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20 Adaptation Strategies 332
the end of the story. Challenge the listener to deal with the tension, as
this book has attempted to do. Tough love.
20.2.1 Predicament, not Problems
It may also be advisable to avoid characterizing the set of interconnected
global challenges as “problems,” because the word problem implies a
solution. It implicitly isolates the issue at h<strong>and</strong> into a st<strong>and</strong>-alone simple
issue, promoting “what if we just. . . ” proposed solutions. The real
story is far more intricate, <strong>and</strong> more like a game of whack-a-mole. 10
A simple “fix” to one corner of the problem makes something worse
elsewhere. A better word is predicament, intoning a more serious <strong>and</strong>
possibly intractable situation. Perhaps a predicament can be viewed as
an interconnected set of thorny challenges rather than a collection of isolated
problems.
Predicaments don’t have solutions, but responses. Piecemeal fixes are
unlikely to “solve” the current predicament in a way that permits moving
on <strong>and</strong> relegating the problems to the past. 11 But we can imagine recrafting
our world, responding to the challenges by adapting our mode
of living to be compatible with planetary limits. Problems can be faced
head-on <strong>and</strong> be defeated, whereas predicaments call for stepping around
<strong>and</strong> finding a different path.
10: ...agamewhere heads pop up out of
holes to be hammered down, only to see
other heads pop up elsewhere
11: . . . as was the case for curing polio, for
instance
20.3 Personal Adaptation <strong>and</strong> Guidelines
Previous chapters have discussed the challenges democratic governments
have in imposing any form of reduction that feels like sacrifice to
the population. Since political power in democracies starts with individuals,
we focus here on what individuals can do to reduce their dem<strong>and</strong>
on energy resources. If enough individuals are not willing to make such
adjustments, it is doubtful that the U.S. government, for instance, would
exert authority over this sensitive domain of personal freedom.
This section addresses ways to take personal control of energy expenditures.
12 The presupposition is that the reader is interested in ways to
reduce their impact, or footprint, on the planet <strong>and</strong> its resources. Collective
progress on this front would reduce the current 18 TW dem<strong>and</strong>
on energy, making it that much easier for fossil fuel replacements to
satisfy a more modest dem<strong>and</strong>. A voluntary course of reduction on
a broad enough scale would reduce vulnerability to forced reduction
that would ultimately accompany declining fossil resource availability
or climate-motivated reduction targets. It is also good preparation for
potential scarcity.
12: <strong>Energy</strong> usage correlates strongly with
resource usage, in general.
© 2021 T. W. Murphy, Jr.; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Lic.;
Freely available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions.