The chapter explores the need for a complete energy system transformation, the opportunities that arise from it, and the importance of understanding what is possible in a positive way. It also discusses the capacity for care, love, compassion, and empathy in humans, challenges the idea of humans as destructive, and explores the concept of de-growth and deliberate contraction of material resources while transitioning to renewable energy.
“All of those sectors are rapidly changing and the incumbent industries in those sectors are going to collapse. This is being driven by economic dynamics. It's going to happen.”
What if the only viable future is a better one?
Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain: tomorrow’s world will not look like today’s. We could see fossil-fascism in which nations hoard their fossil reserves (coal and gas) for accelerated use at the expense of international collaboration. We could see eco-fascism after an unplanned recession which crashes the financial system and slashes demand. We could see a descent into madness in which we run out of fuel to heat, to eat, to survive.
We could also see degrowth, eco-socialism, renewable sharing and governance reimagined to meet human rights. No, this isn’t utopia—it’s laid out in the policy plans of many scholars around the world as one of the only paths to navigating the planetary crisis.
Systems theorist Nafeez Ahmed joins me to discuss the interconnected grid—a piece of renewable infrastructure which, by its design, would change our economic system, our geopolitics and our relationship with one another. Nafeez debated Simon Michaux a few months ago, and I highly recommend listening to these episodes as a trio: Nafeez, Simon, the debate.
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