Students
Awake
Look
into the future.
Unless
you act, you may have a short life.
There are 2 disasters coming that may well drastically shorten
your life span. One is Global Warming that may affect climate to the point that
food production will be greatly reduced, the other is running out of natural
gas and oil. Without oil, airplanes, cars, trains, ships, tractors, bulldozers,
and all of the other machines we are using will not run. We can live without
airplanes and cars but we can't live without tractors, farm machinery, and
trains. Shifting from oil to natural gas is not possible in the quantities we
are using now. Furthermore we are running out of gas. Coal and nuclear
production can't be increased enough to make the difference. Fusion is a
pipedream. Solar wind, and biomass would help but can't produce the quantities
we are using now. Furthermore it will take more than 20 trillion dollars in
investment to get even 30% of present consumption from alternate energy.
It is impossible to determine the
exact time scale for disaster to happen but things may change within 10 years. Even
with the most optimistic scenarios the economy will be destroyed within 20
years and starvation will start within 50 years.
The best scenario for sustainability
for say 200 years would be to cut back consumption of energy by 60% and then
try to produce the remaining 40% from equal amounts from coal, nuclear, wind,
solar, and biomass. No combination of energy sources can possibly satisfy
present consumption. Europe is presently using about 50% of our per capita
consumption, while
The investment required to save our
future is so large that we must start immediately and keep spending over many
years. Twenty trillion will not be enough. George Bush promised to spend 1
billion on energy if drilling were to occur in Alaskan wild life preserves. The
truth is that the amount of oil there is so small that it will make very little
difference. One billion dollars are also far too small to make a difference.
The tax cut will cause disaster for all children.
Remember we have to start now to make the
changes because there will be a big time delay between starting and anything
happening. Most of our workforce will have to be engaged in farming,
manufacturing, and designing energy projects if we are to survive. Our national
budget will have to neglect entitlements and national defense and concentrate
on farming and energy. Our farmers will have to grow energy crops as well as
food crops. We must plant many billions of fruit trees.
Please talk to your parents, other
students, and teachers about this. Make them understand that you want to live
to a ripe old age and that they must make sacrifices for your future. Spread
this information and form a Sustainability club to engage in searching the
Internet for information, for spreading the word, and for looking for
solutions. Design a Sustainability web page that will draw the attention of
other students and cause them to unite against the awful wastefulness of their
parents.
Internet
References: >http://www.provide.net/~kssustain/
www.RunningOnEmpty.org< >http://www.Dieoff.org)> (http://www.altenergy.org)
<>http://www.hubbertpeak.com/magoon/ >http://www.oilcrisis.com<>http://hubbert.mines.edu
>http://www.gulland.ca/depletion/depletion.htm<
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