Does a fish know that its nose is wet? Probably not. It swims in water, and assumes that is the only way any animal lives.
We live in an economic world. Economic models that were developed years ago were created based on observations of how the economy seemed to work at the time. As time goes on, it is becoming clear that early economists missed important connections. The most important of these is the role of energy and its connection to the economy. It takes energy to make anything, from a piece of steel to a loaf of bread. It takes energy to transport anything. Humans need energy in the form of food to continue to live. Clearly, energy should have a place in economic models.
In this post, I explain some of the basic principles as I see them:
1. Humans have evolved to be dependent on external energy.
2. Humans now supplement their own limited energy supply with external energy of various types. In general, the more external energy used, the more humans are able to control their environment.
3. Over the 1 million+ years during which humans have been able to control fire, humans have generally been in situations with favorable feedback loops, due to increasing efficiency in producing goods and services required to meet basic needs. Such loops allowed continued population growth and economic growth.
4. We are now reaching limits on these feedback loops. The result is feedback loops that are changing from favorable feedbacks to contraction.
5. Part of the change in feedback loops relates to the cost of energy sources, such as oil. A rise in the price of oil tends to reduce salaries of workers (because of layoffs) as well as reduce discretionary income (because of higher price of food and commuting), contributing to the trend toward contraction.
All of this is very concerning, because in the past, adverse feedback loops of this type seem to have led to collapse.
