Hi all,
I am given to believe that fossil fuel can be thought of as "stored sunlight", since all the energy on the planet comes from the sun (either currently or at some point in the past).
We are currently using the resourses of 1.4 (current) earths.
http://ypec.wordpres...tored-sunlight/
Fossil fuel is predicted to be depleted in less than 100 years, and there is not enough "current sunlight" to sustain a population of nearly 700,000,000 people, and our massive rate of consumption.
It is predicted that this means that we will only be able to produce enough food to sustain something like 15 - 25% of the population resulting in mass starvation, not to mention the obvious economical repercussions.
With little ablity to generate power, most of our scientific and technological advancements are rendered useless or unusable.
We will effectively have "unplugged" our power supply to the world. Scientific and technological advancement will grind to a halt and we will be forced to go back to agricultural lifestyles to sustain ourselves.
society as we know it will break down.
So, my questions:
1) How can science advance without computing power and machinery? (not to mention the fact that scientists would be far too busy gathering food all day to get anything else done).
2) As this is a relatively close deadline should we not be looking into alternative sources with more urgency?
3) If we as a species are to have any hope of (very) long term survival we need to colonise other planets. How do we that with no fuel?
4) What do we do if it comes to this point and we dont have an alternative power source?
5) What should we be doing now?
6) Shouldn't we as a species be concerned with our survival than trivial short term gain? (you've made x ££'s this year, but that's no good if you find yourself burning it (literally) for fuel next year. You should have spent your time more productively).
Your thoughts are appreciated
Thanks,
Al