Reslience.org is publishing a series of posts capturing a conversation between me and Dave Murphy facilitated by Ben McCall (three of the five co-founders of the Planetary Limits Academic Network). Here, I repeat the original content, and provide additional commentary [linked within the document inside brackets] on points that I did not fully address in the dialog. Clicking on the [additional content] links will send you further down this same post, where you’ll also find a link to return to the paragraph of origin (or use “back” navigation on your browser). Thus, you have the option to read commentary as you go, or save for later once reading the captured exchange. Either way works. Okay: here we go!

A Tale of Two Murphys: an interview, conducted in 2023–2024, by Ben McCall of two founders of the Planetary Limits Academic Network (PLAN): Dave Murphy, a prominent scholar of the energy transition movement, and Tom Murphy, a physicist who focuses on how fundamental principles can be applied to the Earth system as a whole. In this interview, we explore the continuum of perspectives within PLAN along a spectrum that might be labeled “doomer” on one end and “techno-utopian” on the other. Neither of the conversation’s participants could be labeled as either of these extremes, although it will be clear that they each lean more toward one side than the other.

First Exchange: What Hope?

Ben: Dave, you’ve often expressed a sense of optimism about humanity’s future, in spite of the planetary limits we face. Can you say a bit about what makes you optimistic?

Dave: I guess I would answer this question two ways. First, I would frame the issue in a different way. As written, it posits an optimistic outlook for the future vs. some “scientific” issue of planetary limits. These two should not be viewed in this way. Planetary limits is a concept discussed much in the scientific literature and one in which, at least to me, there is little doubt. There are indeed planetary limits. The second issue is the outlook I choose to take for the future, which is based on nothing scientific at all. I guess my point is that these two things are not mutually exclusive, one can understand planetary limits and be optimistic.

Second—why am I optimistic? If we continue with the continuum that Ben brought up on the intro, I would say that there is a tremendous amount that can be accomplished in the middle between techno-utopian and doomer. This middle space can simultaneously acknowledge planetary limits and the dangers associated with deforestation, species decline, climate change, etc., and advocate for positive change in our energy systems. It has also been my experience that despair and doomerism are ineffective change-agents. No politician is elected on a slogan “It’s all over.” But the real reason I am optimistic is probably pretty simple: I have kids and I can’t tell them the world is over before they even grow up. [What is “the world?”]

Ben: Tom, what degree of optimism do you have about humanity’s future? How does your perspective contrast with the one Dave has expressed here?

Tom: I make a distinction here between humanity’s future and modernity’s future. Many people conflate the two, as I once did. As I see it, the brief flash of modernity is incompatible with planetary limits, and will necessarily terminate one way or another. It is for this reason that I no longer focus on energy systems, since keeping modernity powered does not seem to be an appropriate goal—essentially kicking the can down the road. Access to a large amount of exosomatic energy is exactly what has enabled modernity to carry out its atrocities against the more-than-human world via deforestation, habitat fragmentation, extermination, and extinction—and to swell human populations to precarious heights via industrial agriculture. Technological innovations, such as renewable energy, tend to enhance or at least promote continuance of our destructive practices—irrespective of CO₂. Unless we change something deeper, we can expect more of the same behaviors and outcomes.

So, where is the optimism in all that? It’s simply that humans do not have to operate this way on the planet, as many amazing people have demonstrated over almost the entire duration of human habitation on Earth. Our biological hardware is fine, and indeed rather remarkable. However, the operating system we currently run in our brains, called modernity, has fundamental flaws that will self-terminate the enterprise via disregard for ecological and planetary limits. Humans are incredibly plastic and adaptable. A newborn does not yet have this operating system installed, meaning that enormous changes are possible under different material and cultural conditions.

I am not saying that a reversion to hunter-gatherer lifestyles comes next, even though we know that mode to be well-tested. We can try something new that might have some elements of hunter-gatherer ways and some elements of modernity, while perhaps being unrecognizable to either. In any case, I am “doomerish” on modernity as a misguided enterprise, and think we will need to face letting go of it. Recovering from overshoot is unlikely to be fun. My optimism lies in knowing that—after the dust settles—humans are capable of forming meaningful, respectful, and sustainable relationships within the community of life—founded on humility rather than hubris—as a part of nature, not apart from it.

Second Exchange: Modernity?

Ben: Dave, I’m curious to what extent you agree with Tom’s assessment of modernity’s future, as a distinctive concept from humanity’s future?

Dave: What is modernity? I think we need to define further what we are discussing. Is insulin production part of modernity? Cancer medication? Vaccinations? [More on medical care] Food production systems? Probably not the high-powered fossil fuel variety of food systems, but what about agro-ecological food production systems that are organic but probably use some fuel in tractors etc? Are all technology and energy applications, aside from primitive tools etc, out in this vision of the future?

If we are saying that all the advances of modern medicine and society that require, for example, plastic or energy must be abandoned after the “dust settles,” well then I am not sure what to say. I feel as though it goes against human nature [More on human nature]—not to mention unethical—to advocate for a future society that knowingly rejects the basic medicines and technology that are required for the survival of so many people. [More on ethical considerations]

Assuming we are not discussing that type of future, the question then becomes one of line-drawing. [More on line-drawing] What is considered part of the “modernity” that must be rejected and what is part of “modernity” that we will keep? Insulin production is a great example. Millions of people around the world require insulin to stay alive, and that insulin is (I assume because I have not researched this) produced in fairly advanced facilities using lots of new technology and energy resources. If we want to maintain insulin production in the future, then we must maintain supply systems for the production of that insulin which will also entail the requisite material extraction from Earth and energy consumption.

The production of insulin becomes one of minimizing impacts rather than eliminating them. [More on minimizing impacts] The energy transition represents the best way to minimize impacts associated with energy production systems, so I advocate for that, acknowledging that there will indeed still be impacts. The energy transition doesn’t “save the world,” but it has the potential to provide essential and non-essential goods and services with much lower impact. Why spurn that opportunity if we know we will need to continue to produce goods and services in the future? [More on confident continuation]

Conspicuous consumption and much about our fossil-fuel powered growthism must change if we are going to have some sort of harmony with Mother Earth, but I think collapse is neither the best nor the only way to get there. Recent research shows that just the electrification that occurs as part of the energy transition will lead to a decrease of final energy demand of 40% globally due to more efficient end-use of energy. That is a massive decrease in final energy demand, which translates to an even larger decrease in primary energy demand. [More on massive decreases] And, as Amory Lovins wrote about this topic 40 years ago, people often overestimate the impact that occurs due to Jevon’s Paradox. People don’t do more laundry because they have purchased a more efficient washing machine. For sure, they may drive a bit more if their fuel costs go down due to a more efficient engine, but people that buy electric vehicles are not driving so much more to actually increase energy consumption. I think it is a mistake to assume that the trends we see at the very beginning of the energy transition—i.e. that renewable energy has largely added to—rather than substituted for—other energy consumption—will continue in the future.

Ben: Tom, I wonder if you could offer a definition of modernity, and say a little bit about what elements of modernity we might expect to retain in the long run?

Tom: Modernity is the dazzling and manifestly temporary fireworks show that we find ourselves living within, and to which we are wholly inured, so that we lack perspective on what might possibly be viable in the long term. Modernity, via rapid and grossly unsustainable expenditure of a one-time inheritance, puts humans so completely out of context as to render meaningless any artificial attempts to draw lines regarding what may or may not be part of the future. We only fool ourselves to think that we can play such a game, or that our ethical preferences have a say over what’s possible. We have far less agency than the recent windfall has led us to believe. The menu is not for us to decide, as we are embedded passengers within—rather than creators or masters of—the natural world, upon which we are utterly dependent. We have some agency, in that we could—in principle—decide to prioritize ecological concerns over modern expectations and live conservatively within the perceived limits.

Pursuing this further, we don’t arbitrate what is or is not sustainable, any more than we decide how strong gravity ought to be today. Since our true context is as an evolved biological species operating within a larger and exceedingly interdependent community of life, we must assume that the health of that broader community is vital to our long term success—including the vitality of unknown species having co-dependencies we likely will never understand. The present cocktail of ecological ignorance and destruction is akin to sawing off the branch on which we stand, enamored of our power and technology to carry out such an operation.

Since 1970, the average decline in vertebrate species is about 70%. Wild land mammals—now comprising 2% of total terrestrial mammal mass compared to 96% in the form of humans and domesticated animals—have been eliminated to the point that only 2.5 kg of wild land mammal mass remains for each human on the planet. This was 80 kg per person in 1800, and 50,000 kg before civilization sprang up. They’re almost gone. A major disruption in global food supply—perhaps instigated by fossil fuel shortages—could essentially finish the job. To reinforce an earlier point, these declines—similar in birds, amphibians, and insects—are not primarily due to CO₂, but trace to the much longer pattern of modernity’s expansion and heavy use of energy and nature’s provisions.

In light of this, the prospect of maintaining insulin for human health is in doubt, as doing so requires some threshold in technology, mining, resource extraction, energy, pollution/waste, etc. that may be well over the line of what the community of life can accommodate in the fullness of time. Can we justify prioritizing insulin over ecological health, and is it even a valid choice in the end? If one nation had a long history of expansion, overrunning and displacing technologically inferior and peaceful nations to the point that complete elimination/dominance was in sight, is it justifiable to prioritize health care of that nation’s citizens before trying to end the war against innocents? [Do I mean Nazis?] The question is even more poignant when the expanding race cannot themselves survive if indeed managing to eliminate the “competition,” although few seem to be aware of this built-in peril of “success.”

So, I think it is not within our capacity to decide how much of modernity’s perks we can keep. Ecological context comes first, which we ignore to our ultimate peril. We have zero evidence demonstrating long-term sustainability while enjoying modern conveniences like insulin, but ample evidence that the current system is woefully far over the line, by perhaps orders-of-magnitude. Any number of tweaks to a grossly unsustainable system—changing the source of energy that drives the machine, for instance—are unlikely to change its fundamental character or aims. It seems like too much to ask that modernity’s forward march will inexplicably, luckily, reverse course on ecological harm without its becoming the overriding, non-negotiable priority, based on the track record thus far.

Therefore, I would again guess that modernity, in its fundamental structure, is incompatible with planetary limits, and thus has no path to unsustainable continuance (an oxymoron, in any event). How much we must abandon is very hard to say, but I would be prepared to believe: most of it. Mind you, I don’t relish this in any way, but it’s not for me to judge.

End of Part 1

This post covers the first two of eight exchanges. We’ll pick up the conversation in the next installment (already out at Resilience). The sections that follow offer additional commentary that was not part of the initial exchange. Turns out, I had more to say.

The World

Dave’s use of “the world is over” may reveal a core tenet: that modernity is the world, or that it’s the most salient feature of the world. I believe this to be common. Even Earth (itself a tiny, tiny fraction of the universe) is mostly biophysical in composition. Modernity is a comparatively simple and thin veneer layered on top by pushing some stuff around. As thin as it is, it threatens many deep-time relationships in the “main” world of ecological existence. Most of the inter-Murphy disconnect may come down to this difference in perspective of what’s lasting and important in this world.

Also, shutting off the vast possibility-space of the end of modernity because it’s hard to break it to the kids might not be the best way to accommodate the reality that actually unfolds. Such a precondition is easily ignored by the rest of the universe.

And speaking of preconditions, imagining the transition away from modernity to operate within modernity’s construct of elected politicians again restricts the operating space, artificially. (Return to conversation)

Medical Care

When faced with the prospect of modernity’s failure, it is natural to focus on the loss of medical advantages. Many of us—or our loved ones—would not be alive without modern medicine. I recognize that it’s a very tough sell to suggest we learn to live (and die) without it. Death is a huge hangup for our culture: lots of denial, fear, and simple unfamiliarity. But we all die, inevitably.

Anyway, the premium placed on preserving human life feels like a flavor of human supremacy: we have a “right” to every possible medical intervention, somehow. We do not apply the same level of concern to squirrels, newts, or chickadees (all adorable). Assuming a chickadee population is stable, and adults produce clutches of 4–6 eggs each year—sometimes for many years in a row—attrition must be quite high. Otherwise, populations would explode and then crash for other reasons. Ironically, that’s no way to live.

Humans are animals, too. We got to be the amazing creatures we are by having as many die as are born, and even owe death some gratitude for every functioning aspect of our physiology: those whose functions were not viable died so that we as a species may enjoy healthy lives. It’s just not realistic to ignore this evolutionary aspect of who and what we are, and how we—like every living being—got here.

The situation is captured in the Likes and Dislikes framing: all the aspects we like about modernity are inextricably tangled into an enormous price tag to the tune of a sixth mass extinction. If our own species’ extinction is one of the long-term “benefits” of our health care plan, it’s a bad plan for us! We fool ourselves to think we can select Likes at will, without enormous consequences. It just takes time to bite down. (Return to conversation)

Human Nature

Claims about human nature are famously fraught. In this case, the claim is that it goes against human nature to reject technology. Tell that to the many humans (presumably possessing a healthy portion of “nature”) who have actively pushed away modern “niceties.”

When we—as members of modernity—assess human nature, we must be aware that we live in the most anomalous time and culture in human history, so that the “nature” we witness and exhibit (and reward) is not terribly representative. To get closer to the truth in terms of fundamental human nature, surely we’re better off if possessing a deep familiarity with humans as they have been for hundreds of thousands of years as hunter-gatherers. Life before agriculture marks the vast majority of our time on the planet, in roles we evolved into. Anyway, the point is that we ought to be especially skeptical of claims about human nature based on people we directly know, just as it is pretty silly to comment on jaguar nature based on a specimen confined to a small zoo enclosure. We’re damaged goods, and perhaps most of us feel in our bones that something’s not right about this whole business. (Return to conversation)

Ethical Consideration

We return to this point in the sixth exchange, so I’ll just preview by saying that ethical consideration is moderated by scope in terms of who receives ethical consideration, and over what timescale. Weighting heavily on humans alive today, at the cost of a sixth mass extinction, seems deeply unethical to not only ourselves—becoming complicit in the worst crime a species has perpetrated in the history of the planet—but to future humans and to all present and future living beings. Preserving modern medicine may, in fact, be among the most unethical acts we could carry out, in a broader context. (Return to conversation)

Line Drawing

This charge comes up often. Any argument contrasting A vs. B might be met with: “Well, then, where is the exact line between A and B?” In my view, this obfuscates the point, attracting our left brains into a fallacious fit of definition and logic that derails the broader point. At it’s core, it seems often to be an effort to discredit the contrast between A and B, if one is unable to offer an inarguable boundary between the two (an effort which is bound to fail).

Children are markedly different than adults. We do not hold a toddler and a 35-year-old to be interchangeable. Yet, if challenged to define the line between children and adults, I would surely fail: no sharp line exists, and many attributes blend and transform at different times. But lack of an identified line does not invalidate arguments that children are unambiguously different from adults—once far enough from the fuzzy transition zone. Line-seeking is a pointless distraction.

In this case, deciding what elements of modernity are “good” or “bad” is way beyond our capability. It’s an inseparable package-deal. Modernity, as a whole, is causing a sixth mass extinction in a way that hunting and gathering very much did not. The line between farming and foraging may be impossible to nail down in consensus form, but so what? The practices lead to different outcomes and consequences. (Return to conversation)

Minimizing Impacts

Dave suggests focusing on minimizing impacts of activities that are non-negotiably part of what we want to do. I suggest reassessing whether said activities are even possible or worthwhile in the broadest view, in the fullness of time. Either suggestion fails, actually, in the sense that we’re not really smart enough to evaluate the myriad implications. In this sense, precautionary tendencies might steer us toward questioning whether we should engage in the hubris to assert that such-and-such a practice—without any anthropological or ecological precedent—is really a wise move.

The upshot is that the ecological world imposes boundary conditions on what is long-term feasible, even if we are too dim (and brief) to perceive those boundaries. (Return to conversation)

Confident Continuation

Dave suggests that “we know we will need to continue to produce goods and services into the future.” In the eighth exchange, Dave introduces the notion of pre-analytic assumptions that constrain our thought-space. This may be a good example. It is practically unimaginable to us—well outside most people’s head-space—that humans may transition to life without markets, money, and possibly even written language (especially if thought is limited to decade-scales, as is often the default). If one takes it as a given that some form of modernity continues (e.g., goods and services), then the range of possibility is seriously—artificially—constrained. (Return to conversation)

Massive Decrease

A potential decrease of 40% of final energy demand as a side-benefit of a transition to renewable energy is represented as “massive.” In most circles it would be. The disconnect, again, is scope. If present energy use is driving a sixth mass extinction (by deforestation, mining, manufacturing, pollution, habitat displacement and fragmentation, etc.), and is orders-of-magnitude more intense than ecology can support, then a 40% reduction is of little consequence.

If a ship is taking on water fast, so that it will sink in two hours, a reduction by 40% means it will sink in a little less than three. The result is the same: a sunken ship. If you have Stage IV metastatic cancer, surgery that removes 40% of the cancerous tissue might qualify as a “massive” reduction, but to what end? (Return to conversation)

The Human Reich

I make allusion to Nazis in this section, without using the name. Comparison to Nazis is over-utilized and often unjustifiably extreme. But in the case of a self-proclaimed “master species” that is systematically eradicating inferior species, the shoe fits. Modernity is the Human Reich. So, I think it’s valid to ask whether Nazi health care should be prioritized over the rest of the living world, as is implicit in calls to preserve modern medicine. (Return to conversation)

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