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FOSSIL FUELS AND THE WORLD POPULATION EXPLOSION
There is a huge point to consider when it comes to the subject of oil, gas and the World population.
We are known as the fossil fuel generation, we are addicted to oil and gas. It is a fact, just look around you.
What many do not realise is that this "cheap energy" is the single biggest contributing factor to the explosion in the world population. In the pre-fossil fuel generation we had to rely mostly on locally produced food. Now many of us buy food in the supermarkets that has travelled more than 1000 miles distance to reach us.
So what? Its not going to happen in my lifetime!
That is the answer I hear often, but there is a problem here and most of us are blind to it.
As the population grows exponentially against a finite supply of oil and gas, these fuels will become scarcer and become more expensive, much more expensive. The high tech fertilizers we use to make food production more efficient are mostly derived from oil, and the cost of moving food into cities from rural areas will dramatically increase.
Consider life in the city for a moment, tall buldings lots of cars, buses, trains, thousands of people living there consuming enormous amouts of energy. They are totally and utterly addicted to oil and gas and electricity are they not?
But where are the farms? Miles and miles and in most cases probably more than over 100 miles away.
Think it through for a moment. Food prices in cities will skyrocket as transport costs rise and so much so that most people won't be able to afford city life anymore. Where will they go?
Obviously they will have to re-locate nearer to farms so that the distance their food travels to their tables is reduced.
You might like to ask yourself something now: If it took you several million years to make some oil, would you sell it off for £1.30 per litre? I guess not?
We all like to complain about rising fuel costs, but do we really appreciate that it is more or less free energy and it gives us this easy life to fly anywhere in the world in 24 hours or less for under £1000? Just imagine doing that without oil, it would take months at sea on a sailing ship, or weeks across land on a very tired horse.
Basically the point is very clear, life without the fossil fuels is going to be very much harder for us to cope with. The old days of sowing crops and harvesting them will return, cities will cease to be crowded places and farming will become something much closer to all of us.
Finally the 8 billion plus world population only exploded so rapidly after we learned how to extract and use fossil fuels from the earth, and with it came the birth of trains powered by coal, ships with ever more high speeds, planes, cars, power stations and everything there for us on tap.
Before this event the population was around 7 times less. When these fossil fuels are scarce, our lives will change and one has to consider how we will continue to feed 8 billion hungry mouths? Possibly we will be actually needing to feed 10-20 billion mouths by the time we realise the problem is serious.
One has to ask if we can feed all those people, and if the population will return back to its long term average of approx 1 billion again?
As with the stockmarket, growth is usually a steady gradual process and a crash is a violent rapid process. Whenever this fine balance reaches its tipping point, one can only imagine how it will be as our species scrambles for food and shelter.
Whoever can predict this date is smarter than me, but one can at least see ( with a little mental effort ) that it could be very likely to see a huge inflation in the price of food, farmland and horses as a means of transport.
Quote by Francis Quarles ( English poet 1592-1654 )
Seest thou good days ? Prepare for evil times. No summer but hath its winter.
He never reaped comfort in adversity that sowed not in prosperity.
We are known as the fossil fuel generation, we are addicted to oil and gas. It is a fact, just look around you.
What many do not realise is that this "cheap energy" is the single biggest contributing factor to the explosion in the world population. In the pre-fossil fuel generation we had to rely mostly on locally produced food. Now many of us buy food in the supermarkets that has travelled more than 1000 miles distance to reach us.
So what? Its not going to happen in my lifetime!
That is the answer I hear often, but there is a problem here and most of us are blind to it.
As the population grows exponentially against a finite supply of oil and gas, these fuels will become scarcer and become more expensive, much more expensive. The high tech fertilizers we use to make food production more efficient are mostly derived from oil, and the cost of moving food into cities from rural areas will dramatically increase.
Consider life in the city for a moment, tall buldings lots of cars, buses, trains, thousands of people living there consuming enormous amouts of energy. They are totally and utterly addicted to oil and gas and electricity are they not?
But where are the farms? Miles and miles and in most cases probably more than over 100 miles away.
Think it through for a moment. Food prices in cities will skyrocket as transport costs rise and so much so that most people won't be able to afford city life anymore. Where will they go?
Obviously they will have to re-locate nearer to farms so that the distance their food travels to their tables is reduced.
You might like to ask yourself something now: If it took you several million years to make some oil, would you sell it off for £1.30 per litre? I guess not?
We all like to complain about rising fuel costs, but do we really appreciate that it is more or less free energy and it gives us this easy life to fly anywhere in the world in 24 hours or less for under £1000? Just imagine doing that without oil, it would take months at sea on a sailing ship, or weeks across land on a very tired horse.
Basically the point is very clear, life without the fossil fuels is going to be very much harder for us to cope with. The old days of sowing crops and harvesting them will return, cities will cease to be crowded places and farming will become something much closer to all of us.
Finally the 8 billion plus world population only exploded so rapidly after we learned how to extract and use fossil fuels from the earth, and with it came the birth of trains powered by coal, ships with ever more high speeds, planes, cars, power stations and everything there for us on tap.
Before this event the population was around 7 times less. When these fossil fuels are scarce, our lives will change and one has to consider how we will continue to feed 8 billion hungry mouths? Possibly we will be actually needing to feed 10-20 billion mouths by the time we realise the problem is serious.
One has to ask if we can feed all those people, and if the population will return back to its long term average of approx 1 billion again?
As with the stockmarket, growth is usually a steady gradual process and a crash is a violent rapid process. Whenever this fine balance reaches its tipping point, one can only imagine how it will be as our species scrambles for food and shelter.
Whoever can predict this date is smarter than me, but one can at least see ( with a little mental effort ) that it could be very likely to see a huge inflation in the price of food, farmland and horses as a means of transport.
Quote by Francis Quarles ( English poet 1592-1654 )
Seest thou good days ? Prepare for evil times. No summer but hath its winter.
He never reaped comfort in adversity that sowed not in prosperity.
