Reply #1: The Olduvai Theory of Industrial Civilization

[Clara T]

Figure 1. The Olduvai Theory of Industrial Civilization



Figure 1 divides the very long span of human history into three phases: (1) PreIndustrial, (2) Industrial, and (3) Post-Industrial. Seven events are marked on the left part of the curve (i.e., points A through G). Likewise, five hypothetical events are marked on the future part of the curve (i.e., H through L).


Phase 1, the Pre-Industrial Phase, spans thousands of millennia of sustainable conditions when society was powered exclusively by (renewable) solar energy. It began some three million years ago when our hominid ancestors started making simple tools (point A, Figure 1). The tools, in turn, made possible greater energy-use in such forms as food, fiber and shelter. Epic milestones leisurely passed, including the use of fire at about one million BCE and the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution at about 8,000 BCE. The end of the Pre-Industrial Phase is marked at 1765, the year James Watt invented the condensing steam engine (point D, Figure 1).

Phase 1 was followed by a transition period—i.e., The Industrial Revolution— delimited by the years 1765 and 1930 (points D and E, Figure 1).


Phase 2, the Industrial Phase, comprises the shaded portion of Figure 1. The life expectancy of Industrial Civilization is defined as the duration in years (x) between the leading and lagging "37% points" (i.e., points E and H). It is a short, extravagant period when transportation, commerce and industry were powered predominantly by (nonrenewable) fossil-fuels. Historic data (presented later) quantifies the peak period of the curve: i.e., the years between points E and G. Using that data, I mark the beginning of the Industrial Phase at 1930 (point E), the year average energy-use per person reached 37% of its peak value.

Note that the peak of Industrial Civilization was reached in about 1977 (point F), less than fifty years after it began. More significant, Figure 1 identifies the global energy "watershed". For the first time in the gaping millennia of human existence, average per capita energy-use peaked and began to decline!

As I read it, the descent into the Olduvai valley will be steep and swift. A scenario of Phase 3, the Post-Industrial Phase, is sketched in Figure 1 (i.e., from point I onward) wherein Industrial Civilization has disintegrated into farming villages, kinship tribes and rogue bands. The surviving population will have "achieved" permanent sustainability—at the subsistence level.

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