Civilization is a result of building little things that become parts of larger things.  It is usually a linear process — except for when it falls.  When it does, it can do so with a bang — but more often, it just slides back a little at a time, "with a whimper," until it is no more.

One of those little things is concrete — that simple, unassuming stuff, which we see so often every day that it becomes part of the background, unnoticed.

It is used for everything — securing a post in the ground that may hold a child's basketball goal, the floor of your home, your driveway, your sidewalk, even your kitchen counter.  It's used for the superhighway you drive and the bridges that trains cross.

This simple, incredibly useful substance is the fabric of almost all of civilization.  It is used everywhere to facilitate everything.

One thing about concrete is that making and utilizing it is a very energy-intensive process.  The materials that go into it must be transported to the place of manufacture and mixed in a rotary kiln (a large iron machine) to create cement, which is then mixed with sand and gravel and transported.  Once on the building site, it is mixed with water and then poured and finished.  In a modern society, with modern equipment, this is easy.  In fact, the easier it is, the faster, cheaper, and better civilization advances — more dams, highways, buildings, sewers, houses, power plants, you name it.  The cheaper this most humble of building materials is, the better people's lives become.

The biggest factor in the price of concrete is energy.  The higher the costs of energy, the higher the costs of concrete.  In the USA, concrete has long been a very cheap and plentiful item.

Until recently.

In 2000, an 80lb bag of concrete was available for $1.87.  In 2010, it increased to $2.28.  By 2016, it was $3.39.  There it hovered despite COVID and everything until oil prices started climbing.  Now it is $5.71.

"Inflation" is most folks' immediate response.  But the real reason is the increased energy costs.  These costs are passed on to the purchaser — just like in all bulk commodity items (gasoline, flour, sugar, etc.).  Thanks to the current administration's and the woke ruling class's obsession with fossil fuels and energy, it is skyrocketing.  Concrete just simply cannot be produced with renewable energy in any meaningful amount.

This increase in price is potentially catastrophic.  Consider the ramifications of a doubling in the cost of all things that concrete goes into or is used for.  Obviously fewer roads, dams, bridges, and buildings.  Fewer houses, apartments, infrastructure improvements, and repairs.

Civilization is indeed built upon simple things.  If those things become unobtainable or too costly, then, slowly, civilization will begin to recede.  A sidewalk costs too much money to be poured.  A patio is postponed.  Small quality-of-life things at home dwindle.  But the problems then accelerate: a roadway poured thinner begins to fail in only a few years.  A bridge closes, as replacement costs are too great for a government that fixates on social spending and climate change.

And thus, a shadow falls.  Will it merely be a cloud passing overhead?  Or will it herald a twilight and a period of darkness?

Elliott Hirsch is a pseudonym.

Image: USACE Afghanistan Engineer District-South via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.