The “race for power”: fatalistic reductionism or opportunity for a proactive slowdown?[La « course à la puissance » : réductionnisme fataliste ou opportunité pour un ralentissement volontariste ?]

A number of recent works in cosmology, physics, cognitive anthropology, paleontology, neuroscience, economics and history hypothesize the general nature of the race for power in physical, biological and social processes, leading to a diagnosis of the inevitability of the current ecological catastrophe. Even if this hypothesis - which has all the hallmarks of fatalism - is clearly debatable, we believe that it does not in itself preclude the possibility of a voluntarist shift in human energy trajectories. Better still, we believe that if we take this on board from the outset, in full awareness and with full knowledge of the facts, we'll be able to take more lucid, and therefore more effective, decisions on our energy and resource exploration and exploitation practices.