Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 17

MAKING TROUBLE BY SAUL GRIFFITH

The Year of Peak Waste

Yes, we are all depressed. It appears to me that everyone I know is working harder than ever before, scrambling in this strange new world that was thrust upon us while the Global Economic Crisis took hold of our little monkey brains and made our primate instincts do the worst: panic.

But maybe, just maybe, it’s the best news ever. Perhaps it’s actually fantastic. Let’s look at some data: in terms of energy use and, consequently, carbon output, the only proven technology humanity has for reducing CO₂ output at the global scale is economic crisis (see graph). The data is not yet in for 2008, though given that OPEC slashed production multiple times in the latter half of 2008, it looks as if, ...