Some more thoughts about the past, present and the future. A couple of posts ago I wrote about my recent realization that we are living in a present that is totally unique relative to our past and our future. The reason that I believe that, is because the reality that defines a culture's existence is completely tied to its vision of the future. Since we started using hydrocarbons we have built a reality that depends not only on those hydrocarbons but on all of the things that are made possible by having hydrocarbons as well as the continued availability of hydrocarbons... forever. We cannot conceive of a world without them.
Our perception of the future, therefore, is not valid and any long term decisions our society makes are, by definition, wrong. That is why I think we will not be able to move into the "real" future until we finally understand and accept that we will have to live without hydrocarbons.
Before hydrocarbons people did not think of unending progress, unlimited technical innovation and, indeed, continuous economic growth. There was no way to get to that frame of mind without an unending supply of cheap and easily transported energy. Now, although there actually isn't an unending supply of hydrocarbons, there is so much of it that we have totally built our world view on its availability. We have essentially accepted that it is in infinite supply. In the future people will not expect hydrocarbons to be available forever. That will profoundly change the way we live our life. In this Blog I am going to try and get my mind around our future. It won't be easy because I was born, and have lived a full life, on the leading edge of the hydrocarbon age. I really only have that reality to work with.
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