by kevin, on February 16th, 2009
I discovered Thom Hartmann through the film The 11th Hour. In the movie he speaks about how our use of fossil fuel is the equivalent of burning ancient sunlight. This idea captured my attention, and I started mentioning the idea in my slide shows. I put his book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, on my Amazon wish list, but my interest in other books kept me from making the purchase. A month ago I finally ordered the book and recently finished it. While working my way through I kept asking myself – why is this book not spoken of in the same way as other landmark environmental publications? Why was this book less well known while others have become mandatory reading? Other works are considered luminary. Why not Last Hours? Even though Mr. Hartmann takes a few tangents, the chapters dedicated to the issues we face with our dependence on ancient sunlight are spot on.
For anyone unfamiliar with Mr. Hartmann’s premise, it is that we are all made of sunlight. The sun is the engine of all life on Earth. In very simple terms, plants convert sunlight to food, animals eat the plants, and other animals eat those animals. The entire food chain is dependent on sunlight. Throughout human history, global population has been directly connected to the amount of sunlight we control. From ancient tribes of foragers to the first agricultural societies, population was contingent upon current sunlight – meaning the size of the population could not grow larger than the amount of current sunlight that could be harvested by plants and animals.
Early agricultural societies relied on human labor as the primary means of food production. The domestication of animals increased the amount of sunlight harvestable. They were more productive than human labor and could also be a food source. Around 900 years ago, everything changed when coal was discovered in Europe. 400 million years prior, during an era named the Carboniferous Period, global temperatures were much higher and scientists believe that most of the planet’s land mass was covered with dense and lush plant life. Over millions of years those plants died, built up, were buried, and under incredible heat and pressure were converted to coal. Those ancient plants are buried sunlight. The discovery of coal has had dramatic effect on population. Use of that ancient sunlight produced more work, more food, and a rapid increase in the Earth’s carrying capacity. It took 200,000 years for the global population to reach one billion. It took 130 years to reach two billion and the third billion just thirty years. The global population hit three billion in 1960, hit four billion in 1974, hit five billion in 1987, and hit six billion in 1999. Each additional billion has been added in far shorter time spans. We’re no longer dependent on current sunlight for survival, we’re now living off of ancient sunlight. This idea is a brilliant way to look at our situation.
As a fuel source coal is moderately rich in energy, but crude oil, more ancient plant life, is energy dense. Discovered in 1859, this form of ancient sunlight has exponentially increased work potential and food production. Mr. Hartmann points out two vital problems with this system. First, the supply of ancient sunlight is finite and limited – it cannot be replenished. Geological processes that took millions of years to occur are not currently producing new coal or crude oil. Estimates for crude oil suggest that the U.S. reached peak oil in 1974 and the world reached peak oil in 2002. We’ve extracted half the known reserves. Projections vary, but all agree that we will see the end of crude oil in this century. From 2002 forward, we are working with a diminishing supply. Second, there are planetary systems that are not enhanced with our use of ancient sunlight. Fresh water, biodiversity, minerals, and more do not grow at the same rate as population – or at all. Use of ancient sunlight has produced exponential human population growth, but every other system on the planet is taxed because they are not growing. Instead, they are shrinking at a rate equal to population growth.
Up to this point, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight has been illuminating and insightful. Where the book really falls short is in the area of solutions. And it’s here that I see why this book does not hold the same lofty position of others. The global predicament is covered in great depth and explained in a carefully considered fashion, but the solutions are so weak and odd that I’m not sure how to describe them in this review. Mr. Hartmann shifts from a thoughtful scientific description of a global crisis to emotional quasi-religious solutions. It’s almost as if the author is suggesting that wishful positive thinking will change our path. Some of the solutions are – learning from monks, respect for other cultures, looking into the face of God, turning off televisions, restructuring society so that they work more like tribes, and others. The one that troubled me most was turning off the television. I’m not against this in principle, but suggesting that it’s a meaningful solution to a grave global problem is tragic.
But the biggest shock comes at the end in a chapter titled Something Will Save Us. I agree that something will save us, but it will not be external, it will not be wishing for a solution, it will be us taking action. We have to solve the problems we’ve created. There will have to be a change in thinking and a cultural shift to correct generations of living off ancient sunlight. I recommend the first two thirds of the book whole heartedly, but please skip the last third if you don’t want to be terribly disappointed by the absolute disconnect between issues and solutions.
I believe that Hubberts peak is true and that we are now past the point of peak oil. I think many of the current events have to do with this downturn and it won’t be long before the main stream media and population wake up and understand what is going on. For me and my family, we are preparing for the next generation.