In the previous chapter the vicious circle principle was applied to the whole of our species' development up to the present. In this chapter a closer look will be taken at how it has manifest itself today in particular. Of key importance in this regard is how, from the beginning of the industrial revolution up until the present, the increasing availability of energy and the non-renewable materials that it has made available have meant that the effects of the turning of the vicious circle have also constantly been increasing.

The situation in which we find ourselves today is unique as regards the magnitude and rate of growth of the human enterprise. The turn now being taken by the vicious circle is tremendous. As expressed by Ellul, “In spite of all the worthy persons who reassure themselves by saying that all historical epochs are alike, that the crises of the fourth century resembled those of the ninth, and so on, the fact is that no one ever before saw world economies or world wars, or world and national populations which, on the average, doubled every forty-five years.”

The mastery of fire, one of humans' first instances of technological development, continues to be of paramount importance today with the burning of fossil fuels. And so the vicious circle of the development of humankind churns on, and does so with ever greater momentum due to the constantly increasing consumption of fossil fuels and metals, with only the tiniest sign of resistance in the form of the efforts of environmental organisations and green political parties.