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Ideas for rationalizing a lack of fossil fuels/ a timeline where capitalism has to grow without coal and gas? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In an alternate history work of fiction, what would be a good way to rationalize/justify a world in which there is no usage of fossil fuels?

I think in this alternate history / worldbuilding idea, the physical matter still exists - there is coal, oil, etc, in the earth, but I am wondering if we can come up with a satisfying reason why humans could not make use of anything more efficient than peat in production. Is there a scientific-sounding explanation that could be given to make a world in which coal and oil are useless in industry?

I have been reading "The Future is Degrowth" and "The Origin of Capitalism" and that is what inspired this. The first book says something along the lines of "the capitalism we know, of endless accumulation, is fundamentally a fossil capitalism". The second book makes a very convincing case that what existed in England centuries before fossil fuels was already distinctly (agrarian) capitalist. Interest in everyone's thoughts and ideas about how this could be constructed, and what sort of events could play it out in the cradle of capitalism but also worldwide.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It seems like relying on waterways to travel and not being able to build railroads going west could have seriously slowed down colonialism in Western North America? It also makes me think of southern China. I just finished reading China: A History by John Keay, and I'm not retaining much, but the importance of watercraft in the south and horses in the north comes up over and over.

I'll try and read Looking Backward, sounds cool! I also have no experience writing fiction after public school. I guess there is probably a lot of content online to dig into for writing fiction for beginners we can look into... that stuff would also make good posting here.___

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I skimmed through Looking Backward and its sequel a few weeks ago. It's kind of cool when the author ends up being right on the money when predicting future technologies like credit cards. Some of the concepts are pretty interesting as well like paper clothes becoming widespread (it was a trend later in the 20th century, and the idea of disposability being the future lasted another century). But the author is also a racist, so it gets weird. The sequel is open-minded when it comes to the status of women (they wear pants?!), but Edward Bellamy never got over his white supremacy.