ABSTRACT
This study starts with the energy crises of the 1970s and follows their long-term transformative impacts on industrial societies. Underneath the surface of geopolitical conflicts, political debates, economic adjustments, and social reforms, the tectonic plates of industrial societies had shifted, and this shock reverberated through them all. Each reacted differently, according to their institutional structure and epistemic regime. These energy crises were in fact the forerunner of the environmental constraints, which in half a century transformed the evolution of all industrial nations, their relations, and their interactions with the biophysical environment. Climate change is the main syndrome of this situation. The problem is how societies respond to events transforming the system in which they evolve. The pressure on each social economic system reverberates through different spheres of activities. The response at the system level is quite different from the reactions of governments, companies, and public opinion concerning the structure of society . From the system level, two conflicting paradigms emerged. Systemic disruptions generated systemic responses. Paradigms work as mythologies: they are endlessly reinterpreted and tend to repress contradictions, even when they reach a dead end.
