Think of the earth as a solar powered battery. Since the
beginning of the planet, it has taken energy from the sun, absorbed it through
plants, and found better and better ways of storing it. Animals eating plants
condense their energy, die and mix with dead plants and create soil. This soil
layers upon itself through the years and condenses this energy into oil and
coal, storing gas in underground chambers.
Year after year the
earth adds resources into the ground, which has enabled us to create a society
based on stored energy. So what happens when we start drawing out more energy
than the sun can put in? Just like any battery, eventually the planet will die,
or at least loose enough of a charge that it wont support us anymore.
According to the
Global Footprint Network, since 2002 we have been using more resources than the
earth can provide. Just the very act of tilling soil releases stored carbon
into the air. Fossil fuels, stored over millions of years, are finite, and much
of the material we create out of this stored energy is nonrenewable, such as
many types of plastic. Add it all together and the potential that we are
draining our great solar powered battery at a rate the sun can’t keep up with
is eminent. The surprise about this is that even the developed countries, whose
populations aren’t growing and who are focusing on energy efficiency, are using
many more resources than their land can provide, usurping energy needs from
countries that are abundant in resources. Interestingly enough, underdeveloped
countries have decreased their footprint.
It isn’t clear that with modern technology, becoming better at collecting energy directly from the sun and bypassing the stored energy from organic life, that this trend is reversible. If we can’t find better ways of getting energy, and allow our earth to regenerate by leaving it alone as much as we can, our battery will eventually run down.
