Smil’s book How the World Really Works took me some time to finish. It’s a great book but owing to its subject matter, or rather its scientific form, it is also a little bit dull.
I’m not saying it to tarnish it or anything, it’s just that this very feature sadly translates to its readability. But of course, it’s worth it in the end.
What do we owe to fossil fuels?
Main message of the book is that our civilisation owes for its massive growth in the last century mainly to fossil fuels.
It follows that any significant shift from fossil fuels would now be to the detriment of economic growth. Smil is not saying that it is not possible but rather that its price would be a huge economic downturn and step outside of our comfort zones.
Smil offers a sober account of how the world really works, in particular discussing how the food is produced, with emphasis on our reliance on fossil fuels, inner workings of our risk appreciation and also does not shy from delving into the topic of the climate change, to name but a few.
Not an optimist, nor pessimist
Smil claims not to be pessimist or an optimist. He is scientist.
As such, not only had he offered an account of how the world works but also tries to give the reader an outline of what is likely to come next.
But it is not anything close to trying to predict the future as many do nowadays. As he further put it:
“[…] we know that the most likely prospect [of the future] is a mixture of progress and setbacks of seemingly insurmountable difficulties and near miraculous advances. The future, as ever, is not predetermined. Its outcome depends on our actions.”
Smil reminds me of Taleb in many aspects. Perhaps mainly because of his bashing of all sorts of predictive models.
The glaring truth that needs to be read from all this is that we still cannot predict shit.
