Evolution is blind and sometimes a species will get side-tracked on a tangent that leads them away from long-lasting and sustainable relationships. Energy gradients that are replenishing are replaced by gradients of a finite nature. I would like to introduce the term Energy Rate Density (ERD) as used by Chaisson as it probably has some significance regarding the emergence of complexity derived from energy flows.

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/reprints/EnergyRateDensity_I_FINAL_2011.pdf

“Energy rate density is the amount of free energy per unit time per unit mass (in CGS metric units erg/s/g; in MKS units joule/s/kg). – Wikipedia. By Chaisson’s chart you can see that civilization has the greatest ERD, or energy flow rate per gram.



By chance, if energy rate density (amount of energy flowing through a system per gram) increases sufficiently, it can fund increases in complexity. The source of added energy flow does not have to be a conventional and replenishable gradient like predation of natural plant and animal species, but can be of a limited although potent nature (fossil fuels). Humans funded their increasing complexity through an increasing energy rate density by use of agriculture, genocide of competitors, and hunting species to extinction with exosomatic tools. The energy rate density for humans, which eventually provided the start-up energy for civilization, was funded by a one-time, non-cyclical exploitation of energy stocks. The flow magnification of ERD was enough to provide some tools, some information and a little infrastructure, including some primitive cellular structures. But it wasn’t until relatively primitive tools accessed fossil fuels that the conversion to a cellular technological organization with printed information and resilient materials could develop completely. This conversion was the equivalent of the complexity associated with primitive RNA molecules becoming a bridge molecule between information and tools and inhabiting resilient cells.

First commercial oil well in Pennsylvania, 1859.

Single-celled life added to their complexity by adhering and specializing within organized systems adapted to feeding upon other similar systems. Darwin’s finches are a good example of speciation and specialization to feed on various gradients. But none of the species existing on earth could be the multi-tool necessary to increase the ERD that would allow an increase of complexity at an unprecedented rate – except humans. The large human brain was important, but also of importance was the upright bipedal locomotion and the freeing of the hands to allow the grasping and fashioning of tools. The human RNA began fashioning and using tools like spears, just as biological RNA likely produced protein enzymes prior to cellular maturity with enclosed DNA. The use of these primitive tools greatly increased the flow of energy for humans, sometimes bringing extinction to large mammal species and other competing hominids. The tools of agriculture likely increased the energy flow sufficiently to enable temple building and some individual specialization within tribes. The use of fire in cooking added calories to the human diet through its predigestion and sterilization of foods. But as anthropological evidence suggests, the early societies hit limits to energy flow as surrounding areas were depleted of food producing capacity by soil exhaustion or drought.

The Mammoth hunt. One of the gradients irrevocably eliminated by humans in their quest for food which also happened to provide extra calories for their tool-making propensities.

Most organisms in the ecosystem could never generate enough energy flow to become systematic, like humans have become. However, for humans there were many gradients awaiting their tool-making abilities, opportunities to boost energy rate density. Each boost in energy rate from using new tools and attacking new gradients would become the foundation for increased systematic evolution or complexity. More specialization, better information recording and retention, better materials until we arrive at modern man which finds himself in his cell working with information and tools like the RNA in his bodily cells. But to arrive at the current situation the energy flow had to be increased even higher and this was accomplished through the discovery of the fossil fuels. Homo sapiens could never have metabolized the fossil fuels himself as all of his infrastructure and organization was made for eating biological tissues. However, the energy could be used by linking it to tools like the steam engine at first and then others. RNA did something similar by using copious amounts of ATP linked to enzymes to accomplish work that an RNA itself or ribozyme would never be able to achieve. Humans societies have continued to grow in complexity and extent through the conversion of fossil fuels and other gradients. Their innovation and use of technological tools has allowed them to eat, in a non-replenishable manner, almost every stock or gradient on the planet. This is why they grow like a cancer, seemingly without limit, destroying everything in their path leading to ecological collapse.

If the innovation process is unable to turn-up new tools that are able to effectively work upon a new gradient, then energy flow will decrease and the complexity which depends upon it will begin to simplify. At ground level people will say,”We used to be able to……………….”, and “They don’t have those any more.” and “I’m hungry.”

Fusion Experiment (the gradient consuming tools seem to be getting more complex.)

There is some question as to how simplification and contraction will occur, slowly or suddenly. In my view, the falling availability of energy will parallel the starvation process in an organism with all readily available stores of energy being burned first (strategic petroleum reserves) and then the capital of muscles and organs. This could take some time at civilization’s scale, a slow and painful descent into emaciation followed by collapse or death. It doesn’t seem likely that we’ll be returning to an earlier time as the gradients have already been used up or severely damaged, waste sinks are preparing a counterattack, and undoing complexity in an orderly manner is problematic. Something that could result in a more sudden collapse is failure in the money system of which there doesn’t seem to be a analog in the biological world. A shut-down of the money system would be the equivalent of a heart attack. Even though starvation has already begun in some nations and areas, the illusion of growth and returns on capital are maintained so as to avoid the collapse in confidence and a shut-down in metabolism. The markets are rigged for a reason.

We’ve already hit the limits to growth IMO, but we have not yet hit the limits to covering-up our arrival at the limits to growth with financial legerdemain.

From 2000-2015 per capita CO2 emissions have decreased by 18.5% which should be an indicator of economic activity. However, the substitution of natural gas for coal has probably accounted for some of this reduction.

Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels:

Coal (anthracite) 228.6 Coal (bituminous) 205.7 Coal (lignite) 215.4 Coal (subbituminous) 214.3 Diesel fuel and heating oil 161.3 Gasoline (without ethanol) 157.2 Propane 139.0 Natural gas 117.0

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=73&t=11