By Tony Davenport
It is not as bad as you might imagine - it's worse, and before you bury your heads in the sands of collective denial, please consider how it is coming about. The truth will set you free, but first it will probably make you ill.
We have had it too easy with cheap energy for a century and the cheap part is going to disappear. Quickly. Energy is the ubiquitous part of everything we consume, and liquid fuel is getting scarce.
The easy part is to understand how we got to where we are. The difficult part is predicting how we can possibly manage to make our way out of this one. It will draw on our deepest resolve and wisdom, and probably require a "Copernican" shift in our thinking (Copernicus was the first astronomer to prove scientifically that the sun rather than the Earth was at the centre of our cosmic system).
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We seem to have scientific prowess, but there's no time for self-congratulation. This time the solutions are the cause of a much bigger problem. Our current pursuit of growth and the elevation of human material wants above all else are the raison d'ętre of the problem. We promote consumption and ignore efficiency. We live as though there is no tomorrow, and the way we are going there probably won't be.
We might have just one last window of opportunity and it requires that we draw deeply on our resolve, think wisely and act purposefully. People will need to make unpleasant choices.
Thomas Robert Malthus, demographer, mathematician and priest, wrote an essay in 1798 entitled "The Principle of Population" in which he postulated that, firstly, "food is necessary for the existence of man" and secondly, "that the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state".
Furthermore, he advanced that population tended to grow in a geometric or compounding manner (1,2,4,8,16…), and that food linearly (1,2,3,4,5…).
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