Rant: Doc: Why we have to go with renewable energy.

Why we have to go with renewable energy.


Example A: Bacteria in a Petri dish
Bacteria in a Petri dish will grow exponentially until they run out of resources, at which point their population will crash. Only one generation prior to the crash, the bacteria will have used up half the resources available to them. To the bacteria, there will be no hint of a problem until they starve to death.

But humans are smarter than bacteria, right?
You would think so, but the facts seem to indicate otherwise. The first commercial oil well was drilled in 1859. At that time, the worldʼs population was about 1.5 billion. Less than 150 years later, our population has exploded to 6.4 billion. In that time, we have used up about half the worldʼs recoverable oil. Of the half thatʼs left, most will be very expensive to extract. If the experts are correct, we are less than one generation away from a crash. Yet to most of us, there appears to be no hint of a problem. One generation away from our demise, we are as clueless as bacteria in a Petri dish.


Example B: Reindeer on St. Matthew Island
In 1944, researchers moved a population of 29 reindeer to St. Matthew Island, an unoccupied island in the Bering Sea. Luckily for the reindeer, the island had an abundant supply of their favorite food: lichen. With food readily available, the reindeer population exploded to 6,000 by 1963. At that point, reindeer were everywhere to be seen on the island. By 1966, however, the only things to be seen on the island were reindeer skeletons. In those three years, the reindeer had consumed all of the islandʼs lichen. As a result, the reindeer population crashed to a total of 42.

Example C: Easter Island

According to archeologists, Easter Island was first colonized by Polynesians sometime around the year 500 AD, Over the next 1,000 years, the islandʼs population grew to anywhere from
7,000-20,000 depending on whoʼs making the estimate. During this population boom, the islanders used wood from the forest trees to power virtually every aspect of a highly complex society. Professor Diamond writes,
“The people used the land for gardens and the wood for fuel, canoes, and houses-and, of course, for lugging statues."
Eventually, the islanders began cutting the trees down faster than the trees could grow back. Amazingly, there is evidence that the islanders actually intensified their statue building efforts as the supply of timber dwindled. This has led archaeologists to conclude that the islanders never bothered to figure out how much timber they had in “reserve.” Of course, another possibility is that whoever the islanders selected to figure out how much timber they had in “reserve” was either lying or incompetent.
In either case, the supply of timber went into terminal decline
the islanders ran out of timber and rope to transport and erect their statues. Life became more
uncomfortable: springs and streams dried up, and wood was no longer available for fires
. . . chaos replaced centralized government and a warrior class took over from the hereditary chiefs
. . . People took to living in caves for protection against their enemies.
The chaos became so widespread the island is still littered with the remnants of weapons used by the islanders. Food became so scarce the islanders resorted to cannibalism.
Like the islanders, we have built our entire civilization around one resource, OIL and Fossil Fuels. Our entire culture and psychology revolves around the distribution and consumption of that resource. That resource drives our transportation, housing, and food and water distribution networks. We have no true alternatives to that resource.
Food? Yes energy is needed to produce, harvest and transport food.
The Economic recession is not the really major problem. It is a red herring. The real problem is that our dependence on fossil fuels will lead to the demise of civilization as we know it, unless governments act now.


It does not worry me. I am on the way out.
But what of future generations?


doc