We hear all the time that we are at the tipping point of a long history of increasing energy consumption. Unfettered energy use is eating up finite fuels, increasing planetary temperatures, releasing stored methane and other emissions into the atmosphere, and raising ocean temperatures to levels that threaten the world’s fisheries. Carbon emissions are now heating up the planet at a rate equivalent to the detonation of six atomic bombs per second.[1] At this rate, we are told, the Earth may become uninhabitable for humans by the end of the century.
This is more or less the prevailing environmental wisdom of our times, but we have got the cause of our current dilemma upside down. Big issues like this, however, have a habit of being much stranger than they first appear. The problem, in fact, is not that our planet cannot handle too much energy consumption but that it cannot handle too little. This is an extremely counter-intuitive idea but one that needs examining.