has plummeted to 10:1.
Tar sands, oil shale, and biofuels all are less than 5:1. Most fossil energy will be left in the ground
forever, because of low or negative EROEI.
Imagine having a job that paid $100 a day, but the bridge toll for
getting there was $105.
It’s already too late to cleverly pull the plug on climate
change and live happily ever after. Our
current strategy, ignoring the problem and denying it exists, is the preferred
policy of our glorious leaders. It might
be possible to soften the worst-case scenario if we reduced our fossil fuel
consumption by 80 to 90 percent by 2050, a daunting challenge. The transition to renewable energy will be
turbulent, because of its numerous shortcomings. For example, trucks, planes, and agriculture
cannot run on electricity. Many uses of
oil have no substitute.
Welcome to the subject matter of Heinberg’s latest book, Afterburn. We’re living in the final decades of a
one-time freak-out in human history, the Great Burning. For two centuries, we’ve been extracting and burning
staggering amounts of sequestered carbon, for no good reason. What were we thinking? It’s nonrenewable, so using it as the core
energy source for industrial civilization could only have a crappy ending. For thousands of years, Arab herders traveled
across regions containing oceans of oil, left it alone, and enjoyed a good
life. Self-destruction is not mandatory.
The book takes readers on an up-to-date tour of the unintended
consequences of the Great Burning, and presents reasonable arguments for why
it’s moving into the sunset phase. The
final chapters of Afterburn
contemplate life after the burn. What
can intelligent people do to prepare for a way of life that will be far
smaller, simpler, and slower?
In the 1930s, a Nazi control freak named Joseph Goebbels revolutionized
mind control via high-tech propaganda.
This was made possible by the latest consumer fad, radio. One person spoke, and millions listened, day
after day. Today, with the internet, and
hundreds of TV channels, many millions are speaking at once, presenting a
fantastic variety of viewpoints. Truth
(if any) can become a needle in the haystack.
Many huge ideas have been born in the lunatic fringe,
presented by heretics like Galileo and Darwin.
At the same time, the fringe produces oceans of idiotic balderdash. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the
mainstream world, where the one and only thing that matters is ongoing economic
growth. Other issues, like climate
change and resource depletion, are nothing more than annoying distractions that
must be stepped around.
Heinberg is interesting because he camps in the no-man’s-land
between shameless mainstream disinformation and the wacko hysteria of the
fringe. He’s a likeable lad, and a clear
writer who makes an effort to be respectful and fair-minded. Until recently, it’s been compulsory for eco-writers
to include hope and solutions, even if they’re daffy, because bummer books
gather dust. It’s encouraging to see an
emerging trend, in which the emphasis on hopium is becoming unhip, and readers
are served larger doses of uncomfortable facts with no sugar coating.
Afterburn
includes small servings of magical thinking, but overall it lays the cards on
the table. A way of life can only be
temporary if it is dependent on nonrenewable resources, or on consuming
renewables at an unsustainable rate. An
economy requiring perpetual growth is insane.
Nature will fix our population excesses and eliminate overshoot. The lights will go out. All civilizations collapse. Ours will too. We won’t be rescued by miraculous paradigm
shifts. The biggest obstacle to intelligent
change is human nature. Folks with food,
money, and a roof don’t worry about threats that are not immediate. There is a possibility that humankind will no
longer exist by the end of this century.
And so on.
Yes, things can look a little bleak, but don’t surrender to
cynicism and give up. We can’t chase
away the storm, but we can do many things that make a difference. Learn how to do practical stuff, like cook,
sew, and garden. Become less reliant on
purchased goods and services. Develop
trusting relationships with your neighbors.
Today is a paradise for folks interested in changing the
world. Imagine cool visions of a new and
improved future where we could nurture cooperation, eliminate inequality,
mindfully manage population, and minimize environmental injuries. Unfortunately, visioning is limited by the
fact that the future is certain to be radically different. What can we say for sure about 2050? I remain stubbornly confident that there will
be sun and moon, mountains and oceans, bacteria and insects.
When civilizations die, most or all of their cultural
information also dies. Today, much of
this information is stored in electronic media, or printed on acidic paper that
has a short lifespan. Heinberg believes
that it’s essential to protect our books, because they are vital for cultural
survival. He fears that the amazing
achievements of the Great Burning will be forgotten. “Will it all have been for nothing?”
A far better question is, “What cultural achievements would
we want to be remembered by?” During the
Great Burning, we’ve learned so much about environmental history and human
ecology. We are coming to understand why
almost every aspect of our way of life is unsustainable. (Our schools should teach this!) The most valuable gift we could give to new
generations is a thorough understanding of the many things we’ve learned from
our mistakes, and the mistakes of our ancestors. They need a good map of the minefield.
Heinberg, Richard, Afterburn
— Society Beyond Fossil Fuels, New Society Publishers, Gabriola
Island, British Columbia, 2015.
The book’s introduction
is HERE. Two other reviews of Heinberg books are Snake
Oil: Fracking’s False Promise and The End
of Growth.
6 comments:
Hi Rick, Thanks for the review. I agree with you about the 'real question', though it's hard to be hard on Heinberg, he has given so much of value during the last few decades.
"They need a good map of the minefield."
There is an old Hassidic saying that a guide is merely one who has been lost in the wilderness long enough to point out which paths NOT to take.
Hi Dharmagaian! I’ve been loosely following Heinberg since the modem era, when he was writing his Museletters. I’ve read five of his books. There were a few paragraphs in this book that annoyed me (like every other book does), but the overall quality of the message impressed me.
I suspect that many or most annoying things are driven by publishers, who are wary of printing stuff that is hopium-free or too challenging for suburbanites (not good for boosting sales). In our culture, I sense a strong “don’t scare the children” tendency, especially in education.
Howdy Riversong! Yeah, some of our best teachers are those who show us how NOT to do it. Also, our own mistakes are rarely forgotten.
you might review mary summer rain- as she deals with the similar issues, but has managed to assemble stories in the carlos castanata style.
Hi Anonymous. Mary Summer Rain is a writer with a dubious reputation. Thanks for the suggestion.
Mary Summer Rain
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