Thread by @davetroy

1/I’ve been thinking about our current predicaments in the context of thermodynamics, specifically something called the Constructal Law.

Proposed by Adrian Bejan as a first principle of physics, and offers insights into where we may be headed geopolitically and evolutionarily.

2/Bejan says: “For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed (global) currents that flow through it."

More simply, survival requires increased access to and better flow of resources.

3/This implies that our need for more energy, more resources, more food, more people, more GDP is not only a byproduct of capitalism but a reality of physics: to survive over time, systems are always optimizing for access to resources. It’s just what they do.

4/Further, we must consider Earth as a “system of systems.” It is one system with its own constructal mandate towards resource access, but it is made of many systems each with its own constructal needs. Each of those systems has different priorities and orientation.

5/For example, a small sustainable tribal community has a different ethos than a global organized crime syndicate, which is different from that of Exxon-Mobil Corp. But all these systems impose their own constructal needs in terms of access to resources, energy, etc.

6/In all the discussion about climate, we hear about individual action and institutional response. We don’t hear about physics, systems, flow, and access to resources required for systems to “live” over time, as Bejan has posited. I think this is a grave omission.

7/Bejan’s Constructal Law has met with some controversy, partly because it’s difficult to convey in clear terms. But his books deliver a series of convincing examples across the span of nature that his math applies in many (seemingly diverse) contexts. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Be…

8/We have two major problems to solve wrt climate. 1) Getting our shit together to take coordinated action, 2) dealing with the constructal law realities of our continued existence.

I think people are so focused on (1), which is itself a stretch, they are neglecting (2).

9/To reckon with the physics, we must make decisions about what systems live, what systems die, and what resources they have access to. Clearly the sun offers a massive amount of energy and may satisfy many systems for a very long time. But that transition kills other systems.

10/Fossil fuel systems want to “live” and so are hungrily chasing Arctic oil, tar sands, fracked gas, coal, etc. And they propose that can be done in less bad ways, or “cleanly.” The Constructal Law says otherwise; these systems will keep consuming resources, to exhaustion.

11/The only way to force carbon fuels out of existence is to decide those systems must “die” and cut off access to resources intentionally. We have a choice: be killed by carbon fuel, or kill it. There is no happy medium. This is what the physics suggests.

12/Obviously there is complexity here; but our evolutionary and biological future depends on what systems live. And carbon fuel systems cannot be allowed to live or they will eventually consume all available fuel. It’s just what these systems do.

13/I would suggest people check out Adrian’s book, “Design in Nature” which offers many examples of the Constructal Law in action.

g.co/kgs/Ddo1k9

14/You can also check out his TED talks and his other book, The Physics of Life. I believe this is the most overlooked conversation in the climate debate.

g.co/kgs/3VtYLL

15/However it’s also relevant to understanding networks and their desire to persist through time, and gain access to resources accordingly. We are engaged in a death match between democratic governance and fascistic organized crime. Each network is trying to extinguish the other.

16/We need to starve organized crime, fascists, and disinformation agents of resources. This will tend to curb these aligned problems over time. And it’s just a matter of physics, per Bejan; this is how you kill a system. And it is kill, or be killed.

17/I hope that Adrian’s work gets more attention from multi-disciplinary thinkers who are looking to understand how systems evolve over time. Because it isn’t enough to just hope systems can be so easily transformed. They *want* to live and will find any way to do so.

18/To get beyond this inflection point we need to (somehow) decide to execute an intentional plan that starves toxic systems. And they won’t help us do that. So this will be very very hard. But it will be impossible if we don’t recognize the true nature of the situation.

19/Bejan’s Constructal Law is one tool we can use to better understand what we are facing. Here is a talk Adrian did in 2012 (which I helped produce) if you’d like to learn more.

20/And here is another one he did on a seemingly different topic; but it turns out to be the same math!

His insights here are remarkable and are the kind of breakthrough thinking we need to get beyond our current impasse.

21/Oh, and if you’ve ever noticed an S-curve (aka the ‘logistics’ curve) it’s almost certainly tied to the Constructal Law math. This turns up frequently in mining and resource extraction, which is why it’s a part of the climate conversation.

aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.…

22/Here's another short explainer video about Constructal Theory. Cooling a laptop (and a planet) are actually remarkably similar problems.

23/We have been worried about AI taking over and dominating humanity, but the carbon economy is already doing it.

Its desire to ‘live’ is so strong, it has captured economies, governance, public sentiment and will continue to do so until we physically dismantle it.

24/For example the carbon system could not be happier than to have a major report published by the UN, the NYT, and WaPo. This will merely galvanize the out-group and reinforce the capture. It’s not quite a counterproductive move, but there are likely better chess plays.