Transitioning to a Post-Carbon Society

This chapter outlines three theses in the social anthropology of technology which converge around transition and degrowth: the first one concerns the evolutionism behind the history of technology. According to this history, there is only one relationship with our environment (umwelt), that of efficacy with regard to an objectified nature. From this perspective, the destiny of technology is predation, though in other worldviews technology is also mediation, just like art.

In the second one, I introduce the concept of “thermo-industrial” society and I query the concept of the Anthropocene, locked into a positivist worldview. It is not Watt’s engine that marks its beginning but a new technical system that is also a way of thinking about the world. The train, together with the railway and telegraph network, takes us to a thermo-industrial society, one based on the power of fire in a web infrastructure. A new imaginary of time and space is developed throughout the twentieth century in the technical macro-system, one of the forms of the energy mega-machine.

In the third one, I argue that the current transition is just a third phase following that of coal and that of oil during World War II, as it is mainly based on electricity—second degree energy—which always relies on other heat-based power sources. Electricity does not change anything in the imaginary of predation and it enslaves us further in this view of the world and the mega-machine. The technology that supports electricity, that of ICTs, [information and communication technologies], smart grids, cyber-culture, etc., extends the same socio-historical trajectory of growth… It is therefore a very dangerous “phenomenon”, as it appears to be the way to let us believe in the absence of limits to prevent us from choosing our own pathways of degrowth and “limited” comfort based on a new understanding of nature and a pacified relationship with it.

A vast majority of people cannot accept that living in affluence is coming to an end. They do not admit they will be obliged to implement some type of austerity. This chapter examines the psychosocial mechanisms and structural and mental inertias that prevent individuals from becoming aware of this problem. The cultural and behavioural legacy of the era of consumer abundance is linked to individualist views of the role of private and collective consumption that need to be overcome for everybody’s needs to be fulfilled on the basis of solidarity. The chapter puts forward a number of proposals for the construction of a cultural and moral project of alternative and supportive austerity.

The transition to a post-carbon society, in which the consumption of fossil fuels falls over time, is determined by the need to prevent catastrophic climate change, the increasing cost of energy and complex combinations of both these causes. The transition will not only entail political adjustments and the replacement of some technologies by others, but will be accompanied by social and cultural changes that bring about substantial modifications in the organization of our societies and our ways of life. Based on the situation in Spain, this article analyses whether the current conditions, which date back to the crisis that began in 2007, favour a benign and smooth transition, or, on the contrary, make the transition more difficult and more prone to conflict. Macro-structural data obtained from secondary sources points to a link between decarbonization, economic recession and the erosion of social cohesion. However, a comparative international analysis suggests this may not be the case, at least during the initial phases of the transition. The results of focus groups on how people imagine the future indicate that immediate anxieties tend to cancel out any concern for ecological problems, and hence that the crisis is conducive not to transformative dreams but to regressive ones. Information on the environmental impact, or carbon footprint, of lifestyles and patterns of consumption shows the reduction in consumption induced by the crisis has shackled large swathes of the population to unsustainable ways of life in a new wave of poverty that is often characterized by high environmental costs. Finally, the chapter discusses the relationship between the post-carbon transition, overshoot and degrowth, examining the cultural features associated with a positive reconstruction of austerity.

In recent years the concept of a “carbon budget” has entered the lexicon of climate science. This concept refers to the maximum amount of carbon emissions that can be released into the atmosphere if the world is to keep within the “2 degree” temperature rise that was agreed to during the Copenhagen conference in 2009. Climate scientist, Kevin Anderson, has argued that if the world is going to keep to its carbon budget, the most developed (Annex 1) nations need to reduce emissions by 8–10 % p.a. over the coming decades. Anderson also argues that this level of reductions cannot be met purely from a “supply side” solution of scaling up renewable energy. While scaling up renewable energy is necessary, such deep and rapid emissions reductions actually have to be supported by reducing emissions from the “demand side” too. While these assumptions are clearly stated, ethically sound and scientifically robust, their implications are radical. Economic orthodoxy holds that economic growth is incompatible with emissions reductions of more than 3 % or 4 % p.a., from which it would follow that avoiding runaway climate change requires degrowth in the Annex 1 nations. In this chapter we examine these assumptions and explore some of their socio-economic and political implications. In particular, we outline various “power-down” policies for deep and rapid decarbonization that would initiate a degrowth transition.

What are the conditions under which the meaning of the signifier “austerity” might be reworked for environmental ends? Could the concept of “austerity” describe a mode of living that is compatible with the challenges of working towards transition and degrowth? This chapter considers what can be learnt from the UK context, in which social actors in environmental and transition politics have—since the early 2000s—elaborated a concept of “eco-austerity”. This has been achieved via the mobilization of a particular historical period as symbolic resource: the period 1939–1954, an era widely known as “austerity Britain”. Through an evaluation of this activity, the chapter identifies the significant challenges presented by a project of recasting the meaning of the signifier “austerity”, as well as the possibilities for alternative future-making that may yet be associated with this concept.

Christians know that in most cases, in order to be good people, we need to break down and then reconstruct ourselves—they call it conversion. Left-wing militants should not ignore something which is so basic. Here we go again, calling upon a New Man and a New Woman. under orders of (personal and collective) politico-moral self-construction. This chapter examines how we can conceive it now, in the Malthusian “Century of the Great Trial”.

How would the ordinary middle-class citizen deal with a lifestyle of radical simplicity? Radical simplicity does not mean poverty, which is involuntary and full of suffering and anxiety, and thus universally undesirable. Rather, it means a very low but biophysically sufficient material standard of living. This chapter directly addresses the issue of “two types of austerity”, arguing that lifestyles of reduced consumption can be desirable if we negotiate the degrowth transition wisely, both as individuals and as communities. Indeed, it suggests that radical simplicity is exactly what consumer cultures need to shake themselves awake from their comfortable slumber; that radical simplicity would be in our own, immediate self-interests.

This chapter discusses how Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Ireland, attempts to model the transition towards a low-carbon society and to disseminate the lessons learned in this process. It starts with a description of the ecovillage, its history and its foundation. It then analyses the various elements that support the attempts to model a low-carbon society, including power, food (community farm), transport, water, the building of homes, livelihood styles and community life. The chapter presents the ecovillage governance model and how it evolved since inception, and describes the educational activities through which the lessons learned are to be disseminated. Finally, it shows how this has helped achieve an ecological footprint of 2 global hectares, the lowest ever measured in Ireland, and describes the ongoing process aimed at systematically reducing it in a planned way.

To meet the requirements of European policy on energy transition (the 20/20/20 targets), France is developing a number of major offshore wind farms projects. Based on the study of one of them (off the coast of Caen), this chapter analyses the challenges and issues raised by these projects for the development of renewable energies. In particular, it explores how they provide evidence of “think global” limitations, as wind power is only seen as an alternative energy source rather than as a local community resource.

This chapter is divided into two clearly distinct parts. The first illustrates the evolution, discourse and strategies that social and economic agents (both employers and unions) have been developing over the past two decades in response to climate change. The text highlights some of the important aspects of the new environmental management by large companies, in response to public and private pressure, noting the social and economic consequences of this new strategic framework. It also analyses the discourse of corporate responsibility (employers) and of the two main Spanish unions.

The second part examines the perception and future projections of the energy transition among these social agents. It details how these agents, especially the Spanish employers, are clearly committed to moving away from an energy model based on exploitation and consumption of fossil fuels. In addition, these agents predict a slow evolution (between 30 and 40 years) towards an energy framework based exclusively on clean and renewable energy.

To some extent, waste is just one more sign of the unsustainability of growth. Waste from industrial and socio-economic metabolism must be understood as any unusable material left over after a job, function or operation has been completed, which however, retains the ability to disrupt natural systems and interfere with them as one of its inherent properties. As part of such waste, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) represents the unusable (or underused) and rejected fraction of the material resources mobilized by the sophisticated urban and/or industrial ecosystem. Although the volume of MSW is relatively small compared to other waste types, it is increasingly important as a result of its steady rise in recent years due to population growth and consumer habits. Moreover, demographic concentration in urban areas means that sustainable waste management methods are a necessity including, as an essential element, prevention and waste treatment or disposal. Hence, the importance of reduction, minimization, reuse and recycling is directly linked to sustainability and degrowth and, consequently to the future of the planet and the human species. This chapter examines the outcomes of the Planes Nacionales Integrales de Residuos—PNIR (national Comprehensive Waste Management Plans) or their regional equivalents, PIR—in Spain, discussing them under the perspective of degrowth and a post-carbon transition. It concludes that the current situation shows the lack of efficient intervention or regulation by public authorities in putting mechanisms of interaction in place, via public debate and social and economic commitment among all stakeholders (producers, manufacturers, distributors, services, users-consumers, the administration itself) throughout the sequence of MSW generation and management.

This chapter poses the following research question: Which social actions in modern urban neighbourhoods aid the transition to a post-carbon society and mitigate the effects of global warming (IPCC 2014)? The answer is based on the capacity of communities to generate knowledge-creation processes and innovative initiatives. It is assumed that transition actions are based on experiential knowledge creation, which strengthens them when in the midst of crises derived from unsustainable production and consumption processes, leading them to reject conventional strategies and experiment with alternatives. Such transition initiatives include the participation energy programme (PEP), community urban agriculture (CUA), change market, cooperatives and fab labs, among others, reflecting an experiential knowledge creation (EKC) process, based on supporting innovation in social actions through people’s interactions, with both explicit (formal) and tacit (common) dimensions. It is also assumed that experiential knowledge is in a continual process of change, refining optimum responses to any circumstance that empowers people. Within this framework, the chapter examines the process taking place in a neighbourhood of Barcelona which is situated within the transition towns movement. For data collection, eight semi-structured interviews (70 minutes average in length) were undertaken to collect data on the process and Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) model on knowledge creation was used to analyse the data.