Modern man has done away with the gods, but retained the need to make sacrifices. This time, it is not virgins who are to be thrown into the volcano, but the very foundation of our prosperity. And the clergy are rejoicing.
There is a festive atmosphere in the green congregation. The Supreme Court has found procedural errors in the approval of three Norwegian oil fields, and environmental organisations are celebrating as if the atmosphere’s CO₂ levels have already fallen. The fact that the ruling does not in itself halt oil production is an insignificant detail. MDG is demanding a halt nonetheless. Once the revelation has occurred, one must not spoil the mood with legal nuances.
There is something almost touching about this civilisation’s relationship with the very foundations of its own existence. We have spent two hundred years lifting humanity out of poverty, disease, cold and hardship through access to ever more efficient energy. Now we have reached a stage of development where we can afford to regard energy as the problem itself.
This is the highest stage of progress: becoming so prosperous that one forgets what created that prosperity.
Logos has had to give way to pathos. Reason has been replaced by emotion, and knowledge of cause and effect has faced competition from moral fervour. It is no longer necessary to understand how a modern industrial society functions. It is enough to be genuinely concerned about it.
Meanwhile, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Russia and other oil-producing countries sit on enormous reserves. They hardly need to do anything. The West has taken it upon itself to reduce its own production capacity, whilst the world’s need for energy is not going to disappear as a result of Norwegian court rulings.
It is hard to imagine a more generous geopolitical strategy. We are phasing out our own value creation, handing over large parts of the market to others and congratulating ourselves on our moral superiority. The fact that these countries do not necessarily share our views on democracy, human rights and environmental protection does not dampen our enthusiasm.
We have, in fact, discovered that what matters most is not where the energy comes from, or which societies control it. What matters most is that we do not have to feel guilty when it is produced.
And whilst the clergy preach green conversion, everything must continue to function as normal. Hospitals must have electricity. Industry must produce. The armed forces must be modernised. Food must be grown, fertilised, processed and transported. Roads, bridges, homes and power stations must be built.
All this must, of course, happen without anyone asking the uncomfortable question of where the materials, energy, raw materials and money are to come from.
That question belongs to the old world. Where one actually had to produce something before one could distribute it.
It is particularly fascinating to consider this in the light of Europe’s security policy situation. The continent is talking ever more loudly about strategic autonomy, rearmament and independence. At the same time, we are making ourselves more dependent on energy, raw materials and production capacity beyond our own control.
In other words, we are to become independent by making ourselves dependent.
This is a form of strategic thinking that would hardly have impressed statesmen of earlier times, but which undoubtedly goes down well at climate conferences.
Of course, the state must abide by the law, and climate impacts must be assessed where regulations require it. But a ruling on procedural errors is not scientific proof that a society can manage without petroleum. And an impact assessment that does not also take into account the consequences of energy shortages, economic decline and geopolitical dependence paints a rather incomplete picture of reality.
Our ancestors made sacrifices to the volcano because they believed that the forces of nature could be appeased through human actions. We regard them as primitive. We ourselves have developed a more sophisticated version, in which we sacrifice industry, jobs and future tax revenues in the hope that the atmosphere will recognise our moral superiority.
The difference is, first and foremost, that our sacrifices are accompanied by impact assessments, legal opinions and public subsidies.
But nature remains unimpressed by good intentions.
The West’s political and moral elite began sawing off the branch they are sitting on a long time ago. So far, things have gone splendidly, for the branch has not yet fallen. It has even been possible to hold conferences on how sustainable the sawing is.
The problem only arises when gravity takes its toll.
For when the manger is empty, the horses bite. When prosperity disappears, so too does the surplus for moral self-glorification. Then it is no longer jubilation over symbolic victories that fills the streets, but cries over bills that cannot be paid, jobs that are disappearing, and social services that are failing.
Then, of course, the clergy will explain that the sacrifices were not great enough.
For this is how every religion that has freed itself from the corrective forces of reality operates: when prophecies fail, it is never the doctrine that is at fault. It is the believers who have not sacrificed enough.
And whilst the outside world continues to produce, trade and consume energy, we are left standing before the volcano with our last vestiges of prosperity in our hands.
This time, it is not the gods who demand a sacrifice. It is we ourselves who insist on throwing it in.
