Türkçe (PDF)
The techno-industrial system faces a grave danger:
climate change.1 It
is dependent on the resources of the biosphere to function. For this
reason, the stability of the biospheric functions is crucial for its
effective functioning. Climate change means a sudden change in the
conditions of the biosphere. According to
The Economist’s
October 30th
(2021) issue, it
is changing the rain patterns, water cycles and will have adverse
effects on crop yields. It is increasing the frequency, intensity,
and duration of droughts and heatwaves. The great ice sheets of
Greenland and Eastern Antarctica are destabilizing and this, in turn,
makes it easier for mid-sized hurricanes to intensify into powerful
storms causing enormous damage. Sea levels are rising and threatening
coastal cities. The biodiversity of the oceans is under stress due to
ocean acidification and sudden change in sea temperatures. The
tropical zones are becoming virtually unlivable. Massive wildfires
burning huge areas are becoming more and more frequent.
All these are happening extremely fast and forcing the adaptive
capabilities of the techno-industrial system. It should either adapt
itself to these new conditions by changing itself (its energy
infrastructure, the consumption level of its members, etc.) or try a
desperate move in its fuite en
avant and take on its own hands
the governing of the atmosphere.
The Economist’s
October 30th (2021)
issue dedicates a special report to
this dilemma, and it investigates some possible answers to this
urgent threat. The
Economist represents the
ideological orthodoxy of the techno-industrial system. For this
reason, following its arguments and suggestions on this issue might
help discern the techno-industrial system’s possible reactions to
climate change.
As The
Economist mentions, the use of
fossil fuels was the most transformative event after agriculture. It
brought a massive growth in population and people’s “wealth.”
But the side-effect of this development, the accumulation of
CO2
in the atmosphere, has a
“potentially show-ending role.” Thus, world governments should
embark on a vast project. They should stabilize the climate. In The
Economist’s words, this project will
entail:
The curve-flattening climate
stabilization will be the result of deliberate interventions in both
the economy and nature on a global scale. And it will be maintained,
if it is maintained, by human institutions with the astonishing, and
possibly hubristic, mandate of long-term atmospheric management.
The Economist explicitly
declares that to ensure the existence of the techno-industrial
system, it is necessary now to embark upon a comprehensive
transformation not only at the level of economic infrastructure but
also on Nature on a global scale. The system should embark upon
long-term atmospheric management. In the special report, other, more
traditional answers are also evaluated and suggested, but these
evaluations are always ending with implicit desperation about the
shortcomings of the “traditional” solutions or with a reminder of
the fact that it is now too late to rely only on these “traditional”
remedies. Let’s look at with The
Economist what are these more
“traditional” remedies are.
The most publicized of these “traditional
remedies” is that the techno-industrial system should quit its
fossil fuel addiction. Things don’t look good in that regard.
Despite the global UN Conventions and pledges to decrease fossil fuel
consumption, it increases year by year. According to The
Economist, “in 1992 78% of the
world’s primary energy –the stuff used to produce electricity,
drive movement and provide heath both for industrial purposes and to
warm buildings– came from fossil fuels. By 2019 the total amount of
primary energy used had risen by 60%. And the proportion provided by
fossil fuels was now 79%.” Therefore, after all the pledges to
“stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere” in
Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to Paris in 2015, the absolute consumption of
primary energy sourced by fossil
fuels increased by 62%!
The Economist tries
desperately to appear hopeful about the “new,” “alternative”
energy sources: wind and solar. It boasts about the reduced cost of
wind turbines and solar panels. But there is no indication that wind
and solar are replacing fossil fuels. The
Economist gives only statistics on
their absolute growth. “In 2020, the share of the world’s energy
generated by solar panels grew by 21%, which points to a doubling
every four years. Wind, which now supplies twice as much energy as
solar, is growing more slowly, by 12% a year.” These figures only
represent the absolute growth in solar and wind energy production;
they are typical considering the ever-expanding energy hunger of the
techno-industrial system. They don’t indicate that wind and solar
power are replacing fossil fuels. As can be seen in the below graph,
energy consumption increases for all the sources in absolute numbers.
The trend of the traditional biomass (woodfuels, agricultural
by-products, and dung burned for cooking and heating purposes) in the
below graph is illuminating. It is the source of energy humans have
been using since they
discovered the use of fire.
But as we can see in the below chart, it hasn’t been replaced by
coal or oil after the industrial revolution. It continues to be
consumed at its peak level. In energy supply, one source of energy
doesn’t replace the other. As far as there is available energy, the
techno-industrial system adds one source on top of the other and
increases its total energy consumption. This is and will be the case
with the solar, wind, and other “alternatives;” they will be
added to the total (increasing) energy consumption without replacing
the fossil fuels (which still represents the gross majority).
It is clear that fossil fuels will continue to be
burned in the foreseeable future, and the absolute consumption of
these fuels hasn’t peaked yet. The
Economist suggests carbon pricing
as a remedy. Carbon prices would artificially increase the cost of
fossil fuel energy generation and make it more expensive than solar
and wind. It is such a pipe-dream. Applying this strategy with the
necessary rapidity and brutality to cut back emissions drastically in
the required time is virtually impossible without shaking the
foundations of the system. It would mean economic collapse, enormous
decreases in living standards, and extreme backlash from the
population. Much more timid policies encountered angry backlash in
recent times.
Apart from carbon dioxide, there are other
greenhouse gases: Methane (from the natural gas industry, rubbish
heaps, and livestock),
nitrous oxide (mostly from agriculture), and chlorine-bearing
industrial gases. Again, there is no hope of a timely solution to
these emissions. “Big reductions in agricultural emissions of
methane and nitrous oxide emissions will take time,” says The
Economist. Apparently, the recent
propaganda campaign in favor of veganism isn’t producing the
expected results.
Another problem is “sulfur-dioxide emissions which are mostly
associated with burning coal and heavy oils.” Burning coal and
heavy oils produce small airborne particles of sulfate, offsetting
greenhouse warming. Therefore, decreasing the consumption of coal
would exacerbate in the short term the climate change. The system is
on the horns of a dilemma here.
In Paris in 2015, governments made pledges of
voluntary reduction in CO2
emissions, so-called “nationally determined contributions (NDCs).”
NDCs are not binding commitments, and there isn’t any regulatory
power that would ensure the fulfillment of these pledges. They are
castles in the air. But even these pledges wouldn’t be enough to
limit global warming to 2º C, let
alone to 1.5º C.
“[E]ven in Paris, it was clear
that the 1.5º C
limit could not be met by emission
reductions alone. They would have to be supplemented by something
else: the withdrawal of
CO2
from the atmosphere by means of
‘negative emissions.’” But again, despite all the noise
regarding the need for negative emissions, there isn’t any
effective method today to achieve it. “Mechanisms which can provide
lots of reliable CO2
removal remain, at best, embryonic,”
sighs The Economist.
We will come back to this below.
Besides, there is “the Asia problem.” More
than half of the global population lives there, and Asian countries
constitute
a great part of the
so-called “developing countries.” They
aspire to raise their citizens’ living standards; it can only be
done by increasing energy consumption. On top of that, these
countries have increasing populations. They have to grow economically
in order to absorb the new generations into the economy. Otherwise,
they might experience economic crises, massive unemployment, and
social instability. The
Economist says that “two-third
of global coal produced there” and “Asia produces most of the
world’s cement and steel.” As if this is a vice unique to Asian
countries, and the
developed countries of Europe and North America extricated themselves
from this nasty habit of coal, cement, and steel. But this is far
from the truth. If developed countries seem “better” in that
regard, the reason is that they mostly shifted their manufacturing
sectors to Asia for lower production costs. They have exported the
emissions; their economies continue to depend on coal, cement, and
steel.
In this special report, we witness
inside-the-system debates on capitalism and degrowth. Third-wave
leftists,2
like Naomi Klein,
claim that it is impossible for capitalism to wean
itself from fossil fuels. Since capitalism is driven solely by
profits, the fossil-fuel industry will insist on putting profits
ahead of the threats of climate change. Therefore, to get rid of
fossil fuels, it is necessary to get rid of capitalism. As good
first-wave leftists, the writers of The
Economist refute this claim.
According to them, to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, new
technologies and new investments are necessary. And capitalism has
proven itself the most successful economic system to provide both.
“All that is needed is to find ways to ensure that growth does not
have to be linked to rising CO2.” The
Economist uses
the below formula to demonstrate the relationship between
development, energy, and CO2
emissions.
CO2
= population x (GDP/capita) x
(energy/ GDP) x (CO2/energy)
According to this formula,
to decrease the CO2
emissions, one has to cut back either population, GDP per head,
energy used per unit of GDP, or carbon emissions from that
energy. The
Economist explains that reducing
population using a long-term strategy “is not a course of action
that governments can effectively and decently pursue.” We also
agree with that. First, it is impossible to implement a long-term
population control globally as a concerted international effort.
Second, as long as the system needs mass human labor for its
functions, population control is detrimental to the economies of
individual countries. As we have witnessed in China’s one-child
policy, in addition to problems such as destroying the balance of sex
ratio in a population, population control increases the dependency
ratio enormously. Increased dependency ratio has enormous adverse
effects on the economic performance of a country. For these reasons,
besides the impossibility of a concerted international effort of
population control, individual countries also won’t implement a
drastic population control strategy that would be rapid enough to
curb the CO2
emissions in time.
What about GDP per head? It has increased
enormously since the Industrial Revolution thanks to the concentrated
energies humanity obtained from fossil fuels. As The
Economist also mentions, if GDP
per head continues to increase, the improvements in energy efficiency
and carbon intensity would merely keep carbon emissions stable. So is
it necessary to decrease GDP, roll back the growth to save the system
from climate change? The
Economist gives several reasons
why it would be impossible to implement degrowth consciously
according to a strategic plan. These reasons are not wrong in
themselves, but they miss the fundamental, underlying causes why it
is impossible to implement these kinds of long-term comprehensive
plans. But first, let’s look at the reasons The
Economist gives for the
impossibility of such an action:
1. To implement a long-term reversal of growth,
everyone else (i.e. the entire human population) should be persuaded
to consume less. Anybody
who has a modicum amount of common sense will know that this is
impossible. Therefore, governments
should implement a dictatorial policy to ration the consumption of
their citizens. However, as The
Economist puts it, “[a]n overt
policy of deliberately slowing, stalling or reversing long-term
growth, even if presented as being for the good of the world, is a
highly unpromising platform on which to win elections.” From this
citation, it sounds like only “democratic” countries would face
problems rationing the consumption of their citizens. Authoritarian
regimes also need to seek the consent of their populations as long as
human labor power is necessary for the functioning of the economy.
The consent is primarily produced in today’s modern world (where
humans live in a modern zoo separated from their natural habitats) by
consumption possibilities (electronic gadgets that isolate people in
a virtual world to make them forget their dismal existence, the
pursuit of commodities that offers people a pseudo purpose in this
purposeless world, etc.) which require growth. In the short term, in
which a response should be given to climate change, mass human labor
will continue to be necessary for the system’s functioning.
Therefore, it would be impossible to play the degrowth card that
would affect immensely the living standards of the masses.
2. Decarbonisation can only be realized by massive investment in
renewables[3]; this is especially true for emerging economies. Much
of the investment necessary to build the new “renewable” energy
infrastructure should come from the developed countries, and without
growth, there won’t be any incentive for investment.
3. Decarbonisation process will require
accelerated innovation. As an economic system, capitalism has the
best record of fostering innovative ideas and implementing them on a
broad scale. The system will need capitalism’s that feature.
According to The Economist,
“better ways of storing energy, of heating houses, of cooling
houses, of processing crops, of growing crops, of powering large
vehicles, of producing plastic and more” will be needed to reduce
the CO2
emissions. These cannot be done in the framework of a “contracting,
low-demand, low-investment economy.”
The reasons that The
Economist gives for the
impossibility of planned degrowth misses the most fundamental
reasons. First, it is impossible to direct the development of a
complex system -especially a system as complex as the global
techno-industrial system- by devising a long-term plan and
implementing it in real life. Complex systems are composed of
numerous components. It is impossible to know the myriad of relations
between these components; how they affect each other in
self-reinforcing feedback loops. Planned degrowth would require a
long-term plan that should be implemented globally. One has to know
the consequences of this plan on the global system, and this is
impossible. There will always be unforeseen consequences of the
actions taken to reach the planned intention. Besides, the aim or the
determination of actors who undertake this plan can change in time,
and even the actors themselves can change or disappear.[4]
The other reason that makes impossible the implementation of
long-term degrowth is the existence of the “self-propagating
systems.”[5] A self-propagating system is a system that tends to
promote its survival and propagation by either indefinitely
increasing its size and/or power[6], giving rise to new systems that
possess some of its own attributes or doing both of these. Nations,
corporations, labor unions, churches, political parties, mafia
organizations, etc. are all self-propagating systems. The Darwinian
selection processes that function in biology (natural selection) are
also operative in environments where these systems are present. This
selection process favors self-propagating systems that have the most
conducive characteristics for self-propagation. As a result, these
systems tend to propagate themselves and squeeze out or absorb other
self-propagating systems that don’t have these characteristics.
They are in constant “competition” with each other. This
competition isn’t so much a deliberate antagonism but more of an
unconscious process. Self-propagating systems that expand their
functions by incorporating more energy and material into their
metabolisms will increase their material power; thus, they will
absorb or side-step other self-propagating systems. Therefore,
implementing a voluntary degrowth strategy would be a sure recipe of
disaster for the systems that pursue it. They would relinquish the
advantage to the systems that relentlessly seek their aggrandizement
and expansion by absorbing each passing day more energy and
materials. Systems implementing degrowth would be eliminated,
devoured, or side-stepped.
We find the discussion on capitalism and all the
noise the third-wave leftists make on it utterly meaningless. First
of all, it is not clear what they exactly mean by “capitalism.”
But it seems that they imply an economic system designed, created,
and managed by some selfish, greedy people (financial speculators,
big oil, one percent, etc.) who try to maximize their profits
whatever may come. But “capitalism” is not something consciously
designed, created, and managed. The things that are generally
associated with “capitalism” (financial instruments, modes of
property ownership, social classes, economic theories, etc.) have
developed during the evolution of complex human societies. They
aren’t consciously designed and implemented by anybody for a
definite result. They are the result of the Darwinian selection
process that is operative on human societies. Those properties that
are more conducive for the growth/development of a society end up
being selected by this blind selection process. And the phenomenons
that are generally associated with “capitalism” came into being
through this process. They developed and spread globally with the
advancements in technology and accompanying complexification of human
societies. By pointing out as the main culprit to “capitalism” as
if it is consciously preferred and deliberately continued by some
people, and therefore it can be eliminated and replaced by the
decision of some other people, they deflect the attention from the
real problem: The existence of a most complex human society that is
primarily grounded on material conditions (energy and material
resources, the technological infrastructure that makes use of these
resources, and the resulting consequences in demography, ecosystems,
etc.), not on the property relations, class structure of the society,
financial speculation, greedy oil businessmen, etc. Besides, despite
their endless rhetoric about alternatives to “capitalism,” it is
impossible to hear any alternative from them. Apart from the tried
and abandoned command economies of socialist countries, what is the
alternative to “capitalism”?
In sum, according to The
Economist, the techno-industrial system
isn’t capable of affecting a change at the first two variables
(population and GDP per capita) of the above CO2
equation. Population control is
impossible. It will continue to rise until the middle or the end of
the century and will continue to be an increasing factor of CO2
emissions, let alone a decreasing factor. Implementing a degrowth
strategy and decreasing the second factor is also impossible for the
techno-industrial system. On the contrary, growth is necessary to
face climate change. Since the techno-industrial system can’t shut
itself off, to restrain its effects on the earth’s atmosphere and
save itself from the abrupt changes that would cause, it should
implement a colossal transformation in its energy infrastructure.
This transformation will require accelerated technological
development and the implementation of these new technologies on a
global scale. The only way to realize these are investments and
economic growth. “Grid-linked gigawatt world of sky-scraper-topping
turbines and solar farms” should spread over the landscape. The
technological advancement should find remedies to their intermittency
problem (wind turbines and solar panels can’t function at the
unsuitable wind and cloudy weather, respectively). But, these
“traditional” remedies won’t be enough to limit the effects of
climate change to the acceptable levels for the system, at least in
the period it is needed. Therefore, something more is necessary.
One option for “something
more” is the so-called negative emissions. The following numbers
given by The
Economist demonstrate
the necessity of negative emissions for the system: “The cumulative
CO2
emissions budget consistent with a 50-50 chance of meeting the 2º C
goal is 3,7trn
tonnes.
The budget for 1.5º C is just 2,9trn tonnes. With 2,4trn tonnes
already emitted, that leaves a decade of emissions at today’s rates
for 1.5º C, maybe 25 years for 2º C.” That means there is no
place to go. If the system can find a way to suck back some of the
CO2
already emitted, it can gain more time to change or adapt itself to
climate change. Several methods are floating in the air for “negative
emissions.” But most of them, like direct air capture or increasing
the alkalinity of oceans by adding lime to it to increase the
dissolution rate of carbon in seawaters as carbonate ions,
are science fiction and fantasy right now. They would create more
problems than solutions: They would need massive amounts of energies
to implement and have unforeseen adverse effects on ecosystems.
A more plausible method of negative emissions for
the system would be biomass energy with carbon capture and storage
(BECCS). Plants that capture carbon from the atmosphere through
photosynthesis would be burnt in power stations as fuel, and the
resulting carbon emissions would be captured and stored. Negative
emissions scenarios in the climate models (such as United Nations’
IPCC models) rely on this method. But one can easily imagine the
enormous dangers that this method would create for wild Nature.
As The Economist also
mentions, “its large-scale deployment requires vast amounts of land
be turned over to growing energy crops: in some estimates, an area
equivalent to up to 80% of that now used for food crops would be
needed.” When one considers the ever-increasing energy demands of
the techno-industrial system, the area needed to grow the plants that
will be burned in power stations would only grow. Large tracts of
wild ecosystems such as forests and prairies would be turned into
fast-growing, industrial tree plantations. Since this method would
have the “green” and “sustainable” image, it would be done
with more impunity and even with a claim of restoring “nature.”
In fact, according to The
Economist, this has already happened in
Chile: “In Chile, government subsidies helped establish 1.3m
hectares of tree plantations since 1986–but a rule requiring that
this expansion should not happen at the expense of native forests was
not enforced. As a result, the program actually reduced the amount of
stored carbon by some 50,000 tonnes.” But even the large-scale
deployment of BECCS doesn’t look promising enough to solve the
system’s climate change problem in time. The area needed for the
large-scale deployment is too big. The system needs its agricultural
land to feed its enormous population. As the above example from Chile
demonstrates, if tree plantations replaced wild forests, the net
result would be more carbon in the atmosphere, contrary to the aims
of the negative emissions program.
The other possible reaction, and possibly the most
dangerous one for the wild Nature, is that the techno-industrial
system might attempt to “govern the atmosphere.” As we said, The
Economist represents the orthodoxy
of the ideology of the techno-industrial system. In this special
report, the chain of argument implicitly points toward the “governing
of the atmosphere” as the best (or even the only) possible option
to “fix” the climate change in the short time frame that it
should be dealt with. Geoengineering is still controversial; there
are many uncertainties regarding its consequences, who has the
authority to implement it, etc. That is why we don’t see (yet?)
blatant advocacy of geoengineering in this special report or the
media in general. But we see it discussed more and more as a possible
option, and a magazine like The
Economist defends and proposes it
as a solution shows us where the trend is going.
There are several proposed methods of
geoengineering, but the most popular and the most studied one in the
models is solar geoengineering: Spraying reflective particles in the
stratosphere so that they reflect sunlight into space and create a
cooling effect that balances the greenhouse effect of CO2
in the atmosphere. According to The
Economist, geoengineering is cheap, “it
seems likely that putting a veil into the atmosphere would be
comparatively cheap,” and it could be undertaken “by a relatively
small fleet of purpose-built aircraft.” The
Economist sees the application of
a solar-geoengineering program implemented with global cooperation as
the miraculous solution. If only the world as a whole could come
together and implement a solar-geoengineering scheme collectively, it
would provide “climate benefits to almost everyone and serious
problems to almost nobody.” It would give the system breathing time
to adjust its energy infrastructure accordingly. And when the
CO2
level was low enough, “the
governing of the atmosphere” would be phased out, leaving behind a
stable climate.
Of course, this optimistic scenario of “fixing”
the climate ignores some crucial and insurmountable obstacles that
such a venture would inevitably face. Even if we assume that the
whole world could come together and implement a global solar
geoengineering scheme, we can be pretty sure that the consequences of
such a scheme would be quite different than expected. Earth’s
atmosphere is a complex system. We don’t know exactly how it
functions, the feedback loops among its components, and the
relationships it has with the rest of the biosphere. Our models of
atmosphere or climate aren’t the reality itself but an
approximation and simplification of it. When such tinkering with the
atmosphere begins, there would be inevitably unforeseen consequences.
To mitigate the effects of these unforeseen consequences, more
tinkering would be necessary. And this process would go on in a
self-reinforcing feedback loop until the natural mechanisms that keep
the chemistry of the atmosphere and climate in certain limits lose
their function. When that happens, the stability of the earth’s
atmosphere and climate would be dependent on the artificial governing
of the techno-industrial system. In an eventual collapse of the
techno-industrial system, the artificial governing of the atmosphere
would cease, and its composition might reach a state where it can’t
sustain complex living organisms.
On the other hand, mitigating the effects of
climate change with the artificial cooling of geoengineering would
relieve the pressure of reducing
CO2
emissions. The techno-industrial system is still essentially
dependent on fossil fuels for its energy needs. With an artificial
method of suppressing the effects of burning fossil fuels, companies
and governments would increase their
CO2
emissions with more impunity. That,
in turn, would create the necessity of more intense intervention to
the atmosphere and so on.
But more probably, solar-geoengineering won’t be implemented as a
globally concerted collective endeavor. It is improbable that all the
world governments come together in concerted action to implement such
a plan. Solar geoengineering would have different effects on
different countries. Some will oppose such an endeavor, some will be
more reticent, and some will want an immediate implementation. They
will have diverse ideas about how to implement it. Since the
application of geoengineering is relatively cheap, one or a group of
more eager countries might choose to implement it on their own and
can do it with their own resources. As we have said, we can’t know
the precise consequences of geoengineering beforehand. One possible
consequence would be the changing of the water cycles. Countries that
implement unilaterally solar-geoengineering would choose to pursue
primarily their own benefit; they might cool part of the planets
while disrupting water cycles in other parts producing negative
consequences for other countries. That might elicit reprisals in the
form of more solar-geoengineering, and the atmosphere’s chemistry
might be devastated more rapidly with every country tinkering with
the atmosphere for its own benefit. But regardless of how it is
carried out, “governing the atmosphere” would represent the most
comprehensive attack on the autonomy of wild processes.
The techno-industrial system is in a
relentless fuite en avant. Its
functions create disruptions in the processes of the biosphere. But
since it still is dependent on wild Nature for its existence, these
disruptions also create threats to its effective functioning and
survival. To mitigate those effects, it comes up with palliatives in
the shape of techno-fixes. But these techno-fixes, in the end, create
deeper problems. In its headlong escape from the problems its
existence generates, the system keeps getting more complex, bigger,
and bulky. Its disruptive effects on biospheric processes get more
intense, destructive, and numerous. Climate change and the system’s
reactions to it is one representation of this process. The
techno-industrial system has already littered and continues to litter
the environment and the wild ecosystems with the wind turbines and
solar panels in its quest of adapting its energy infrastructure to
climate change. It created enormous damages with the mining
operations necessary to procure the needed metals to produce wind
turbines, solar panels, electrical batteries, etc. It plans to turn
massive areas into industrially produced tree plantations to feed its
never-ending hunger for energy with more “sustainable” methods.
But all these aren’t enough for its timely adaptation to the new
climate that it is creating. Therefore, it is getting ready to
attempt the most daring of its endeavors yet: “governing the
atmosphere.” Apart from its complete destruction, nothing will stop
it; its fuite en avant will
only continue with accelerated speed and devour the remaining
autonomous wild processes.
Notes
1. Climate change is also a grave danger for wild ecosystems.
But in this text, we try to look into the issue from the system’s
perspective to delineate its possible reactions. The probable
solutions that the system will come up with would chiefly represent
even more dangers for the wild Nature.
2. For a more detailed discussion of the leftism’s
development (first, second, and third-wave leftisms) and its role in
the system, see Karaçam,
“Leftism, Techno-Industrial System, and Wild
Nature.”
3. As long as you want to keep the techno-industrial system alive.
4. For a more
detailed discussion on the impossibility of controlling the
development of society, see the first chapter of the Anti-Tech
Revolution: Why and How by
Theodore John Kaczynski (Fitch & Madison, Second Edition, 2020.)
5. For a more detailed discussion of the
self-propagating systems, see the second chapter of the Anti-Tech
Revolution: Why and How.
6. By “power”,
we don’t necessarily mean exercising authority over people or
organizations. We mean material capacity:
The geographical extent of the functions of a given system, ability
to control energy and material flows, and how big these flows are.
Karaçam
karapinusnigra@gmail.com