output, there are already hundreds of flashing warning signs saying that we’re taking too much from the natural world and putting too much waste back in to it.
The “plan” of every single one of the world’s leaders is to double the rate of economic output of their country, and then double it again. Forever. But as we can all deduce, it’s not possible to endlessly double the size of something contained within a fixed space.
The world is very big, but it is not infinite. This is the reality that the generations alive today have to confront. However difficult it proves, either practically or emotionally, we are the first ones in history who are going to slam into the Earth’s limits to growth.
It’s not going to be possible to double the rate at which oil currently comes out of the ground. And even if it were, climate scientists tell us that would be a terrible idea. Certainly ocean fish stocks are not going to double anytime soon; they’re in full-blown collapse as it is. Nor are we going to double the water taken from depleted aquifers, or the food from rapidly-depleting soils. We may be able to eek out a little bit more from these stressed systems for a few more years but that bought time will come with a terrible cost.
Wedged between an energy system that cannot possibly expand forever, and an economic model that demands endless expansion, we have clear, ominous, troubling evidence—mountains of it!—that humans are impacting the natural world in destructive ways that will result in disruptive changes and ecosystem collapse.
Biological diversity is the very foundation of the natural world. In times past a human could live an entire life lasting 80 years and, on average, experience one species extinction during their lifetime. Now we are losing, on average, several species per day by some estimates (or several hundred per day, by others).
More than half of the world’s major aquifers are now in a state of dangerous depletion, and the millions to billions of people who depend upon them have no alternative supplies to draw upon.
Fertile soils are being degraded and eroded such that we can calculate when they will be entirely gone. Under current farming practices we may have as few as 60 to 100 harvests left. No soil means no food means no humans.
The oceans are acidifying at the fastest pace in 300 million years. We know that the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, the Permian extinction, the one that erased more than 90% of all life forms in the oceans and on land, happened because the oceans acidified too much and too fast.
Climate change is now a matter of scientific record. The only questions left are how extreme it will be and how much damage we will experience. The glaciers in Antarctica are calving off at an accelerating pace, and their hundreds of gigatons of inertia will carry them into the sea, raising ocean levels, no matter what we do.
In response to these existential threats, most of the responsible nations are doing little more than making soothing noises publicly, while continuing with ‘business as usual’ in the background. Talk is cheap, but real solutions will be among the most expensive and radical tasks ever undertaken in human history. Our entire food and energy production systems will have to be re-engineered. Our species will have to convert from being wanton consumers of natural resources to responsible stewards of them. Where and how we live, how we transport ourselves, how we transact, and how we interact with nature—all will have to change dramatically.
The big question is: Will those changes be on our terms, or other terms? With each passing year that the human race ignores or delays action, the answer being ‘other terms’ continue to increase.
Okay, thank you for sticking with us this far. Take a deep breath and let out whatever tension you are carrying. Here’s where it all comes together.
THE THREE ES
Now you know why we believe that all three Es must be viewed at once. They’re so interconnected we can’t simply address one without impacting the others. So to the extent that central bankers are busy pulling monetary levers while ignoring the trends in the environment and energy sectors is the extent to which they are making grave errors.
Add up all the Three Es and you see we have:
1. an economy that must expand, connected to
2. an energy system that cannot expand, all wrapped up in
3. an environment that is both being depleted of resources and saturated with pollutants.
The inescapable conclusion to all this? Things are going to change. Big time.
At Peak Prosperity, we remind ourselves with the punchline: The next 20 years are going to be completely unlike the past 20 years. Never before has humanity had to deal with such a massive set of intertwined predicaments (problems have solutions; predicaments only have outcomes that need to be prepared for). We simply don’t have any relevant history to inform our decision-making here.
This means we can’t count on the cavalry to ride to our rescue and make these issues disappear. That’s just not going to happen given the number and scope of the challenges we face. Instead we, as individuals, are each going to need to prepare for a very different and quite possibly turbulent future.
Our old habits and assumptions will conspire to steer us wrong in most cases. But by focusing on developing resilience, we can dramatically increase our chances of mastering whatever rules the coming future will require us to live by.
In short, it’s time to get ready. That’s where the rest of this book comes in.
RESILIENCE: WHAT IS IT, EXACTLY?
The main theme of this book is that resilience is the key to prosperity. We like this word because it covers a lot of territory, but it can mean a lot of different things to different people depending on their age, location, wealth, or health. So it’s worth taking a moment to define what we mean by ‘resilience’ in order to make sure we share a common understanding.
The Oxford dictionary definition offers a good place to start:
re·sil·ience
noun
1. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
2. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
We all know people who are able to bounce back quickly from illness and others who aren’t.
