To the Editor:
Trends show consumption rates of fossil fuel and water are skyrocketing while access is decreasing. By Midcentury 2/3 of the world is looking at water scarcity with Peak Oil and increasing climate extremes causing more severe and frequent droughts and floods that will decimate agriculture, water and social systems globally. This is the future we face without aggressively pursuing renewable energy investment and bringing affordable access to it to all people of the world now – instead of making this a political issue that works to stagnate progress based on economic standing or political partisanship.
The age of cheap fossil fuel energy is over. Oil discoveries have declined since the 1960s and Peak Oil is upon us. Why do you think governments of the world including the U.S. are now looking to invest so heavily in what they call “bridge fuels” like shale, tar sands and natural gas? Well, because they know Peak Oil is upon us and their gravy train is about to be derailed.
We are facing an unprecedented crossroads that will define how long our civilization now has left. Population increases added to consumption increases added to depletion of water, forests, land, topsoil, fossil fuels, etc. are creating the perfect storm.
The scenario as is being played out is setting our species up for the fall. There is no bridge to the 21st Century that can be built with natural gas, tar sands and shale that costs more to excavate and is more toxic to our environment. Renewables, like solar, wind, geothermal, tidal wave energy, etc. need to be aggressively invested in for the continued survival of our species.
Even if you do not believe climate change is being exacerbated by human activity (which at this point in all honesty questions your ability to reason logically) the need to transition to renewable energy is essential now because frankly, we are depleting resources twice as fast as replacing them. There is no other solution to this dilemma and the fossil guel companies know this, hence their denial.
This is the greatest concern I now have for the future…that we will not transition in time to escape this total depletion thus precipitating a global famine and the breakdown of society as we know it.
We can escape this fatal outcome however, if we look beyond the political partisanship and understand that this is now about so much more than political legacies. This is about the legacy we will all leave for those to come. The truth is our consumption is killing us. We must change or this Anthropocene Epoch we have precipitated will be little more than a footnote rather than our shining moment.
JAN MOORE
Climate Leader, the Climate Reality Project