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Surviving Beyond the Carbon Society, Part 2

In part one, I stated that the first step on dealing with our fossil-fuel addiction is to admit we have a problem, something which is going to be difficult due to the large influence that the energy industry has in world affairs.  I also said that it was one easy step, at least in a relative way.  The next step is a monstrous one due to the nature of humanity and the extremely threatening nature of the problem.

Once we admit to having a problem, we also have to look at the problem as a planet-wide issue.  This means we have to outgrow xenophobic, destructive concepts like race, religion and nationality.  Just glancing in places like the Balkans, Africa or the Middle East we see the massive destruction such concepts cause.  None of these have any place in a world of instant communication and complete interdependence, and the sooner they are eliminated, the sooner we can get about the important business of surviving as a planet.  We cannot survive having otherwise intelligent people refusing to cooperate because of ancient grudges - no nation or any other group can survive the destruction we are bringing on ourselves through failure to change.

This same thing applies, and for the same reasons, to class and other stratifications within local societies.  Time and time again we have seen local issues suddenly turn into violence that spreads rapidly over large areas.  This is almost certain to increase in the next decades as shortages and other systemic breakdowns concentrate in what are now impoverished areas; some of these conflicts could easily lead to even larger areas of the planet becoming ungoverned (like the current situation in Somalia) or even completely sterile.  Even if one ignores the fact that this is (and will continue to be) a horrific human tragedy on a monstrous scale, and only calculate that it will likely lead to significant population reductions in the more underdeveloped portions of the world, these are not the regions that are contributing very much to the larger problem, as they are regions where the per-capita energy use is already minimal.  One obvious and major exception to this last generalization is the Amazon basin, where the already widespread lack of governance is allowing widespread ecosystem destruction on a scale that exacerbates the more general ecological instability.

None of this means mean that the stereotypes and prejudices are going to disappear, but we have to learn to act civilized and force ourselves to cooperate across those imaginary boundaries.  While the human race is not suddenly going to start thinking like adults, we have to start acting that way, on pain of extinction.

In short - Step Two: Grow Up.

Easy, right?  Good luck.  It gets (sort of) easier from here, though…