Paradoxically while we are enthralled with going to Mars, we are making a Mars of Earth under our feet. Which at this stage seems more credible and less miraculous than our actually going to Mars. So, rather than preventing the hard fall to hard rock hell we condition the polity with the idea of mitigation. That technology will cushion our fall. That there will be growth to be made in adapting to a dying planet. That economic expansion will be needed for the transition. That more profits are to be made in our exceeding the thresholds. Survival pods to be marketed.

We are entering Loren Eiseley’s spore stage of technological civilization. Our fragmentation will prevent any kind of collective action. Individualized pods, BB’s in the bottleneck. The big flush of cornucopia, the creed of more to the end.

It is too late to be preaching the promise of less — less man, more earth. The germ of the supernatural god and superior man is running its course. Wild to domesticate. Earth ark to Noah’s ark. Enterprise man jettisoned. Gold, Silver and Bronze pods for the selling. Hard rock hell to everyone else.
Big earth/small man is such a hard sell.

Thus the exergy which is life is limited (by the total surface of green leaves and other photosynthesis-based organisms) and its amount is not increasing with time, rather the opposite (due to human activities). So the total amount of the flow of exergy from nature must cover all its lifesupporting activities.

But since we started building civilization, its exergyconsuming part has taken over more and more from the natural world, which then must put up with an everdecreasing part of the lifesupporting exergy from nature, which makes it less and less able to support life. A very big part of this overconsumption of exergy from nature is the fact that we are a thousand more humans than only 10,000 years ago; a figure which has increased manyfold by our exergyconsuming lifestyle today with all its gadgets.

The “steady state economy” does not take into account this crucial fact – that there is an absolute upper limit to exergyconsumption on this planet and that Homo Sapiens already consumes much too much of it – but only recognizes the need not to increase exergyconsumption from this very point. Of course constant consumption is better than increasing consumption but the consequences will be the same; an impoverished nature with everdecreasing ability to support life. Constant consumption today means much more than constant consumption 10.000 years ago and the question is: can nature support life on the planet today without dire consequences to nature?

I think the idea that makes us believe in the “steady state economy” is that we can’t despair of civilization, we can’t imagine a world without it and thus cling to anything to believe in. The imminent proof of natrures reduced ability to deliver exergy for anything on this planet is the coming reduction of the flow of fossil “fuels”. This event – peak oil – will only prompt our efforts to find more (but nonexistent) energy but not make us understand the limits of nature.
There must be something that makes civilization possible. Or so we think.

Thus the exergy which is life is limited (by the total surface of green leaves and other photosynthesis-based organisms) and its amount is not increasing with time, rather the opposite (due to human activities). So the total amount of the flow of exergy from nature must cover all its lifesupporting activities.

But since we started building civilization, its exergyconsuming part has taken over more and more from the natural world, which then must put up with an everincreasing part of the lifesupporting exergy from nature, which makes it less and less able to support life. A very big part of this overconsumption of exergy from nature is the fact that we are a thousand more humans than only 10,000 years ago; a figure which has increased manyfold by our exergyconsumimg lifestyle today with all its gadgets.

The “steady state economy” does not take into account this crucial fact – that there is an absolute upper limit to exergyconsumption on this planet and that Homo Sapiens already consumes much too much of it – but only recognizes the need not to increase exergyconsumption from this very point. Of course constant consumption is better than increasing consumption but the consequences will be the same; an impoverished nature with everdecreasing ability to support life. Constant consumption today means much more than constant consumption 10.00 years ago and the question is: can nature support life on the planet today without dire consequences to nature?

I think the idea that makes us believe in the “steady state economy” is that we can’t despair of civilization, we can’t imagine a world without it and thus cling to anything to believe in. The imminent proof of natrures reduced ability to deliver exergy for anything on this planet is the coming reduction of the flow of fossil “fuels”. This event – peak oil – will only prompt our efforts to find more (but nonexistent) energy but not make us understand the limits of nature.
There must be something that makes civilization possible. Or so we think.

If we are to muddle through, we will require experience with, and insights from, all disciplines pulling in the direction of truth, as Mr. Daly’s essay does so well.