How The World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going. Vaclav Smil. Viking. 2022. Hard Cover. Sewn and Glued. 326 pages. 1.2 lbs. Appendix. References and Notes. Index.
Purchased at Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Dear Mr. Smil,
You end your book with cautious optimism: “The future, as ever, is not predetermined. Its outcome depends on our actions.”
Your last chapter reminds me of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow, in which they assert our past was not predicted, nor is our future. They and you all claim humanity is not marching towards Armageddon any more than it is entering a new techno-paradise; there is no pre-determined outcome.
If I understand you correctly, the overall argument you are presenting in How The World Really Works is that we are fully dependent on fossil fuels and it will require a gradual transition to reduce that dependency. Your book is written to help correct a current global problem, which you say is that “most people misunderstand the fundamental workings of the modern world.” You hope to correct this ignorance “in order to make us better realize our future limits and opportunities.”
For most of my life I have worked in either the food industry or the construction industry. Your book puts my experiences into a context I can more fully appreciate.
You structure the book by first explaining about energy and food production, and then examining what you call four pillars of modern society (ammonia, steel, concrete, and plastics). You next delve into globalization, understanding what risk-taking really entails, and our biosphere. Finally, you comment on our unpredictable future.
You begin by explaining energy. “Energy conversions are the very basis of life and evolution.” This is true for every living creature, from the first simple cells that converted minerals into food four billion years ago on through to modern humans that convert energy efficiencies into an excess of leisure time.
For humans, our trajectory to our current modern status began hundreds of thousands of years ago with the conversion of wood into fire, giving us heat for cooked food and warmth, light to extend the day, and protection against predators. The next big conversions included crop production and then domesticating animals, which gave us energy in calories and additional muscle power beyond our own.
From around 9,000 BCE to around 1,500 CE—a span of 10,500 years—you state that not much changes in terms of energy conversion. Even in 1800, after the start of the Industrial Revolution, the energy humans used most came from their own and their domesticated animals and plant material, mostly wood and charcoal.
This background helps put into context the tremendous amount of energy available to humans today, just 220 years later. For perspective, you calculate one way of looking at current energy availability, “is as if 60 adults would be working non-stop, day and night, for each average person.” For us in the U.S., that number would be more like 200 to 240 adults, supporting not just our survival but also our leisure.
You use food production as your first in-depth review of our energy use. When I worked on a farm that had no animals, with twelve acres of orchards and 2-plus acres of truck gardens for the farmers market, even with the availability of a tractor, we put in long, back-breaking days of labor. In fact, your “most common” definition of energy is “the capacity for doing work.” I don’t have as much capacity available to this older body as I did when younger and working on that farm; but I do take advantage of the increased energy availability from our modern world. After all, I don’t directly labor for my food anymore. 240 adults working for me 24/7?!
We labored hard in the orchards throughout the year, pruning and planting in winter, thinning in spring and summer, harvesting in late summer and fall, only to start it all over again. Same with the garden, though our labor did truly lie fallow in wintertime for a couple of months.
We did not grow grains except for experiments with amaranth, mostly for their delicious greens; threshing the grain proved to be too tedious. You use facts about grain production as a gauge of energy conversion because it is so ubiquitous around the world (wheat, corn, and rice) and data is so readily available for easy comparisons over time.
“Rising food production reduced the malnutrition rate from 2 in 3 people in 1950 to 1 in 11 people by 2019.” In that same time period, the world supplied adequate food to about 890 million people in 1950, increasing that to over seven billion people in 2019.
How did the world not only increase food production between 1959 and 2019 but also reduce the percentage of people who suffered malnutrition? Fossil fuels, you answer.
“The modern world’s most important…dependence on fossil fuels is their direct and indirect use in the production of our food.”
Direct use of fossil fuels includes what most people would think of how to use fossil fuels: powering machinery such as tractors, transporting food, and processing it. Indirect use of fossil fuels includes the production of fertilizer, agrochemicals, and plastic for greenhouses, and the fuel to manufacture farm machinery. I remember being astounded by the many rolls of plastic our organic farm ordered each year to cover our rows from frost damage. We also had a green house that required rolls of new plastic every few years. And we were just one small farm.
“We could not harvest such an abundance, and in such a highly predictable manner, without the still-rising inputs of fossil fuels…”
I remember the classes I took in college in the 1980s talking about the devastations wrought by famines, throughout history, culture, and geography right up to modern times. In recent years, I have often read the major reason for any hunger or famine in the 2000s is due to politics, not food production.
All that food security across the globe is improving due to our increased use of fossil fuels in food production in the past 150 years.
I now work in a small health food store. Let me tick off the ways in which we are highly dependent on fossil fuels just to retail food to our customers on a daily basis: the refrigerated trucks that travel several times a week hundreds of miles over well-maintained highways from temperature-controlled multi-acre-sized warehouses; the walk-in storage cooler and stand-up freezers in the backstock area; the coolers and freezers on the floor (which doors customers continually hold open as they make their well-deliberated decision on what products to buy); the refrigerants in all those coolers and freezers; the lights so everyone can see; the registers that run on electricity and the internet; the pumps that supply the store with hygienic water and transport the used water far away from our store to be sanitized; the plastic bags used to cradle the produce from display to home; the many plastic containers that hold our house-made salads and the processed foods on the shelves…well, I’m sure I’m missing some.
And we’re just one small 1,800-square-foot grocery store in one small 2,000-person town.
But let’s go back to something we glossed over from your first chapter: how fossil fuels are used for far more than just transportation directly. In the above list, we must acknowledge how vital fossil fuels are to lubricating the motors that run all those refrigerators and freezers, to the refrigerant oils, to the abundant plastic production required to keep food fresh and safe, and to the incredibly substantial amounts of focused energy required to manufacture all that machinery, lubricants, and plastics.
I could make similar comments from my experiences in the construction industry on your chapter about cement, steel, plastic, and ammonia. Or about how the food industry and the construction industry absolutely rely on a globalized economy. All of which requires fossil fuel use beyond the capacities of renewable energy for electricity.
In short, your book speaks to my—and all of our—firsthand experiences from living in this modern world. We are highly dependent on fossil fuel, and for far more than just electricity production or automobile transportation.
So back to your concluding statement: “The future, as ever, is not predetermined. Its outcome depends on our actions.”
I see customers come in with old, wrinkly plastic bags they re-use multiple times to re-fill items from our bulk foods department. We have customers who will opt out of store-supplied paper bags either by using one they brought with them or by simply carrying their purchases in their arms. Some customers walk to the store. We have many conscientious customers who think about how their individual actions impact the wider world.
And while it is admirable and even necessary for us all to look at our individual actions and how they add up to measurable results, your overall point is that this is simply not enough when it comes to climate change and our energy usage. Our actions must include the actions of humanity as a whole—or at the very least, a substantial chunk of humanity.
Yes, you admit, we must reduce food waste, eat less meat, use biofuels to run our farm machinery. We must also, you insist, be honest with ourselves: we won’t reduce food waste by the end of the week; and while certain populations eat too much meat, we cannot expect the entire world to suddenly stop eating such a vital nutrient in human evolution. Yes, we must support nuclear power. But we must—most of all—see with clear eyes just how dependent we are on fossil fuels for more than just electricity, and how incredibly realistic we all must be in analyzing our current situation.
I recently attended a ‘Hackfest,’ in which groups of people compete to solve specific problems with scalable solutions. Each group presents their situation to the larger assembly, who then vote on the overall best problem/solution. At this Hackfest, each group consisted of one eye surgeon, who brought a specific eye health-related question to the table, and a number of engineering technicians. The groups were encouraged to spend two days first clearly defining their respective problem, and only then developing their creative solution.
I suspect you wish the same regarding energy: let us first clearly define what the current global energy problem is, without being wistful or wishful. Then let us together create the needed practical solutions.
You ask: Do we know ‘how the world really works?’
I ask: Are you being realistic in writing this book? Could it not be considered the classic gesture of upheld arms and face while plaintively crying, “If only everyone…” …ate vegetarian! …walked instead of drove! …believed in a loving god! …looked clear-eyed at how the world really works!
What will this book really achieve? Was it meant for me, a mere grocery store employee? Or were you hoping policy makers, decision makers, and other influencers would read this book and hold their own Hackfests to clearly define the energy problem? And then work on realistic, scalable solutions?
I hope so, too.
But I also ask: What are we clerks and farmers and truck drivers and accountants and others saying to one another in conversations around the dinner table; in our tweets; on our social media; and at our jobs? What are we encouraging our kids to do ‘when they grow up?’ What energy policies are we supporting or even encouraging our politicians to address? Because as you say, “The future is not predetermined.” It will always depend on what we do. All of us.
I look forward to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
WEB