Planetary Phase Shift
= "A systemic civilizational transformation involving the collapse of the fossil-fueled industrial paradigm and the potential emergence of a regenerative, distributed, and post-extractive operating system." [1]
Context
Nafeez Ahmed:
"We are in the midst of a planetary phase shift: a planetary-scale metamorphosis that will determine not just our geopolitical and economic future in the near term, but the very fate of the human species in the long term. Humanity finds herself on the cusp of the next great leap in our evolution potentially heralding the end of scarcity within our lifetimes. But if we fail to leap, we could abort this momentum and plunge into an abyss.
Clues to the dynamics of this planetary phase shift can be seen in the way change works at far smaller scales of physical, chemical, and biological systems. At these scales a “sharp transition” in the degree of organisation within the system can be triggered by rapidly shifting external pressures – such as when we apply heat to boil water, turning it into steam.
At these small scales, scientists measure the ‘phase’ of a system – its level of organisation – by examining relevant physical forces like temperature and magnetism. But on the planetary scale involving human civilisation and its relationship to the earth, understanding the ‘phase’ of the entire planetary system requires a much wider lens capable of making sense of the astonishing complexity of human and earth systems.
When we do this, we can see that the very same patterns of change we find among molecules and cells, are playing out across societies and civilisations through the evolutionary march of culture and technology."
(https://ageoftransformation.org/the-end-of-scarcity-from-polycrisis-to-planetary-phase-shift/)
Article
* Article: "Planetary phase shift" as a new systems framework to navigate the evolutionary transformation of human civilisation. By Nafeez Ahmed. Foresight: The Journal of Futures Studies, 2024 doi
"Planetary phase shift theory offers a new collective anticipatory intelligence framework for foresight study and practice, formalising the notion that humanity has arrived at an unprecedented historical and geological turning point. It is based on a transdisciplinary integration of C. S. Holling’s adaptive cycle with phase transition theory at societal and civilisational scales. This framework is used to assess empirical data across energy, transport, food and information, revealing that the proliferation of multiple global crises across earth and human systems is related to the last stages of the life-cycle of global industrial civilisation. The planetary phase shift implies that humanity has arrived at an evolutionary turning point that is either the precursor for collapse, or a new civilisational life-cycle representing the next stage in the material and cultural evolution of the human species. This life-cycle could comprise a networked ‘postmaterialist’ ecological civilisation unleashing an unprecedented possibility space for post-carbon prosperity within planetary boundaries. Yet its success requires a fundamental reorganisation of the governance, economy, politics, culture, worldview and value-system of our societies, guiding the design and acceleration of key technologies."
Characteristics
Nafeez Ahmed:
"Civilisations behave like other living systems. They grow, mature, break down, and either reorganise into a new form or collapse. We are in the breakdown stage – a moment when the way societies generate energy, move people and goods, feed themselves and process information is coming apart, even as a new way of doing all of that is being born in its shadow.
Five sectors of the global economy are crossing into new configurations at the same time. Each on its own would be a generational story. Together, they reshape everything.
Energy – Solar panels, wind turbines and batteries are now the cheapest source of electricity on the planet, on a cost curve that has been stable for two decades. Since 2011, onshore wind costs have fallen 59%, offshore wind 61%, solar 89% and batteries 83%. Some 84% of new global power generation in 2023 was renewable. Two trillion dollars a year now flows into clean technology investment – double the amount going into fossil fuels.
Transport – Electric vehicles, and behind them autonomous vehicles, are following the same cost curve. The internal combustion engine is heading the way of the horse and cart.
Food – Precision fermentation and cellular agriculture – using engineered microbes to produce proteins and fats at scale – are projected to make protein production five to 10 times cheaper than industrial animal agriculture by 2035. As the think tank RethinkX has documented, industrial livestock is heading for the same collapse that wiped out the kerosene-lamp industry in a decade. Up to 2.7 billion hectares of freed land could become available for rewilding, regenerative farming and carbon drawdown.
Information – This is the part Blair has noticed. AI is following a much steeper cost curve. The cost to train a model such as GPT-3 fell from $4.6 million in 2020 to a projected $30 by 2030. What Blair has missed is what AI is connected to.
Materials – Advanced materials, 3D printing, robotics and circular-economy chemistry are converging into a different industrial base that uses far less mining, land and brute-force extraction. The Congolese cobalt mine belongs to a world on its way out.
These are five threads of a single story. Cheap clean electrons make precision fermentation viable. AI optimises the grid that carries those electrons. The grid powers the AI. Autonomous electric vehicles become moving batteries that stabilise the grid. New materials make the batteries lighter, cheaper and recyclable. The loop closes.
Together, these revolutions amount to what physicists call a phase transition – a system flipping from one form into a fundamentally different one, the way water flips into steam."
More information
- The Adaptive Cycle