Energy Speech Renewable Energy Now

Energy Speech

Renewable Energy Now

There is no question that we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, both by developing alternative technologies and by reducing our energy usage overall. The most common argument heard for making these developments is the increasing evidence of global warming and other climate changes believed to be consequences of carbon emission from human activities. It is true that polar ice is meting at a faster rate than ever recorded and that a general warming trend has been observed over the last century. It is less clear that carbon emissions from the use of carbon-based fossil fuels in factories, cars, and other innovations of the industrial age is the cause of this warming trend, and many of opponents of the global warming theory use this to justify their continued unchecked consumption through such purchases as sports utility vehicles and a general lack of effort to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Although the evidence that there is a human basis for global warming is extensive and growing, it must be acknowledged that there is not, as yet, a proven link between the two.

Why, then, is it important that we increase our efforts at developing technologies that provide renewable sources of energy and reduce our general energy use altogether? If the major consequence of burning fossil fuels that we have been so often warned about -- the gradual warming of the Earth's climate, leading to the faster destruction of certain ecosystems and perhaps heralding future destruction -- is not really a threat, why shouldn't we continue to use the cheap energy afforded by burning fossil fuels? Is there something inherently wrong with consumption? The answer to this last question is a matter of debate, but from a utilitarian perspective the answer would have to be no; consuming on its own does not really do any harm, and if carbon emissions are not causing climate change, then these emissions should not hold back consumption.

There is another, more pressing reason for getting rid of our dependence on fossil fuels. It is not a newly recognized threat; in fact, it has been recognized and warned about almost as long as oil has been the dominant source of energy in the world. The very name "fossil fuel" -- which applies to oil as well as coal and other hydrocarbons found in the ground -- reveals the essential problem with a dependence on such fuels. They come from the same source as fossils -- organic material in the form of plants and animals dead for many hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. The rate of consumption is exponentially greater than the rate that new sources of fuel like oil and fuels deposits can be created, meaning that eventually the energy will dry up. This could be within the next century, even within the next few decades, according to the more paranoid estimates. Regardless of when this is going to happen, however, there is absolutely no doubt that it will happen. When it does, we will need other ways to power our transportation vehicles, our electrical power plants, our factories -- we will need a new way or ways to power our society, or return to the pre-Industrial age.