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And yet, when it comes time for their own survival, they can be slow to act and display, at times, a complete head-in-the-sand posture.

And so it has been with the world’s energy crises, which continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The response by the civilized world to the impending disaster has been largely to ignore it, hoping it will simply go away.

Unfortunately, the problem won’t go away, and is increasingly banging at humanity’s door, demanding attention.

The figures are in and they add up to a disaster of biblical proportions if the world’s people fail to act quickly and decisively.

The good news is that humans may be finally getting the message and looking at ways to turn around a disastrous trend of burning diminishing fossil fuels, which may fuel the planet now, but cannot be maintained indefinitely. And burning them only ads to the heavy environmental toll they have taken on the planet.

There is little doubt the world is running out of fossil fuels. We’ve known it for some time. In 1956, M. King Hubert, a geologist working for Royal Dutch Shell, presented the theory of peak oil to the American Petroleum Institute. Hubert’s theory showed that geographic oil producing region’s production would start off slowly, build to a peak, and then decline at approximately the same rate it climbed. This curve would be the same for both discovery and production, with approximately 20-40 years between peaks.

His forecast for the United States was based on the lower 48 states; he did not factor the Alaskan oil fields. Even with the Alaskan oil reserves, his predictions for the U.S. have been called perhaps the most amazingly accurate long-range forecast ever. He stated U.S. production would peak between 1965 and 1970 (it peaked in 1970). Today, U.S. production is down 40 per cent from its peak, creating significant dependence on foreign oil.

But foreign oil won’t last forever. According to the Exxon Mobil oil and gas display at the Johnson Geo Centre in St John’s NL, “At current production rates, global sources of oil and gas will be exhausted within 40–60 years.”

And it gets worse. While production is down, consumption is on the rise — as much as 30 per cent in the U.S. — driven by the rise in global population and man’s insatiable need for energy.

The future population growth of the world is difficult to predict. Birth rates and death rates can change drastically over the course of time.

The United States Census Bureau issued a revised forecast for world population that increased its projection for the year 2050 to above 9.4 billion people (which was the United Nation’s 1996 projection for 2050), up from 9.1 billion people. A new U.S. Census Bureau revision from June 18, 2008 has increased its projections further, to beyond 9.5 billion in 2050.

Other projections are that the world’s population will eventually crest, though it is uncertain when or how. In some scenarios, it will crest as early as around 2050 at fewer than nine billion, or 10 to 11 billion, due to gradually decreasing birth rates.

And that could only mean a greater need for energy sources, which lately have been fossil fuels.

The demand for fossil fuels has been on the rise for decades. Since the advent of the industrial revolution, the worldwide energy consumption has been growing steadily. In 1890 the consumption of fossil fuels roughly equalled the amount of biomass fuel burned by households and industry. In 1900, global energy consumption equalled 0.7 TW (0.7×1012 watts).

 The 20th century saw a rapid twentyfold increase in the use of fossil fuels — first coal, then oil and gas. Between 1980 and 2004, the worldwide annual growth rate was two per cent. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s breakdown of total energy consumption of 2004, fossil fuels supplied 86 per cent of the world’s energy.

According to the Energy Information Association (EIA), global energy demand as measured in Quadrillion BTUs will double by 2030. North American demand will not rise at the same rate, but considering their domestic supply and current portion of global consumption, significant price pressure is obvious.

Consumption rates can’t continue without cataclysmic results. In one scenario, a disaster triggered by the growing population’s demand for scarce resources will eventually lead to a sudden population crash, or even a Malthusian catastrophe (food shortage).

The figures show a marked turnaround for humans and how they view energy sources. Humans have evolved from utilizing sun as the primary source of energy to grow the crops that fed the animals and slaves to plant and harvest the crops to feed the wealthy. Today, we’re an oil-based society needing oil to fuel the machines to plant and harvest, transport, fertilize, house, etc.

Burning fossil fuels creates another grave problem: global warming.

Is it really happening? Some argue that it is not but that is the head-in-the-sand attitude. Fact is, the Earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change. For example:

• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century’s last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the UN’S Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850. 

• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.

• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.

• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting — for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.

• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching — or die-off in response to stress — ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 per cent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.

The IPPC, in a 2007 report, claims humans are “very likely” behind global warming. The report, based on the work of some 2,500 scientists in more than 130 countries, concluded that humans have caused all or most of the current planetary warming. Human-caused global warming is often called anthropogenic climate change.

• Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth’s surface.

• Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it.

• These gases persist in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even if such emissions were eliminated today, it would not immediately stop global warming.

• Some experts point out the natural cycles in Earth's orbit can alter the planet's exposure to sunlight, which may explain the current trend. Earth has indeed experienced warming and cooling cycles roughly every hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts, but such changes have occurred over the span of several centuries. Today’s changes have taken place over the past 100 years or less.

So what’s it all mean?

 

Clearly, humankind has to set a different course in its need for energy, one that involves less intrusive sources such as solar, wind and geothermal energy. They are energy sources that don’t harm the planet and will never run out.

The clock is ticking down but there’s still time. Humankind has proven to be resourceful and prudent in the past. It needs to be again in the crucial areas of energy and the environment inorder to assure sustainability for future generations.