“ The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping old ones.” John Maynard keyes
Over the years we’ve heard of the concept of global warming, how the world could come to an end if focus is not shifted from fossil fuel to renewable energy. In this side of the world i don’t think we’ve given it much thought as we’ve considered it irrelevant or a minor issue compared to other more important matters, also some have believed there’d be some sort of divine intervention from God that would restore the world to a stable state if things ever got critical ( I belonged to this group?). However as i kept hearing about global warming & how efforts were made in other first world and developing countries to diversify energy source my curiosity was piqued, I wanted to know what the fuss was all about and here’s what i found out.
Energy use by mankind can be divided into 3 eras.
Beginning of mankind: We didn’t really know how to use energy but when we did it was clear and renewable energy era.
1800AD-?: Fossil Fuels Era.
?- To the end of human kind: Renewable/ Sustainable energy era.
We can simply say Energy is the thing that lets something work. According to the Law of Conversion, Energy cannot be created, it can only be transferred or transformed from one form to another. Interestingly almost all the energy used by earth’s living things come in the first place from the Sun.Since inception, humans have found a way not just to use their energy but to also make use of energy in other things (living and non-living), this birthed the concept of technology. The industrial revolution movement in the 1800s brought about breakthroughs in energy use; from fire to steam to coal to burnable air- natural gas to black burnable liquid- Crude oil, then Electricity which seems like the peak however it is still majorly powered by coal, natural gas & crude oil. Coal, Natural Gas, Crude oil are classified under Fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are called fossil fuels because they are the remains of ancient living things.
What is wrong with Fossil fuel?
Climate Change: Burning fossil fuels makes atmospheric CO2 levels rise, as atmospheric CO2 levels rise, the temperatures rises. The temperature doesn’t need to change very much to distort the optimum climate & living condition as we’ve seen over the years.
End Times: According to 2015 BP statistical review of world energy, the following fossil fuels have these number of years of supplies left: Coal-109 Years, Natural Gas-54 Years, Crude Oil- 53 Years.
So really at some point in the future we’ll have no choice but to stop running everything on fossil fuels, because they’ll be gone or too expensive. The problem with running out, whenever it happens, is that if the world is anywhere near as reliant on fossil fuels at that point as we are now, it’ll cause an epic economic collapse.
What is right about Renewable Energy?
Renewable/Sustainable energy is energy from a source that is not depleted when used, such as wind or solar power. it doesn’t finish, it is clean-no carbon emissions, it is cheaper or at least in the long run it is.
So at the end of day i found out that my thinking and ‘popular’ thinking has been wrong, it is an important issue and no miracle is going to happen.
The only way to be ready for the future is to create it!