IGD og energi

Noe jeg hadde håpet kunne kommet ut av MEDOSS var hvor lite energi vi kunne drive IGD (InnGruppe-Demokratiet) på? IGD alene kunne selvsagt ikke reddet oss, vi ville også måtte kvittet oss med energisluk slik som den suburbane livsstilen vår. Men IGD krever også representanter, som krever ledige hender, som krever reising, som krever energi.

Noen hint kan vi kanskje få i denne lille kommentaren av Tverberg:

In small groups, there is usually one leader in charge, who might be a medicine man or other leader. I am not sure whether his role would be specifically as a dictator, but it is doubtful that he would be chosen by ballot.

There are a huge number of leaders historically who have been kings or some equivalent type of leader. These certainly were not chosen by ballot.

The type of government we have today requires a whole lot of energy to operate–representatives who have free time so that they can travel to the state or federal office building, where they meet. This requires that farming be sufficiently mechanized so that not everyone needs to be involved in farming. It also requires that roads and transport be available.

The widespread use of representative governments has been permitted by the use of fossil fuels. Admittedly some used them earlier (including the US), but it is a difficult system to maintain. That is why systems which are cheaper, in terms of energy use have been used in the past. Kings and queens and similar rulers have been common around the world.

It seems to me that as we lose energy, we are likely to lose centralized governing structures. In other words, the European Union is likely to disappear, somewhat analogously to the Soviet Union falling into its constituent pieces. We don’t know whether the United States will stay together, simply because smaller pieces are easier to govern when there are fewer energy resources. The smaller units, whatever they may be, may very well be ruled by a non-elected leader. - Gail Tverberg

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