Free Peak Everything by Richard Heinberg

some elaborate mathematics, he has concluded that the rate of invention of significantly new and different tools peaked in 1873 and has been dwindling gradually since then. Huebner calculates our current rate of innovation at seven important technological
developments per billion people per year — about the same rate as prevailed in Europe in 1600. If the trend continues, by 2024 the innovation rate will have declined to that of the Dark Ages. 8

    Figure 18.

    Assuming Huebner is right, it would seem that the 19 th -century adoption of fossil fuels led to an early-peaking wave of invention, and we are living on its trailing edge. As fossil fuels peak and decline, we are unlikely to see another such burst of similar kinds or degrees of innovation; instead, we will see adaptation to a lower-energy cultural environment. And that adaptation may occur by way of versions of older cultural patterns that resulted from previous generations’ responses to similar levels of available energy.
    Peak Oil will be a fundamental cultural watershed, at least as important as the industrial revolution or the development of agriculture. Yet few mainstream commentators see it that way. They discuss the likelihood of energy price spikes and try to calculate how much economic havoc will result from them. Always the solution is technology: solar or wind and maybe a bit of hydrogen for green-tinged idealists; nuclear, tar sands, methane hydrates, and coal-to-liquids for hard-headed, pro-growth economists and engineers; Tesla’s free-energy magnetic generators for the gullible fringe dwellers.
    But technology cannot solve the underlying dilemma we face as a result of our application of fossil fuels to every human problem or desire. We are growing our population, destroying habitat, undermining global climatic stability, and depleting resources in ways and at rates that cannot be mitigated by any new tool or energy source. The only way forward that does not end with the extinction of humanity and thousands or millions of other species is a scaling back of the entire human project — in terms both of human numbers and per-capita rates of consumption.
    How dramatic a pullback are we talking about? No one knows. It depends to a large degree on how we manage the inevitable collapse in financial and governance systems, and whether the nations of the world can be persuaded to adopt a global Oil Depletion Protocol; or whether instead they fight mercilessly over the last petroleum reserves until even the “winners” are utterly spent and the resources in dispute have been used up or destroyed in the conflict itself.
    In the worst case, Zerzan’s ideal of a return to hunting and gathering may be realized — though not by moral choice, but by cruel fate.

    If Class D tools fueled by cheap oil eliminated drudgery, life without abundant extrasomatic energy will imply more labor — certainly for food production. The return of slavery is a frighteningly real possibility. Such nightmare scenarios can only be averted by careful, hard, cooperative work.

Staring at Techno-Collapse
    In the meantime, what should we expect and what should we do?
    Realistically, I think we can expect to see some of the worst excesses of human history, but perhaps only briefly and in certain places. Within a few decades the governmental and corporate structures capable of perpetrating such outrages will have crumbled for lack of fuel. We can also anticipate — and participate in — localized cooperative attempts to reorganize society at a smaller scale.
    Under the circumstances, efforts to try to bring industrialism to ruin prematurely seem to be pointless and wrongheaded: ruin will come soon enough on its own. Better to invest time and effort in personal and community preparedness. Enhance your survival prospects. Learn practical skills, including the manufacture and use of Paleolithic tools. Learn to understand and repair (as much as possible)