The following is the conventional anthropocentric view of our current ecology and financial
impact of using fossil fuels:
For most of recorded history, humans have relied on biomass as the principal source of food, fuel, and fiber.
Using plants and animals to capture and concentrate the sun’s energy allowed humans to abandon the
nomadic life of hunter-gatherer and adopt settled lifestyle as tiller and herder. Ever since, human societies
have depended on careful management of soil and water resources for their very existence. In many cases,
injudicious management of these fragile resources has doomed once thriving civilizations because they were
unable to sustain the biological productivity that supported them.
From a historical perspective, it is only during a very brief period in the recent past that humans have
learned to decouple primary industrial productivity from biomass production. We have done this by reaching
back in geologic time, learning to use fossil energy to greatly magnify our ability to do work and to use the
complex chemical building blocks stored as fossil bio-mass—petroleum, coal, and natural gas—to create
synthetic materials with unique properties. Even conventional biobased production (agriculture) is now
predominantly practiced in an intensive manner that relies on petroleum in the form of fuels and chemicals to
produce the bountiful harvests that have allowed human populations to grow beyond what was believed
possible as recently as 100 years ago.
Attempts to reverse the trends of the last century and a half, and return to satisfying significant amounts of
the human appetite for power and materials using plant-derived raw materials will have complex social and
environmental impacts. Increased reliance on agriculture as a source of industrial feedstock will likely create
conflicts with needs for food production as well as increase agricultural impacts on water and air quality. By
unlocking the secrets of the genome, biotechnology may allow us to sidestep some environmental and
resource problems, but it may create wholly new ones. (adapted from Robert Anex, Iowa State. http://www.
abe.iastate.edu/faculty/anex.asp )
People who see the world like Robert Anex does might be led to investing in solar cells for their roof and
biotechnology to create a domestic source of fuel. I am not opposed to this if it is economical.
The problem with this view is that it doesn’t take into account the fact that we are on the verge of a number of
other breakthroughs in technology. One such breakthrough is the use of robots to do many jobs. When a
job is filled by a human it requires more energy and a complex support system to be present as well.
Consider the following scenario:
Scenario 1:
One person owns robotic lawn mowers and his lawn is mowed automatically with some assistance by himself.
Other manufacturers are working on an improved version which will be almost completely automatic. Many of
the person’s neighbors use lawn services which hire men to mow the lawns. In the case of one neighbor, she
has a service come which has to drive for one hour to reach her home. This activity is not energy efficient.
Robots will eventually change that.
A second Scenario can be found at: Mexican Restaurant Worker
Next
Previous
impact of using fossil fuels:
For most of recorded history, humans have relied on biomass as the principal source of food, fuel, and fiber.
Using plants and animals to capture and concentrate the sun’s energy allowed humans to abandon the
nomadic life of hunter-gatherer and adopt settled lifestyle as tiller and herder. Ever since, human societies
have depended on careful management of soil and water resources for their very existence. In many cases,
injudicious management of these fragile resources has doomed once thriving civilizations because they were
unable to sustain the biological productivity that supported them.
From a historical perspective, it is only during a very brief period in the recent past that humans have
learned to decouple primary industrial productivity from biomass production. We have done this by reaching
back in geologic time, learning to use fossil energy to greatly magnify our ability to do work and to use the
complex chemical building blocks stored as fossil bio-mass—petroleum, coal, and natural gas—to create
synthetic materials with unique properties. Even conventional biobased production (agriculture) is now
predominantly practiced in an intensive manner that relies on petroleum in the form of fuels and chemicals to
produce the bountiful harvests that have allowed human populations to grow beyond what was believed
possible as recently as 100 years ago.
Attempts to reverse the trends of the last century and a half, and return to satisfying significant amounts of
the human appetite for power and materials using plant-derived raw materials will have complex social and
environmental impacts. Increased reliance on agriculture as a source of industrial feedstock will likely create
conflicts with needs for food production as well as increase agricultural impacts on water and air quality. By
unlocking the secrets of the genome, biotechnology may allow us to sidestep some environmental and
resource problems, but it may create wholly new ones. (adapted from Robert Anex, Iowa State. http://www.
abe.iastate.edu/faculty/anex.asp )
People who see the world like Robert Anex does might be led to investing in solar cells for their roof and
biotechnology to create a domestic source of fuel. I am not opposed to this if it is economical.
The problem with this view is that it doesn’t take into account the fact that we are on the verge of a number of
other breakthroughs in technology. One such breakthrough is the use of robots to do many jobs. When a
job is filled by a human it requires more energy and a complex support system to be present as well.
Consider the following scenario:
Scenario 1:
One person owns robotic lawn mowers and his lawn is mowed automatically with some assistance by himself.
Other manufacturers are working on an improved version which will be almost completely automatic. Many of
the person’s neighbors use lawn services which hire men to mow the lawns. In the case of one neighbor, she
has a service come which has to drive for one hour to reach her home. This activity is not energy efficient.
Robots will eventually change that.
A second Scenario can be found at: Mexican Restaurant Worker
Next
Previous
 |
 | |  | |  | |  |