Imagine being at a party with lots of booze and the usual bunch of people taking advantage of that surplus: being loud and rowdy; the air laden with smoke and cheap pick-up lines. You grow tired of the noise, and find some quiet time and fresh air outside, when suddenly noticing lightning on the horizon. You take a closer look, and realize that a tremendous storm is heading your way. You make your way into the party, trying to warn everyone to prepare; but alas, the warning falls on deaf ears...after all, you are ruining the party.
There is a storm on the horizon which very few people are aware off: the coming energy and resource crisis. It is a matter of simple mathematics: when a group of animals/ consuming individuals live in an enclosed resource system, the resources will become less as the consuming individuals become more up to the point of total depletion. This is the case with us as humans: being in the region of 6.68 billion, also being the creature that uses more resources per head than any other creature on the planet, we are quickly depleting our resources to the point where survivability is becoming less possible.
In a way, our 'party' of the last 100 years - where we nearly depleted millions of years of stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuel in only one century - is over as Richard Heinberg suggests. It is evident in the escalating fuel and food prices, the so called 'Credit Crunch'. In fact - as our whole civilization is built on fossil fuel - our failing global economy is a direct result of the frenzied oil consumption going bust. Our blind energy orgy has depleted the savings account for our children...not an easy thing to tell your grand children one day: sorry Jimmy, we partied away your future!
The only solution, is - first of all - not to fall into denial about this very evident fact: we are racing toward a future of depleted energy with 6.68 billion mouths to feed. We need to act on solutions now, or face a dire future. But as I am the ever optimist, believing in the innermost beauty of the human being, I think that this coming crisis will bring us together again. In fact, it is already happening amongst some communities, the so called transition communities: planing and acting on weaning themselves from the fossil fuel addiction, and teaching others.
I urge you to watch this lecture by Richard Heinberg.
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