Does the law of entropy mean the end of society and civilisation?

Jeremy Rifkin’s Entropy warns of energy consumption and the end of civilisation through the law of entropy, but there is a counter argument that technological advances can slow the increase in entropy by enabling energy acquisition.

 

In Entropy, Jeremy Rifkin applies the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, not only to the scientific realm but also to society at large. As Rifkin explains the law of entropy and his arguments, he argues that it is not just limited to physical phenomena, but is equally applicable to the society and civilisation we live in.
Jeremy Rifkin describes the law of entropy as ‘the amount of energy in the universe is constant, and the overall entropy is always increasing.’ To put it more simply, he says, ‘An increase in entropy means that the available energy is gradually decreasing.’ As a result, Jeremy Rifkin adds, ‘Every time an event occurs anywhere in the world, the energy of the world is consumed, and the total entropy of the world increases.’ From this perspective, he warns that if civilisation continues to develop in its current mechanical and resource-consuming way, we will eventually reach a final equilibrium state of heat apocalypse and perish. He therefore argues that we should no longer rely on a mechanical worldview, but adopt a new one that consumes less energy and uses it more efficiently.
Rifkin expands the concept of ‘energy’ to apply the law of entropy to a variety of social phenomena. He considers energy not only as the heat or electricity that we usually think of, but also as a form of energy that is embedded in cost or fuel. While this approach is useful for analysing energy, it is limited by a lack of consideration of qualitative issues. For example, he explains that people are moving out of cities because so much energy is put into the urban environment that it ends up adding to the entropy of the city. He sees urban crime, pollution, etc. as part of this problem. But the reality is that more people are flocking to big cities because they enjoy the conveniences and opportunities of urban life. What Rifkin misses is that the attractiveness of big cities may be more qualitative.
While the entropy analysis on which Rifkin’s argument is based provides a clear direction, it also has the limitation of not accounting for how long the process will take. In other words, his analysis suggests that if we continue on our current path of development, we will reach a thermal end state at some point, but we cannot predict when that point will be. This is because the law of entropy provides a direction for change, but does not describe the specific rate or process by which it will occur, so even if he is correct, the actual point of no return could be millions of years in the future. Even if our current worldview persists, the time to destruction could be much longer than we think.
Rifkin also criticises the mechanistic worldview, arguing that it accelerates the growth of entropy rather than progress. But technological advances don’t just accelerate energy consumption. Rather, advances in technology allow us to obtain new forms of energy more efficiently. For example, we can now extract oil from deep underground that was previously inaccessible due to lack of drilling technology, and we can harness new sources of energy such as nuclear power. This means that energy is not simply consumed, but can be acquired and processed into new forms. These technological advances prove that a mechanistic worldview is not just destructive in that it can simultaneously slow down energy consumption and entropy growth.
An important part of Rifkin’s argument for the future direction of energy use is that we should use renewable energy sources such as solar, geothermal, and wind instead of consumable energy sources such as oil. This is central to his new worldview. In fact, thanks to technological advances, we now have access to these renewable energies and are learning how to utilise them more efficiently. These technological advances have opened up the possibility of making more of the energy available to us, while keeping entropy growth in check.
Therefore, Rifkin’s claim that a mechanistic worldview simply increases entropy and leads to destruction shows that he overlooks some things. Energy consumption is rising, but at the same time, we’re moving towards sustainable development through renewable energy. Taking this into account, Rifkin’s arguments are only partially applicable due to the limitations of the times, and current technological advances and the development of renewable energy have the potential to provide a much more positive future than his theories suggest.
In conclusion, Jeremy Rifkin’s Entropy has been recognised as an attempt to apply scientific laws to social and cultural phenomena. His theory of entropy has provided a new perspective on how we handle and consume energy, and in doing so, has raised the importance of renewable energy. However, relying too heavily on the law of entropy to explain all of society’s problems also has the downside of overlooking qualitative factors. While we can agree with his arguments for using energy efficiently and reducing waste, the idea that a mechanistic worldview is simply destructive is worth reconsidering. Advances in technology are actually enriching our lives and opening up opportunities to explore sustainable energy.