on Mo!i~
OK, present time.
It's amazing how far we've come in 200 years, just three human lifetimes from
the beginning of industrialism until now. But where are we headed? We can't keep doubling human
population. We can't keep dumping carbon in the atmosphere. We can't keep
ruining topsoil.
We can't keep growing population and consumption or basing our economy on
depleting fossil fuels. We can't just print more money to solve the debt
crisis. It's been an exhilarating ride but there are limits. Now it's
not the end of the world, but we have to do four things fast: learn to live
without fossil fuels, adapt to the end of economic growth as we've
known it, support 7 billion humans and stabilize population at a
sustainable level, and deal with our legacy of environmental
destruction. In
short, we have to live within nature's budget of renewable resources at
rates of natural replenishment. Can we do it? We have no choice.
Alternative
energy sources are important but none can fully replace fossil fuels in
the time we have. Also we've designed and built our infrastructure for
transport, electricity and farming to suit oil, coal and gas. Changing
to different energy sources will require us to redesign cities, manufacturing processes,
healthcare and more. We also have to rethink some of our cultural values. None
of our global problems can be tackled in isolation and many cannot be fully
solved. We have to prepare for business as unusual. Our best goal is
resilience, the ability to absorb shocks and keep going. If we do nothing, we
still get to a post-carbon future, but it will be bleak. However, if we plan
the transition, we can have a world that supports robust communities of healthy
creative people and ecosystems with millions of other species. One way or the
other, we are in for the ride of a lifetime. Understand the issues and
pitch in. It's all hands on deck! |