No doubt there is little original here that has not been discussed many times before, but I hope you might find my particular twist entertaining.
My idea is that, of course, the present order of things is, like, doomed and we must create a new one on the ruins or else mingle our bones with it.
The successor-civilisation I have named ?Solar Byzantium?: the reference is the Byzantine Empire with came after the Roman Empire and Classical Civilisation when they fell.
Its power-source will be renewable energy, mostly solar and wind, but some tidal and geothermal thrown in. It will be at a much smaller scale than the present civilisation. Some calculations done by the PO people in America came up with roughly 20% of what we have now; whether this is correct I have no idea but certainly this may change as RE technology improves over the long centuries and millennia we have yet to live on this earth.
Much of this power will go into running an electrically powered rail-net to keep communications going on land. Long distance haulage will go by train, short distance haulage by horse and cart.
On the sea, sailing-ships will make a comeback: we will take up from where the old clippers left off.
Industrial production will be a shadow of what it is now, focusing on what is needed to maintain the system and a narrow range of sturdy, useful tools, products and devices.
Human and animal power will replace machines wherever possible. A small amount of bio-fuel will be produced to field a limited number of emergency, heavy-construction vehicles and a very modest propeller-driven air fleet for both military and commercial purposes.
Plastics will be endlessly recycled along with just about everything else. It will be frugal society and the rubbish-dumps of the twentieth century will be unearthed and scavenged for useful things.
In short society will resemble something like the turn of the 20th century. It will not be lavish, but it will be a lot better than the Middle Ages, in a state of equilibrium with nature and it have the capacity to endure for as long as the earth.
Economically the chief difference will be that 70-80% of the population will be engaged in food production, mostly permacultural. International trade will continue though at a reduced scale. Freight will be carried by tens of thousands of clippers instead of thousands of diesel-powered steel behemoths.
Socially and politically it will be controlled by a landed aristocracy and modest commercial class. Society will be relatively stable and unchanging. What it?s emotional and spiritual flavour will be I do not know. Christianity will certainly endure, being essentially a Roman Empire survivalist cult, but it may be joined by a form of Eco-Pagan Earth Worship.
Culturally it will be torn, with part of us yearning hopelessly for the days that can never come again, the other indignantly rejecting the waste, immorality, cruelty and desolation of that era. As memory of it fades other dispensation may come. Cultural life will be more local, diverse and hence far richer than today.
I hope you find this interesting and there is more I could add, or you could add for me. I pause for comment.
