Using AI's projected energy use as an example, time to discuss the intersection of technology innovation and predicting it. Humans are pretty good at the former and bad at the latter.
I also liked this and tink/hope that you are right, though I fear it will be a near-run thing in terms of holding climate change to civilisation-survivable levels.
Much as I support voluntary simplicity and things like permaculture (I did a PDC with David Holmgren himself and respectfully partially-disagree with some of his predictions in the nonetheless useful Retrosuburbia) I think it's simply not possible for our current systems and populations to fold back into an energy decline. I fear we either keep things afloat (while still striving mightily to simplify, frugality and focus on improved efficiency) or the whole great machine will blow up in our faces.
My only enduring fear, though, is that we may be on a kind of treadmill that we can never get off...
I agree that we can't simply drop back into a simpler lifestyle. I'd add that as a species we're inherriently a technological one and the whole of our existance is an ongoing development of tech, culture etc. Our best hope to to shape that impluse into better directions.
Exactly - but with the obvious proviso that it really needs to be appropriate, smart and truly efficient technology (backed by much better economic and other social systems!) and not just big, shiny "high-tech" wizbangs.
That's why I still like permaculture and the reminder that sometimes very old and simple systems and technologies can be the best...we tend to forget that, before the age of fossil fuels and the industrial revolution, energy and resources were so scarce and expensive that you REALLY had to be mercilessly efficient.
So I think we need to create hybrid systems and technologies. I have a simple illustrative example of the future house: solar passive, strawbail or hempcrete construction with double-glazing and great insulation, solar pv (maybe a domestic wind turbine) and batteries....with a productive vegetable garden and a composting toilet (with sensors and microprocessors monitoring it and adding sawdust and stirring as needed!).
I'm sure you get the picture here.
I hate either/or thinking and much prefer both/and approaches...
I also liked this and tink/hope that you are right, though I fear it will be a near-run thing in terms of holding climate change to civilisation-survivable levels.
Much as I support voluntary simplicity and things like permaculture (I did a PDC with David Holmgren himself and respectfully partially-disagree with some of his predictions in the nonetheless useful Retrosuburbia) I think it's simply not possible for our current systems and populations to fold back into an energy decline. I fear we either keep things afloat (while still striving mightily to simplify, frugality and focus on improved efficiency) or the whole great machine will blow up in our faces.
My only enduring fear, though, is that we may be on a kind of treadmill that we can never get off...
I agree that we can't simply drop back into a simpler lifestyle. I'd add that as a species we're inherriently a technological one and the whole of our existance is an ongoing development of tech, culture etc. Our best hope to to shape that impluse into better directions.
Exactly - but with the obvious proviso that it really needs to be appropriate, smart and truly efficient technology (backed by much better economic and other social systems!) and not just big, shiny "high-tech" wizbangs.
That's why I still like permaculture and the reminder that sometimes very old and simple systems and technologies can be the best...we tend to forget that, before the age of fossil fuels and the industrial revolution, energy and resources were so scarce and expensive that you REALLY had to be mercilessly efficient.
So I think we need to create hybrid systems and technologies. I have a simple illustrative example of the future house: solar passive, strawbail or hempcrete construction with double-glazing and great insulation, solar pv (maybe a domestic wind turbine) and batteries....with a productive vegetable garden and a composting toilet (with sensors and microprocessors monitoring it and adding sawdust and stirring as needed!).
I'm sure you get the picture here.
I hate either/or thinking and much prefer both/and approaches...
Great article thank you!
Thanks Caitlin.