Against those who anticipate a smooth, timely transition to renewable energy and net-zero carbon emissions, Vaclav Smil argues that we are much more dependent on fossil fuels than we recognize so that an energy transition will be difficult and tumultuous. “The real wrench in the works: we are a fossil-fueled civilization whose technical and scientific […]
How the World Really Works Read More »
The authors argue that the worldwide production and distribution of food, fuel, and fibre has created a “global production ecosystem” subject to immense simplification, intensification, and control by humans attempting to maximize efficiency. The resulting system is homogenous, highly connected, and has weak feedbacks – “features [that] converge to yield high and predictable supplies of
Anatomy and Resilience of the Global Production Ecosystem Read More »
The authors argue we are increasingly witnessing a new form global crises they characterize as “synchronous failure.” This form of crisis “is more biophysical in origin, more inter-systemic in manifestation, more global in scope, and more rapid in development” (5). The deep cause of synchronous failure are increases in energy throughput, heightened global connectivity, and
Synchronous Failure: The Emerging Causal Architecture of Global Crisis Read More »
The authors argue that the world faces an increasing concatenation of crisis in time and space due to “the increased strength of global vs. local drivers of change, so that changes become increasingly synchronized”, and dense global connectivity, which enables crises to propagate and sometimes sees risk management efforts in one region to become crisis
Are we Entering an Era of Concatenated Global Crises? Read More »
After explaining the shortcomings of other accounts of societal collapses, Joseph Tainter presents his own, universal theory. Societies, he argues, are problem solving organizations that solve an unending stream of problems by increasing their complexity. Each addition of complexity, however, has an energetic costs to create and maintain it. Because societies solve their easiest problems
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