Essay: look at the origins of humanity

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A new book on our origins, but seen from the angle of energy and the exploitation of energy resources: sun, wind, water and fossil fuels since the appearance of humanity on Earth, according to three specific eras: the time of the collectors, the time of the reapers and the time of the extractors.

If, in recent decades, technological advances have enabled better and greater use of clean energies: solar, wind and hydraulic, fossil fuels still represent 83.1% of our commercial energy consumption today. How did we arrive at such an ecological and climatic disaster?

The influence of humans on nature is now absolute, so much so that scientists have found a name to describe the time we are living in: the Anthropocene, that is to say “the time of the human which is said to have started in 1784 with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt. In reality, it was around 1950 that the “great acceleration” occurred and that we witnessed “an unprecedented change in the climate (in its speed and intensity)”. Don't throw any more, the cup is full, you might say.

This generalization involved in the term Anthropocene does not take into account, the author specifies, immense social inequalities. In this ecological degradation, it is necessary to emphasize that the richest 1%, composed mainly of Americans, Luxembourgers, Singaporeans and Saudis, certainly has a different and greater responsibility than that of the poorest.

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We learn how, in the time of the collectors, hunting and gathering were facilitated by the control of fire, which will promote the domestication of plants and animals and above all will allow food to be cooked before ingesting it. Human societies come out of it completely transformed.

Pillage of resources

The Time of the harvesters that followed, with its technical innovations such as the wind and water mill, the wheel and the transformation of certain metals, copper, bronze and iron, saw the emergence of the State, but also the fragmentation of kingdoms. as a result of frequent wars. The “discovery” of the New World, with the plunder of gigantic energy resources, will promote conflicts and wars as well as technological innovation.

With the Time of the Extractors, we enter the second phase of the industrial Revolution. Our relationship to time and the environment is completely transformed. Energy resources, plundered from the four corners of the planet by the colonial powers, accentuate the inequalities between societies. We now speak of “Third World” to designate these countries which suffer the plunder of their resources. 

Transition

At the end of this overview of our past and our present, we have to conclude that an energy transition is necessary to avoid an ecological and climatic disaster. Catastrophe can be averted, Victor Court tells us, if we put mechanisms in place to slow down the “hellish” modern development cycle and thereby lessen our footprint on the Earth system. In other words, consume less. Degrowth, frugality and sobriety: “It could be that it is first up to everyone, individually or surrounded by family and friends, to make the choice of happy sobriety”, concludes the author on an optimistic note.< /p>

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