More and more and more

I just read this fascinating book by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz.  The premise is that there has never been a transition from one energy source to another (e.g. wood -> coal, or coal -> oil) and that, by contrast, novel sources of energy have simply piled up on top of each other.  Worse still, each new form of energy - and also each new material - has simply enabled increased consumption of each other form of energy and form of material.

The conclusion is stark, supporting renewables will not be enough to avert a climate catastrophe.  As the book says: it may be a necessary condition but it is not a sufficient one. 

For me, the most interesting part of the book was this diagram, taken from a 1983 Environmental Protection Agency report titled "Can We Delay a Greenhouse Warming?"  which used an energy model developed by Oak Ridge Laboratories:

 

The graphic shows how different scenarios and policies affect the date at which +2C warming is breached.  Note that +2C would take us over the highest inter-glacial temperature for any point since the ice ages began ~1M years ago.  Once outside of that range we have no way of knowing, with our current scientific understanding, whether we will remain in the current glacial/inter-glacial limit cycle, or enter a new, hotter, equilibrium or limit cycle.  So this limit matters.

What I find interesting about the graphic is that the most effective delaying measure/scenario, at +30 YRS, is NO GROWTH.  In contrast to the other measures/scenarios this is one that is almost never discussed, either by the scientists at the IPCC, or by mainstream politicians.  And given that NO GROWTH is the biggest item in the list, it seems odd that DEGROWTH is missing.  It doesn't seem unreasonable to suppose that DEGROWTH, combined with some of the other measures could take us to a safe landing place.

Or perhaps I should use the past tense: DEGROWTH could have taken us to a safe landing place.  This report is now 43 years old, and we've ignored it.