How the World Really Works A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present and Future

The complexity of modern civilization is somewhat of a double-edged sword. It has brought great advances in human health and well-being, yet a full understanding of the sum-total of our knowledge of how the world works is now far beyond any single person. Consequently, getting people to agree on how to tackle complex problems becomes this much harder. In How The World Really Works, energy expert and policy analyst Vaclav Smil provides the big picture of the material and energetic basis undergirding human civilization, and what this means for attempts at addressing climate change. Rich in eye-opening facts and not a little bit opinionated, this is a much-needed reality check that purposefully avoids extreme views of both the techno-optimist and catastrophist kind. So, how does the world work according to Smil?

Smil is at his strongest when he focuses his mind on the problem of climate change. Without the title indicating so, it has become the leitmotif underlying this book. Why? Because understanding why dealing with climate change is so challenging requires you to understand a host of other things. The reality is that "we are a fossil-fueled civilization [...] and we cannot simply walk away from this critical determinant of our fortunes in a few decades, never mind years" (p. 5). The first three chapters focus on helping the reader better understand this. First is energy. Though we have made substantial progress thanks to solar and wind power, energy is so much more than electricity generation. Take transport. The under-appreciated concept of power density means that our prime movers (i.e. trucks, ships, and planes) are far harder to power in any other way. Second is food. Heavy machinery, agrochemicals, and especially fertilizer are all possible thanks to fossil fuels. Smil lays out the many challenges with returning to all-organic farming without denying that many improvements can and should be made to both food production and our diet. Third are what Smil calls the four pillars of modern civilization: ammonia, plastic, steel, and cement. The first two require fossil fuels as feedstock, while all are energy-intensive to produce. All very mundane substances, but produced in staggering quantities (hundreds of millions to billions of tons annually) to construct the world around us. We have no realistic alternatives ready to produce these substances at those scales. Though politicians love to score points with ambitious decarbonization pledges, "the gap between wishful thinking and reality is vast" (p. 6).

It is exactly when Smil takes his mind off the challenge of climate change that the book starts to meander a bit. Though I consider his chapters on the long history of globalization and our understanding and misunderstanding of risks enlightening, they feel somewhat out of place. These chapters form an interlude before Smil seemingly collects his thoughts again to discuss the long history of our understanding of climate change and the problems with future outlooks and quantitative forecasts.

The final two chapters are also where Smil is more opinionated. He is clear from the start: "I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist; I am a scientist trying to explain How The World Really Works" (p. 6). He neither tries to downplay nor demonize the price and problems of our progress but simply states: this is where we are now, and this is what it would take to change our civilization in a certain direction. Of course, people rarely like to be told plain but painful truths. His biggest beef is with the tendency of public discourse around climate change to gravitate towards extremes of either techno-optimism or catastrophism. And he fully expects that his "perspective will find no favor with either doctrine" (p. 9). The "data worshippers" (p. 4) who think our online world will bring about total dematerialization ignore its material basis, while "the new tech crowd" (p. 199) who fixate on recent developments in electronics fail to realise that "existential imperatives" (p. 217) such as food and water are not smartphones. He has choice words for renewable energy advocates too for thinking that, if only we follow "all-renewable prescriptions[,] a new global nirvana will arrive in just a decade" (p. 196). Why does he find this so infuriating? Because "those who chart their preferred paths to a zero-carbon future owe us realistic explanations" (p. 193) not improbably assumptions detached from reality. But he is similarly dismissive of the revival of apocalyptic visions around climate change: "catastrophists are wrong, time after time" (p. 212).

Personally, I found Smil's down-to-earth bluntness refreshing. He does sometimes veer into grumpy-old-man territory, but to me this just comes across as comical. Rather, what struck me is that his arguments show that catastrophist thinkers are right to be concerned. I was surprised that he is less outspoken here than in Growth where he explicitly mentioned the impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet. When you write that, at 2020 production levels, gas and potassium are estimated to last us 50 and 90 years respectively, I am alarmed. I find that a freakishly short time. His points in the final chapter about the difficulty and fallibility of long-term projections are well-taken. And yet, Smil has carefully considered and quantified the immense challenges of making changes to our complex societies because of their scale and inertia. And he spells out here why rapid decarbonization can only be achieved by making sacrifices generally cosidered unacceptable. Plus, he points out what I had not considered yet: the problem of delayed rewards. Drastic emission reductions will take decades to reap rewards due to the inertia of our climate system, which will make enacting and maintaining such drastic measures unlikely. In light of all this, I was struck by Smil's staunch, if not stubborn agnosticism regarding our future.

Finally, a note on the book's title. Though Smil mentions e.g. the problem of overconsumption, he does not go into the confluence of political and economical forces that allow and stimulate capitalism. He does not explore how the world works in that sense but sticks firmly to the physical basis. To me, that is fine. Smil avoids the god complex of many older authors who venture far outside their field of expertise.

Despite some meanderings, this factually grounded book provides some eye-opening insights and a much-needed reality check.