Читать книгу Circular Economy For Dummies - Eric Corey Freed - Страница 44

The linear economy has always depended on cheap energy to power it. It has lasted this long only because energy was, until recently, still relatively inexpensive and abundant.

The postwar boom in the United States in the 1940s stemmed from US dominance over the world’s energy supply. Cheap energy powered the country’s growth, its economy, and its innovations.

This cheap energy also drove the mindset that our stuff needs to be made cheaper and cheaper. We made everything so cheap, in fact, that it was easier to just throw something away and buy a new one. Cheap energy devalued everything else, bringing in cheap materials, cheap labor, and cheap credit to buy it all with.

Unfortunately, the extraction and use of fossil fuels is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis facing humans today.

The oil age is over. Because it’s no longer cheap or abundant, the cracks are starting to appear in the façade. The famous English economist John Maynard Keynes famously said, “If the facts change, I change my mind; what do you do, sir?”

The fact is that fossil-fuel-based energy is expensive and destructive to the climate. As our dependence on fossil fuels must change, so too must our linear economic model change.