David delivered an after-dinner speech outlining his theory of human anti-entropy and how people self-organise into larger units — families, tribes, nations and empires — to push back against the universe’s constant drift toward entropy and disorder. He argued that anti-entropy requires energy: in earlier eras, that energy came from “human batteries” (slaves and indentured labour), then from coal and steam, and later from oil, each leap enabling societies to become larger, more complex, and to distribute benefits further down the wealth curve of societies.
He warned that climate change is an entropic side-effect of the quest for ever more energy. Finally, he suggested that great-power rivalry on the road to the unfolding of WW3 has consistently prioritised cheap energy over climate mitigation, and that technologies such as carbon sequestration could help countries (like the UK, which faces strategic risks from dangerous green energy pieces) better manage energy security while addressing emissions.
Lastly, although he acknowledged the picture ahead was bleak, he urged everyone to find the courage to face it head-on — to adapt and seek strategies for overcoming our challenges rather than live in a state of collective denial, which he called “existential dissonance.” After all, the greatest gift of democracy is to give us all a voice that we should use to demand more from our national leaders, and that process starts with talking to our friends and colleagues to raise awareness and combat denial.
© David Murrin 2025. All images courtesy of Getty Images. |