Gail Tverberg: What we really need is a whole new system!

Gail Tverberg:

Quite a bit of human energy use is “baked into the cake.” We need to eat at least some cooked food–we have been doing this for something like 1.8 million years, and we are adapted to cooked food. Our brain couldn’t be as big (and our teeth and gut as small) without it. We also need protection from the cold. We need some way to fight off contagious diseases, in our close living quarters. We need some form of transportation.

What we really need is a whole new system, and for that, we would have to start over (or very close to start over–because we now know more than we did years ago). Theoretically, we could do what was done, say, 500 years ago, but it would be very difficult to transition. Our buildings we have today are designed for electricity, for example, with elevators and water pumped to the top. We need transportation, and horses wouldn’t work. There aren’t enough horses, and they would make too much of a mess.

We also have way too many people, now. Probably at least 10 times too many, or even more than that. Resources are more depleted now than they were 500 years ago.

If we didn’t have way too much population, degrowth would be a whole lot easier.

We could have had this new system now if it was not for the ignorant and short sighted Research Council of Norway! Learn more:

- Terje Bongard: No grant for MEDOSS