Confronting Our Energy Future - Confronting Ourselves

By: Rowan Wolf
More and more people are aware of “peak oil,” or at least the concept that oil is an increasingly limited resource. Numerous discussions are flying about addressing the issue of oil, and responses to its increasing costs. The issue overlaps with global warming, and decreasing carbon dioxide emissions. Fuel replacements from nuclear, to biofuels, to hydrogen, to “clean” coal, to natural gas, are all put forward a viable replacements. Underlying this approach is the belief that we can just “swap” energy sources and continue as if nothing has happened. People are led to believe that we are just hitting a technological bump in the road. It is much more than that.

It should be on the front pages of every paper, and the top of each newscast, but it is not. The IEA (International Energy Agency) has sent out the warning of a “global gas shortage.” The basis of the IEA warning was that there is not adequate investment in natural gas to meet the swelling global demand. While they recommend that nations lay in “emergency supplies,” they also state this will not solve the emerging crisis. However, for those nations having natural gas this may been seen as an economic boom. (Boom and bust is the more likely scenario.)

The truth not mentioned is that shifting from oil to natural gas as a “replacement” fuel is also not a “silver bullet.” In fact, shifting from oil to natural gas will only accelerate the depletion of natural gas. Those who have explored the peak oil issue are well aware of the fact it is intimately linked to peak gas.

The same depletion scenario stands true for replacements such as and coal. Each of these also have their own toxic side. However, both radioactive materials (uranium, plutonium, etc.) and coal, are exhaustible resources. If we dramatically increase the demand for these resources to meet our energy needs, we also dramatically increase the rate of their depletion.

Meanwhile everyone seems to be jumping on the biofuels bandwagon. Amazingly, it has not taken long for the problems with this to be recognized:

Biofuels: The great green con

Ethanol Fuel Greener, But Not For Lungs

Palm Oil: The Biofuel of the Future Driving an Ecological Disaster Now

There are certain realities that must be faced here, and few are wanting to do so.

It is a bad idea to put food supply in conflict with energy supply.

• The demand for “biofuels” is driving destruction of forests and plains, and any place that can be cleared for biofuels crop production.
• This, in turn, will result in destruction of habitat and species extinction. It will also further disrupt water and natural drainage systems.
• Fuel crops will replace food crops resulting in dramatically increasing food costs, and mass hunger as food is simply not available.

It has been argued with some legitimacy that advancements in human development have been based on exploiting “cheap” energy sources. However, we seem to be on the brink of running out of cheap energy sources. Does this mean the collapse of humans and human societies? Perhaps.

The “West” took domination of much of the planet. This was not simply a physical conquest with exploitation of resources and people. It was the conquest of a paradigm, an ideology. Daniel Quinn frames it in his classic , as a civilizational split between “Takers” and “Leavers.” The Cliff Notes summary of the argument would be that Leaver societies live within the natural laws, and Taker societies live as if the laws of nature do not apply to them. Of particular significance in Ishmael is what Quinn refers to as the “peacekeeping law:”

• “You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them to access food.” (129)
• “No one species will make the life of the world its own.”
• “The world was not made for only one species.”
• “Humanity was not needed to bring order to the world.” (145-146)

The “Western” paradigm breaks each aspect of this “law.” However, the Western paradigm has become the framework of “development” and the standard for much of the world. As nations enter “development” phases, they follow this regime. China and India, both in the throws of explosive development, have embraced the western “development” path with a vengeance. China, which is an economic giant at the moment, has chosen to set itself in head to head competition with the United States for increasingly scarce resources - including energy resources. In the process, it is destroying the environment of China and spreading the effluents across the globe.

What all of this points to is that the “energy” crisis is but a facade for a much different crisis which we are refusing to address. That is a crisis of paradigm and “path.”

The crisis we must confront is that we cannot continue on the path we are on - with or without “cheap” energy. We cannot continue to view the Earth and all life on it, as here for our exploitation. We cannot base an economy on the consumption of goods, and we cannot view ourselves as separate and disconnected from the world we live on.

We have to change our ways of life, and we have to change our conceptualizations of our relationship to life. We have to use a different yardstick of “development” and “success.” I have a feeling that this is a much bigger crisis than the energy crisis. However, we may destroy the planet and ourselves before we become aware of this much more difficult issue.

We must acknowledge at some point that we are terraforming the only habitable planet that we know of. It is our home and we are destroying it.