It is not energy that is scarce, but knowledge. Ian
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I can't believe it, but I actually disagree. Scarcity is not the problem.
The first part of the problem is composed of processes that are only correctible through profit feed back loops. And these sorts of self-regulating systems are totally immune to any other form of stimulus.
Scarcities arise internally which eventually impact the profit feed back loop and the system corrects. The interesting problem with scarcities is they are assumed to be the slow to develop kind that allow time for impact and correction. But scarcities are not necessarily all of the same quality. Some develop slowly, some have periodic patterns, while others reach steep thresholds that put the system into a dead stop. No amount of correction can overcome the latter. Scarcity has turned into a null. There is no more, period.
The problem with petrochemical energy supplies is that they are finite, although we do not know the cardinal total. These supplies should follow the slowly developing scarcity model, but due to various causes they are of the periodic variety. The system has adapted to the periodicity and presumes that down turns will be followed by up turns. But there will come a day when the down turn is not followed by an up turn. At that point because of supply and demand, the profit feed back loop will react to this stimulus and petrochemical energy will increase in value, generating a system reaction to maximize demand. This development will be the exact opposite of the externally understood need to conserve, hence the supply threshold will become asymptotic and completely stop the system. This will occur at a much faster rate than if some external rational command system effectively slowed down consumption prior to reaching the threshold of exhaustion.
Climate change is another problem all together. Given that market systems only react to changes in the profit feed back loops, however climate change effects those loops, will determine the system reactions. As in the petrochemical problem, profit loops are disjoint from the physical casual chains of climate. The system reactions to climate change will only effect the society, not the climate.
Theoretically, while there was still some form of political command over the economic system it might have been possible to re-configure parts of the economic system to adapt to physical casual chains in petrochemical supply or changes in climate. But under the neoliberal order all such command institutions have been eliminated or are tied to the direct and immediate needs of the economy and are completely immune to any other stimulation or need arising from outside the economic sphere. Under the existing neoliberal order all needs external to the economic system are irrelevant. There is simply no such thing as a non-economic input or need.
``... One wonders whether the great contemporary corporations...every year have the knowledge to...[recycle]...the almost infinite waste stream they [and we] spew into the planet's diverse ecologies without rendering asunder the very forms of contract and property that have brought our species to the current conjuncture...''
The answer is no. And the reason is, there is no knowledge beyond profit and loss, and there is no means to gain knowledge outside the feed back loops of profit and loss. The system reacts to only this feed back loop and no other.
Another way to say the same thing is to note that the only form of knowledge the economic system can recognize are forms translated into the binaries of profit and loss. Some external understanding that a catastrophe is pending means nothing until it hits. At that point, then the reactions follow and may or may not conform or adapt in an appropriate manner since there is no rational connection between the physical cause of the catastrophe whatever it is, and the system response.
Meanwhile we shop til we drop.
CG