Conversation with Mother
(Page 6 of 11)
September/October 1986
By Lester Brown
And to get back to China, particularly the area around Beijing and Tianjin, the water table there is dropping at about four feet a year, and the demands for water are continuing to increase.
RELATED CONTENT
With a few simple tools and these step-by-step instructions from an expert mechanic, you can change...
Hovering on extinction's edge, West Africa's last giraffes make a surprising comeback...
The natural cycle of rainfall and evaporation is our earth's method of cleansing itself. However, t...
A Plowboy Interview with Lester Brown who has spent the last 20 of his 44 years studying and writin...
This problem, like most, can be tied to population growth, which simultaneously increases the demand for water and reduces the supply, because it leads to cutting trees, which sets in motion the land degradation that reduces the amount of rainfall that's retained.
So, on the water front, we're going to face a lot of adjustments in the years ahead. Just as we've had to design more gasoline-efficient cars, we're going to have to breed more water-efficient crops and recognize that water consumption is becoming a serious constraint on long-term economic expansion — and on the earth's long-term carrying capacity — in the same way that energy consumption is.
MOTHER: Speaking of energy, despite the recent oil glut, Worldwatch has presented a good argument indicating that in the not-too-distant future we will have to "move beyond oil." What will that change be like?
BROWN: Over the past generation we've seen the world economy become an oil-based economy. I think it was some time in the '50s that oil overtook coal as the principal fuel. Between 1950 and 1973, world oil production increased some 7% a year — in total a five-fold increase. But now we know that the world economy in the long term will not be an oil-based economy. There simply isn't enough oil left, and already we've seen a substantial decline of some 15% or so in total world oil consumption.
So, as we move beyond oil, I think there are two things that will dominate the energy economy. First, we'll have to use energy far more efficiently than we do now. Second, we'll be depending more and more on renewable energy resources.
The petroleum age is fairly homogeneous; it's the same fuel, the same basic technology being used all over the world. But in the post-petroleum age, each country will have to fashion an energy policy based on the resources that are indigenously available.
Sweden, for example, has a long-term energy plan that centers around the use of hydropower, wood fuel, and wind power, coupled with substantial increases in energy efficiency. Brazil is concentrating on alcohol fuels from sugar cane, hydropower, and, to a lesser degree, wood. The Philippines has one of the best long-term energy programs of any country in the world, despite all the political problems they are now facing. They have probably cut their oil imports nearly in half over the last decade or so and are concentrating on the development of geothermal energy, hydropower, solar collectors, methane generators, and small, rural, electric generating plants that are fueled with wood. The wood is grown by small farmers on two to five acres on a contract basis. They plant trees, care for them, harvest them, and sell them to a small utility power plant at the agreed-upon price.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
Next >>
