For a manifesto for Post Fossil Architecture

Part 1 // The Fossil Fuel Revolution //

The production gap report by the United Nations released in 2019 is an attempt to understand the gap in the emissions required to adhere to the 2 degree Celsius warming limit ( Paris Agreement ) and the current rate of production of fossil fuels. If countries follow through on their current plans, they will produce about 50 percent more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be compatible with the international goal of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, the report said.(Kusnetz, 2019)

The production gap report reveals a deeper flaw in our system.

Even though there is a global understanding of the implications of increased dependence on fossil fuels, mitigation efforts are not able to match the expectations. Fossil fuels and the energy derived by its production are as entrenched in our system as the edict of limitless growth.

Historically, changes in the productive capacity of humans were followed and reinforced by societal transformations. This in turn has informed economical, political and spatial revolutions. The shift from a nomadic lifestyle to an agriculture intensive society was sparked by the energy derived from domestication. Entire settlements were created around farm lands due to the ability to produce and store food. This changed the way society organized itself, from nomadic hunter gatherers to settlers and farmers. Sedentary farming practices allowed humans to harness more energy than hunter gatherers. All sources of energy came from cultivated fields or the wild. As such the economic and social structures during these two paradigms of energy capture had to contend with the limitation of available land and labour (Iturbe, 2019). The dependency on existing biomass for energy also implied certain limits to growth.

Eventual modern innovations of the steam engine and machinery harnessing energies beyond human or animal labour created the third energy revolution.

Vast sources of energy in the form of fossil fuels supported scientific inventions that heralded the new modern age. Dead plants and animals, compressed in the pressures of earth, layer upon layer for ages unveiled tremendous sources of energy when combusted. These hydrocarbons in the form of coal, petroleum, crude oil and natural gas broke open the shackles of possible growth. Suddenly large masses could be shifted and deep shafts could be mined with minimum human labour. Limits to human growth now seemed endless. Reaching into these stores of carbon now brought about an unprecedented condition of energy abundance which in turn led to major changes in the production capacities of society, restructuring existing social orders and sparking a new phase of development- Capitalism, what many have called the fossil economy or carbon capitalism.(Iturbe, 2019)

There are three main turning points in the history of fossil fuel use that tie it to the advent of capitalism. The industrial revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries established the use of fossil fuels in industries. Substitution of human, animal and water power by the more proliferate fossil fuel power led to its rapid geographic spread. The second industrial revolution was marked by the replacement of steam engines by steam turbines. The internal combustion engine sparked a new way of building with energy infrastructures and motorised transport. Highways, roads, electricity networks, heating/cooling systems, urbanised settlements, industrial and military complexes brought about a spatial revolution. What emerged were not just technologies, but complex technological systems. These were the main consumers and producers of fossil fuels through the twentieth century. (Pirani, 2020)

The final turning point in the mid 20th century is often defined as “ the great acceleration” of the Anthropocene.

There was a sharp acceleration of fossil fuel use, associated with the expansion of the capitalist economy after the Second world war. In the mid 20th century, many other impacts of human economic activity on the natural world — extinction of other species, disruption of the nitrogen cycle, pressure on fresh water resources, various measures of chemical pollution — also surged. (Pirani, 2020) The rapid consumption of fossil fuels and the profit increasing nature of capitalism triggered the wave of over consumption and wasteful practices of the 90s. “The mansion of modern freedoms stands on an ever-expanding base of fossil fuel use,” writes the postcolonial theorist Dipesh Chakrabarty in a seminal essay collected in Energy Humanities.

The whole infrastructure of capitalism has been built on fossil fuels. Ian Angus in his book Facing the Anthropocene makes clear, “Fossil fuels are not an overlay that can be peeled away from capitalism — leaving the system intact, they are embedded in every aspect of the system.” For example, the appeal of owning a personal automobile was a part of the larger energy network that made it possible. Fossil fuels were consumed in the making of the car, the industries that make the car, the roads on which the car travels, the parking garages in which the car is parked. Moreover, day to day functioning of the car also uses fossil fuels. The vicious cycle feeds into itself, creating more demand with more use. In Fossil Capital, geographer Andreas Malm stated that the fossil fuel economy has the character of totality, a distinguishable entity; a socio-ecological structure, in which a certain economic process and a certain form of energy are welded together. Capitalism backed by the fossil fuel revolution led to a new paradigm of space and form.

There is no doubt that the current fossil economy and carbon capitalism has enabled unprecedented growth of the built environment and given rise to new typologies. Perpetuation of these carbon forms feeds into existing cycles of capitalism, racism, colonialism, egoism that have brought us to the current state of climate disruption. The forces of capitalism in a state of disaster make the race for more power and resources competitive, pushing already impoverished nations further down and increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. The main liabilities of climate change are against corporations, governments and nations that have profited from fossil capitalism. (Wallace Wells, 2020) The decision to adopt fossil fuels were taken by a few early capitalists at the start of industrialisation but its consequences are felt by everyone in the present asymmetrically.

Mitigating the negative consequences of climate change requires a radical shift away from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. (Hajer and Versteeg, 2019)

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