Energy Blindness and the Carbon Pulse

Everything we do depends on energy.

The thing is, we don’t really ‘see’ it.

We don’t think about what actually happens when we flick a light switch or watch Netflix or get in a car.

Ultimately, the vast majority of the energy we use still comes from ancient sunlight: an extraordinary, one-time abundance of energy, in the form of fossil fuels. Nate Hagens calls this the ‘carbon pulse’. The fact we tend not to think about it much is our ‘energy blindness’.

The carbon pulse has powered extraordinary changes in the world. Much of this has been amazing - although we are now seeing the serious, long-term side effects of burning all this dinosaur juice.

As well as contributing to climate change, the carbon pulse is also part of a bigger story - the metacrisis.

Among other things, understanding the metacrisis can help explain why we don’t seem to be making much progress with climate change. The basic idea is that in addition to our ‘resource blindness’ - there are other underlying factors involved, including:

• How we humans think
• How we see our place in the world
• How we are motivated

By understanding these fundamental ideas, might we be able to act differently? More effectively, perhaps?

[These concepts aren’t just applicable to climate change, by the way - they are relevant in other areas too, from technology, to politics, to how we run our businesses…]