Our carbon pulse

A once in a species opportunity

A cartoon

A thought

Those of us worried about the climate crisis tend to be obsessed with carbon emissions, and rightly so, but have you ever zoomed out to think more broadly about the extraordinary chain of planetary events across millions of years that had to happen to bring us to our present predicament?

Chris Martenson

describes it as a “once in a species opportunity”. The extraordinary technological developments of the past few hundred years are largely due to our ability to leverage the power of ancient sunlight.

Nate Hagens

calls it the carbon pulse and describes it as a “one time magical power”.

Nate explains that you and I and every other human on earth today, happen to be alive at this crazy moment in our 300,000-year history as a species. At a time when we think it normal to have the power of millions of years of sunshine at our fingertips.

To make matters worse, we regularly conflate cost with value. While each barrel of oil might cost 50 or 60 dollars, it provides value, or work for us worth up to $100,000.

Chris brings this concept to life through his term “energy slave”. Chris explains:

Every time you turn on a 100 watt light bulb it is the same as having a fit human peddling as hard as they can in the basement to keep the light running. When you consider the regular energy use of a western household that is the same as having 50 bike-riding energy slaves in the basement. When you jump in your car, depending on the engine size, that is the same as a King harnessing his carriage to 300 horses. Most of us in the western world have an energy slave count exceeding Kings of past eras. If we run this analogy to the global level, calculating all the fossil fuel used in 2019 and converting it to a fit human adult working eight hours a day, 365 days a year, we discover that we 7.8 billion people are employing 468 billion energy slaves. That is each of us using the human labour equivalent of 60 people.

You and I know, living in the west, reading this email our personal count is likely to be much higher again.

How do we use this gift? Inefficiently and with wanton abandon: plastic bottled water, disposable single-use or quickly obsolete products, fast fashion, and cheap plastic toys. The way we are using this precious once-in-a-species opportunity is generally shortsighted and making us and our home world sick. The generations to come after us have a right to a habitable planet, but don’t they also have a right to access fossil fuel resources? Some uses will be difficult to replace with other materials at scale, including medical devices and horticultural clear plastic for greenhouses.

I was chatting with my son, I asked him to imagine he was given a miraculous device, an iphone with a single charge - how would he use it? My inclination would be to keep it off most of the time and only use it on very special occasions when the need is greatest. He said, “I don’t think I would bother, I’d just find different ways to do everything I wanted it to do.” Conservation of a resource and identification of alternatives - sounds like a place to start!

Everyone alive today and all our recent ancestors have lived on the upward curve of the carbon pulse rollercoaster - this abundant cheap energy seems normal. The descent is coming as fossil fuels are a finite resource. Climate pollution aside, we need to decide how to manage the resource and its descent wisely.

If this lens on our current time is intriguing to you then I can recommend:

• The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight book by Thom Hartmann.

• Nate Hagen’s YouTube on the possible future curves for fossil fuel use.

• Chris Matenson’s book The Crash Course Revised Edition.

Glimmers and sparks*

My glimmers for today are:

• A day trip to the beach on a sparkly sunshiney day.

• Laughing how often owners look like their doggo friends.

• My new Substack friend

  Sue Ferrera
  took Li’l Bean musing on To Do or To Be to a new level, coming up with the idea of a daily To Be list. Wonderful! What would you put on your To Be list today?

  Daily to-be list influences well-being

Li’l bean is your reminder to pause and ask: What are your glimmers for today?

From your friend and your small, steadfast companion,

*Drawing Li’l Bean helped me navigate out of a period of depression in 2023. A good friend 13, 595km away, helped, too, through a ritual of swapping daily glimmers via text.

A glimmer is a tiny spark of hope, enthusiasm or joy that lifts your heart. By helping me find three glimmers each day, she gently helped me see the joy and beauty already around me.

I’d like to share this practice with you and invite you to reflect on your glimmers for the day when you read this. Think of Li’l Bean as a reminder to notice the glimmers and sparks in your life. We’d love it if you would like to share your glimmers in the comments or by hitting reply (if you don’t like sharing publicly).