The Coming Crash: Our Addiction to Endless Growth on a Finite Planet [With Photo Slideshow]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/coming-crash-our-addiction-endless-growth-finite-planet-photo-slideshow?page=0%2C0

***SNIP

TL: You wrote that our population is seven times larger now than it was before the Industrial Revolution, but even more troubling is that we use 30 times more energy. To me, that gets to the heart of what the problem is. It's not just the kinds of energy we're using, but how much we're using.

RH: Exactly. Using more energy gives us a lot of power as a species. We've developed the ability to extract and transform all sorts of other resources, including minerals and metals. We've increased our speed and scope of transport and trade, all because we've had cheap, concentrated, portable energy sources, primarily fossil fuels. We just have to figure out how to get more and more energy all the time and progress can go on indefinitely. The reality is we live on a finite planet.

Energy production has costs and tradeoffs. We won't be able to continue increasing the rate of extraction of fossil fuels much longer. Other sources of energy are in some ways seemingly, if not infinite, at least very, very large -- like the amount of sunlight striking the earth on an average day is virtually infinite in comparison with the amount of energy that we use. Our means of capturing sunlight and wind and other renewable sources of energy are themselves dependent upon other finite resources. You have to build wind turbines out of something. You would have to use minerals and metals to make solar panels.

At the end of the day, we have to somehow make peace with the fact that the earth is not just a giant cookie jar that is going to give us everything we want. We have to moderate our demand for energy and everything else so that it's commensurate with Earth's ability to supply our wants and needs. Now, currently our energy consumption is vast in comparison with our energy consumption at any previous time in history. Also, it's extremely uneven. Americans use twice as much energy as people in Europe per capita, and 10 or 100 times as much as people in less industrialized countries.