In general, I agree with most comments here even if I might differ on details. I am not sure we are heading for a collapse in any dramatic sense, rather a series of contractions which will play out differently in different places. I also believe that a fragmentation is likely as stated by Walter.
For sure, as I also write, the link between the energy supply and the industrial civilzation is very strong. And fossil fuels supply most of that energy. But it is equally true that there are periods and places where the link is weaker in both aspects. As oil was so cheap in the period from WWII to the 1970s, there was a lot of waste. Therefore, it was also not difficult to combine growth with a reduced use of energy per unit if GDP for a while.
In any case, my discussion on decoupling is slightly irrelevant if you already think it is flawed concept, which it very well might be.....It is more directed to those that still cling to this as a "solution".
But I also find it interesting - and possibly relevant - to disentangle the material aspects of the economy in more detail than broad statements about termodynamics and dissipation and this post is a reflection of my efforts to do so in the context of a new book project I am busy with.
The economy IS energy, as you point out. If Sweden is growing at the same time as reducing energy consumption, well, it's not. Their energy consumption is outsourced somewhere - someone is consuming that energy on their behalf and they have gamed the model to increase their share of the benefits. This is in fact a big part of the strategy of the USA - aside from the fact that they burn vast amounts of energy themselves, they have gamed the model through various forms of occupation so that a disproportionate share of profits generated by other countrys' burning of energy also ends up in their coffers. It's the strategy of individuals in the middle and upper classes as well, all but subsistence tribals. If all those out there making middle class incomes think they are actually creating five or six digits worth of output, of value, they couldn't be more profoundly wrong. What you are doing is tapping into the energy output of all that oil being burned, as we are as a collective. So it's either this, or the data you've sourced for Sweden somehow hallucinatory, and there's a great deal of that out there now. The bottom line is this: there is for our economy the closest thing to a 1:1 ratio between GDP and the burning of fossil fuels as is statistically possible. Also, we aren't going to find a solution to warding off collapse because collapse IS the solution to where we are in our trajectory today, it's law. We aren't going to subvert the laws of thermodynamics and entropy anymore than any other civilization has. We'd have to find an energy source offering all that oil and the system built around it and several more planets like ours to go with it to avoid collapse, and many have crunched the numbers showing why and how this is an impossibility at this stage, and given the properties of oil, probably any stage. Ours was a one-off ride this time around. I personally believe it would make for more interesting, and dare i say potentially valuable, discourse could we move beyond the "what is the solution here?" phase. There isn't one, other than the same solution to a locust plague. All roads eventually lead to collapse, just as they do to death for individuals. And then something comes along to recondense the dissipated energy to new advantage. With the recovery not a process to be measured on a scale relevant to single human lifespans. All signs today place us nearer the juncture of those roads than we clearly prefer. There is a great deal to discuss, all this being the reality.
This is almost exactly what I think - except The Atavist says it better! I have been using input/output analysis on an individual basis for over 15 years now. This is based on kilocalories instead of kilojoules because the US audience is more used to kilocalories. I go through this at length in my first book, The Laws of Physics Are On My Side (2013). One point I would like to add is that when an empire or state collapses, the social organization is reduced into regional polities (Tainter, Collapse of Complex Societies, 1988). Since kinship still operates in class-structured states - as well as rank-structured chiefdoms - as the failed state crumbles, the kinship structure naturally achieves greater importance. Individuals also achieve greater importance too. The tribe is the overarching structure with kin, clans and individuals subsumed into a more connected structure. [Tribalism is a much-abused term. I am using the REAL anthropological term here, not the liberal and rightwing perversion.] Therefore, it is to our advantage to shore up our kinship structures, as well as improve our individual relations to the society around us and in the society at large. In my particular situation in the south of France, I give lots of food away as a way to forge collective bonds and my partner works on the usual social interactions in the village. (Translating between the maire and an ex-pat selling a house to the commune is just one example.) I also do research on landraces, which have a higher probability of adapting to volatile climate conditions going forward than so-called "pure" varieties or the usual hybrids that are based on limiting the "pure" parent varieties. I have lots of success stories by the way.
So . . . we increase our chances of survival by doing what we can in a positive manner right now. For me that means feeding people and developing better-adapted crops. My partner does the social work - which was her career for 35 years before retirement. As France contracts, we should be able to increase our influence locally.
One more point, based on my analysis, is that the US is a hypercomplex society and will be unable to contract. The UK may be in the same boat. France, Germany, Sweden and the rest of the overdeveloped countries seem to just be complex societies and will be able to adapt to contraction of their economies by devolving into regional polities. [Degrowth is a nonsense term. Contraction is the correct term.] If you have a calculus background think 2nd and 3rd derivatives - acceleration and acceleration of acceleration (jerk). If you don't have a calculus background, look at how fast things are spinning out of control. My partner was just in Seattle visiting her grandchildren and the rapid pace of disintegration has sped up considerably since the last time she was there in 2023. Here in France people are hurting because of the inflation and Macron's poor management, but life is still manageable without high stress levels and daily mass shootings.
Cheers Walter, thanks. My country, Canada is perhaps in the worst postition of a developed nation, or one of the worst. We may become New Romania, and not the more advanced parts of that country, either. (I'm ready with my heavy horses. I'm pretty sure i'm not ready in general ;) We are a complex society 60 or 70% dependent on a hypercomplex society, as you point out - the USA. Honestly, i'm not sure it matters if you are 60% dependent on someone else or 100%. It's likely the same thing. Remove that 60% and you're 100% finished, i suspect.
Taking a step back, the notion of 'decoupling' is that the economy as measured by financial transactions increases at a greater rate than energy use. This definition assumes that material use is a function of energy use.
Efficiency gains (waste reduction) are clearly a one-time effect, as physical laws enforce a minimum energy to perform tasks integral to the physical economy like transportation, mining and manufacturing. Eg look at internal combustion engine efficiency gains: significant in the 1980s, negligible today. That's not 'decoupling', but 'rebalancing' the money to energy ratio.
The usual response is that 'substitution' will continue the efficiency gains (eg electric vehicles taking over from ICE). That introduces enough complication to confuse most discussions, but doesn't affect the underlying physical limits at all.
Purely financial transactions are weakly linked to energy (servers and comms consume power, but at a much smaller rate than physical economy activities), and so can in theory be largely decoupled. But so what? We can exchange crypto, derivatives, short videos and cat pictures at ever increasing rates, but that changes nothing about the physical economy that we all by definition are embedded in, and which governs how affluent we feel.
Decoupling is yet another deception by those who wish current high-consumption arrangements to continue for a little longer. As with most topics related to what we term 'economics' it is a sham based on misunderstanding and delusion. The only true solution to continued exponential physical growth is to increase available net energy - nuclear fusion to the rescue!
Я думаю Том Мерфі з Do the Math, а також Georgescu Roegen вв своїх працях чудово показали, що будь яка діяльність – енергетична динаміка.
Варто дивитися на кількісні показники на душу наснлення, ігноруючи показник ВВП. А також джерела походження і кількісні показники позад національного імпорту(наприклад метали що видобуті деінде, чи напівфабрикати, що надходять бо лінії збирання тощо). Крім цього, варто не забувати про втілену енергію у замобах виробництва, верстатах, і всього іншого онтологічного взаємозв'язку.
In general, I agree with most comments here even if I might differ on details. I am not sure we are heading for a collapse in any dramatic sense, rather a series of contractions which will play out differently in different places. I also believe that a fragmentation is likely as stated by Walter.
For sure, as I also write, the link between the energy supply and the industrial civilzation is very strong. And fossil fuels supply most of that energy. But it is equally true that there are periods and places where the link is weaker in both aspects. As oil was so cheap in the period from WWII to the 1970s, there was a lot of waste. Therefore, it was also not difficult to combine growth with a reduced use of energy per unit if GDP for a while.
In any case, my discussion on decoupling is slightly irrelevant if you already think it is flawed concept, which it very well might be.....It is more directed to those that still cling to this as a "solution".
But I also find it interesting - and possibly relevant - to disentangle the material aspects of the economy in more detail than broad statements about termodynamics and dissipation and this post is a reflection of my efforts to do so in the context of a new book project I am busy with.
The economy IS energy, as you point out. If Sweden is growing at the same time as reducing energy consumption, well, it's not. Their energy consumption is outsourced somewhere - someone is consuming that energy on their behalf and they have gamed the model to increase their share of the benefits. This is in fact a big part of the strategy of the USA - aside from the fact that they burn vast amounts of energy themselves, they have gamed the model through various forms of occupation so that a disproportionate share of profits generated by other countrys' burning of energy also ends up in their coffers. It's the strategy of individuals in the middle and upper classes as well, all but subsistence tribals. If all those out there making middle class incomes think they are actually creating five or six digits worth of output, of value, they couldn't be more profoundly wrong. What you are doing is tapping into the energy output of all that oil being burned, as we are as a collective. So it's either this, or the data you've sourced for Sweden somehow hallucinatory, and there's a great deal of that out there now. The bottom line is this: there is for our economy the closest thing to a 1:1 ratio between GDP and the burning of fossil fuels as is statistically possible. Also, we aren't going to find a solution to warding off collapse because collapse IS the solution to where we are in our trajectory today, it's law. We aren't going to subvert the laws of thermodynamics and entropy anymore than any other civilization has. We'd have to find an energy source offering all that oil and the system built around it and several more planets like ours to go with it to avoid collapse, and many have crunched the numbers showing why and how this is an impossibility at this stage, and given the properties of oil, probably any stage. Ours was a one-off ride this time around. I personally believe it would make for more interesting, and dare i say potentially valuable, discourse could we move beyond the "what is the solution here?" phase. There isn't one, other than the same solution to a locust plague. All roads eventually lead to collapse, just as they do to death for individuals. And then something comes along to recondense the dissipated energy to new advantage. With the recovery not a process to be measured on a scale relevant to single human lifespans. All signs today place us nearer the juncture of those roads than we clearly prefer. There is a great deal to discuss, all this being the reality.
This is almost exactly what I think - except The Atavist says it better! I have been using input/output analysis on an individual basis for over 15 years now. This is based on kilocalories instead of kilojoules because the US audience is more used to kilocalories. I go through this at length in my first book, The Laws of Physics Are On My Side (2013). One point I would like to add is that when an empire or state collapses, the social organization is reduced into regional polities (Tainter, Collapse of Complex Societies, 1988). Since kinship still operates in class-structured states - as well as rank-structured chiefdoms - as the failed state crumbles, the kinship structure naturally achieves greater importance. Individuals also achieve greater importance too. The tribe is the overarching structure with kin, clans and individuals subsumed into a more connected structure. [Tribalism is a much-abused term. I am using the REAL anthropological term here, not the liberal and rightwing perversion.] Therefore, it is to our advantage to shore up our kinship structures, as well as improve our individual relations to the society around us and in the society at large. In my particular situation in the south of France, I give lots of food away as a way to forge collective bonds and my partner works on the usual social interactions in the village. (Translating between the maire and an ex-pat selling a house to the commune is just one example.) I also do research on landraces, which have a higher probability of adapting to volatile climate conditions going forward than so-called "pure" varieties or the usual hybrids that are based on limiting the "pure" parent varieties. I have lots of success stories by the way.
So . . . we increase our chances of survival by doing what we can in a positive manner right now. For me that means feeding people and developing better-adapted crops. My partner does the social work - which was her career for 35 years before retirement. As France contracts, we should be able to increase our influence locally.
One more point, based on my analysis, is that the US is a hypercomplex society and will be unable to contract. The UK may be in the same boat. France, Germany, Sweden and the rest of the overdeveloped countries seem to just be complex societies and will be able to adapt to contraction of their economies by devolving into regional polities. [Degrowth is a nonsense term. Contraction is the correct term.] If you have a calculus background think 2nd and 3rd derivatives - acceleration and acceleration of acceleration (jerk). If you don't have a calculus background, look at how fast things are spinning out of control. My partner was just in Seattle visiting her grandchildren and the rapid pace of disintegration has sped up considerably since the last time she was there in 2023. Here in France people are hurting because of the inflation and Macron's poor management, but life is still manageable without high stress levels and daily mass shootings.
Cheers Walter, thanks. My country, Canada is perhaps in the worst postition of a developed nation, or one of the worst. We may become New Romania, and not the more advanced parts of that country, either. (I'm ready with my heavy horses. I'm pretty sure i'm not ready in general ;) We are a complex society 60 or 70% dependent on a hypercomplex society, as you point out - the USA. Honestly, i'm not sure it matters if you are 60% dependent on someone else or 100%. It's likely the same thing. Remove that 60% and you're 100% finished, i suspect.
Taking a step back, the notion of 'decoupling' is that the economy as measured by financial transactions increases at a greater rate than energy use. This definition assumes that material use is a function of energy use.
Efficiency gains (waste reduction) are clearly a one-time effect, as physical laws enforce a minimum energy to perform tasks integral to the physical economy like transportation, mining and manufacturing. Eg look at internal combustion engine efficiency gains: significant in the 1980s, negligible today. That's not 'decoupling', but 'rebalancing' the money to energy ratio.
The usual response is that 'substitution' will continue the efficiency gains (eg electric vehicles taking over from ICE). That introduces enough complication to confuse most discussions, but doesn't affect the underlying physical limits at all.
Purely financial transactions are weakly linked to energy (servers and comms consume power, but at a much smaller rate than physical economy activities), and so can in theory be largely decoupled. But so what? We can exchange crypto, derivatives, short videos and cat pictures at ever increasing rates, but that changes nothing about the physical economy that we all by definition are embedded in, and which governs how affluent we feel.
Decoupling is yet another deception by those who wish current high-consumption arrangements to continue for a little longer. As with most topics related to what we term 'economics' it is a sham based on misunderstanding and delusion. The only true solution to continued exponential physical growth is to increase available net energy - nuclear fusion to the rescue!
Я думаю Том Мерфі з Do the Math, а також Georgescu Roegen вв своїх працях чудово показали, що будь яка діяльність – енергетична динаміка.
Варто дивитися на кількісні показники на душу наснлення, ігноруючи показник ВВП. А також джерела походження і кількісні показники позад національного імпорту(наприклад метали що видобуті деінде, чи напівфабрикати, що надходять бо лінії збирання тощо). Крім цього, варто не забувати про втілену енергію у замобах виробництва, верстатах, і всього іншого онтологічного взаємозв'язку.
Термодинаміку не обдуриш :)