How we have become so rich

Until 250 years ago, all of humanity operated solely on the energy of biomass. At that time, the majority of human efforts were dedicated to producing food, aided only by the work of a mule or some other draft animal. People traveled on foot and rarely left the region where they were born. Multiple generations lived in the same house, which were much smaller than today’s, or several families lived in a farmhouse. They had little clothing and few material possessions—two or three outfits, a table, and a few plates and spoons. In many cases, their diet was almost vegetarian, as meat was too expensive to produce. Everything operated on solar energy, which grew the grains for making bread, the stubble that fed goats and sheep, or the trees that, a few years later, in the form of firewood, would allow them to cook food and warm the bed a little before lying down.

The Harvesters, by Pieter Brueghel. 1565.

The painting depicts the harvest time set in a landscape, in the late summer.

However, at the end of the 18th century, the steam engine changed everything. James Watt discovered how to harness fossil fuels, which concentrate immense amounts of energy. Since then, coal, oil, and natural gas have allowed us to produce much more food, and to do so with much less effort. Tractors and synthetic fertilisers have meant that far fewer people are needed to work the land. Thus, we have been able to free many to study, and to do so for many more years. With the exponential growth of energy consumption, scientific advances in all fields have also increased.

Thanks to powerful engines, we have been able to build enormous buildings where increasingly smaller families live, and we have been able to fill them with numerous objects that, as soon as we tire of them, end up in landfills. We have been able to pave roads and produce hundreds of millions of cars, and, of course, we can drive them back and forth. So much energy, and how easy it is to store, has allowed us to fly quickly to the other side of the world and exchange floods of tourists. In the same way, we have been able to deforest entire countries to plant enough grain to feed chickens, pigs, and calves, whose populations have also grown exponentially, so that we can put a plate of meat on the table at every meal for many citizens of the more developed countries.

This is how we have become so rich. With the exponential growth of energy consumption, in our homes, we have been able to take for granted what were the greatest luxuries just 250 years ago. But this has come to a very high price. We have damaged the earth to a point that we are putting our existence to risk.

This is how we have become so rich.

It’s time to go leave back the fossil system and embrace a renewable world. It's time to go BEYOND.

Welcome to the Beyond Growth Project!