Juggling Dynamite

It can be challenging to imagine the extent and implications of the disruptions currently unfolding simultaneously in our foundational systems of transportation, energy, goods and food production.  Many fear that we will have insufficient resources to make the shift or that living standards will collapse in the process.  But that’s not a given.

For one thing, the new systems require a fraction of traditional inputs like energy, water, land, animals and vehicles, so we do not need to replace these items one for one.  Not even close.

In just one example, moving to 100% wind, water, and solar energy is so much more efficient than our present system. It will reduce Canada’s aggregate power demands 63% from current levels, as shown here from Stanford’s The Solutions Project.

Furthermore, when sharing autonomous transportation as a service, capturing and storing passive energy, and making food and products on-demand with precision fermentation and 3-D printing, we need a fraction of the vehicles and are not having to haul oil, gas, goods and food around the globe like today. So, we won’t need all of the vessels, energy and materials that are presently used for that production and distribution daily.

Recycling and reusing obsolete infrastructure affords a treasure trove of materials for the new.  In addition, ‘rare earth’ minerals are not that rare and, when enabled, new technologies continually evolve to higher efficiencies and more accessible resources.

For a helpful overview of the latest research and developments, see ReThinkX’s Ending the  Age of Resource Scarcity: Part 1–Why Mineral Shortages Won’t Derail Clean Energy:

It’s often believed that the clean energy disruption could be fundamentally constrained by resource scarcity in the form of insurmountable raw materials and mineral bottlenecks. Increasingly, some argue that it entails a net decrease in the energy available to societies, and therefore warn of an unavoidable decline in material prosperity in coming decades.

In the following two-part series, we will address some of the most notable perspectives that uphold this mythology. Doing so, we will show that if societies make the right choices – and that’s a big ‘if’ – the clean energy disruption can represent a fundamental break with historical patterns of scarcity and a breakthrough into a new age of energy abundance.

How the super-wealthy hide billions in tax havens and shell companies pic.twitter.com/83dvJdpy2u

— Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) October 5, 2021

For years, we have known that predatory, profit-at-all-cost, ethics-lacking business models are destructive, and certainly, since Jonathan Taplan’s important 2018 book Move Fast and Break Things.  The latest 60 Minutes expose illuminates further. See:  Whistleblower:  Facebook is misleading the public:

Her name is Frances Haugen. That is a fact that Facebook has been anxious to know since last month when an anonymous former employee filed complaints with federal law enforcement. The complaints say Facebook’s own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest—but the company hides what it knows. One complaint alleges that Facebook’s Instagram harms teenage girls. What makes Haugen’s complaints unprecedented is the trove of private Facebook research she took when she quit in May. The documents appeared first, last month, in the Wall Street Journal. But tonight, Frances Haugen is revealing her identity to explain why she became the Facebook whistleblower.

Here is a direct video link.

There is a common theme here:  whether it’s executives, politicians and policymakers enriching themselves on non-public information or wealthy people and their advisors benefiting from government programs and subsidies while hiding their assets and income from taxes owed.  A lack of integrity, ethics, and personal accountability erode our social and economic fabric from the top down.  History warns that this costs all of us in the end.