Why Should We Think About Energy?
Energy has been the main component in creating civilization, or anything for that matter, since humans documented their existence. Without energy, new environments could not be created and developed countries would fall into a panic; it is shown the more developed a country is, the more energy they consume. But, why is this important? Why can’t we just keep using the same technology we have now forever?
If we keep using the same technology, we run into issues with sustainability, which is defined as the capacity to endure. The sustainability of the earth involves keep everything in balance and being able to last. For example, using petroleum at its current level is not a sustainable policy; eventually these natural resources are going to run out and it does not create a sustainable atmosphere for the issue of rising temperature of the earth. Which raises the next issue, how many people can the earth house and maintain sustainable? This term is keyed the carrying capacity of the earth.
The carrying capacity of the earth is debatable; most people estimate it to be from 8 to 10 billion people, but there are issues that are run into when the earth approaches this number. The capacity of the earth to maintain a sustainable environment drops due to the increased consumption of resources. Figure 1 shows this.
Figure 1: What happens when the population overshoots the carrying capacity of the earth.
This has yet to happen, but it is also an issue that must be addressed when thinking about long term sustainability.
Can the current energy consumption last? What impact will it have on the environment?
As can be seen in Figure 2, the majority of the countries in the world are increasing their energy consumption yearly.
Figure 2: 2012 trends on energy consumption.
Though it is not shown on this chart how much of that energy being consumed is renewable, it can be assumed that very little is at this point. The current energy consumption trend cannot last forever; the world will just keep consuming more and more until the resources run out. Along with this idea are other implications such as the warming of the earth due to fossil fuels being burnt, which is the prime source of fuel for most countries still, and the rising sea level. While these situations might take a long time to have significant impact on the environment, there’s already plenty of greenhouse effects that are “loaded in the chamber”; this means that if we stopped producing greenhouse gases tomorrow, these effects will still take place. The greenhouse effects can be viewed as a big sand pit. At the moment, we have it already half full; we need to find a way to slow the filling of that pit and start digging the sand back out. There’s no way that millions of people on the earth will be able to survive if that pit reaches the top.
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