|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
NEWS & VIEWS: ENERGY CRISIS |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
WITH THE DAWN of the Bronze Age about 3,000
years ago, mankind started on the path to industrialisation. He did not
give up his flint club because he ran out of flint but because he found
that bronze made a better tool and weapon. The Iron Age followed from
small and slow beginnings but has only dramatically flourished over the
last 300 years. At first this age of metals used fire-wood as the fuel for smelting the metal, which often led to deforestation before new fuel was found in the form of coal. Lumps of ‘sea-coal’ were at first collected from beaches, before it was mined in shallow pits. Mining itself, as it penetrated the water-table, led to steam-driven machine-pumps to drain the surplus water, these pumps being later adapted to provide locomotives for transport. The fossil-fuelled heat-engine was developed into the internal combustion engine, driven at first by benzene produced from coal, before turning to petroleum refined from crude oil. This new energy form has transformed the world during the short span of a single century. Cheap and efficient transport opened the world to trade, while the manufacture of consumer goods exploded. The new energy also transformed agriculture, providing the food for a growing population that has expanded six-fold, exactly in parallel with oil production. Oil was in turn followed by gas, increasingly used for electricity generation, which brought power and light to households throughout much of the world, opening the door to electronic communications and a growth in consumerism.
This extraordinary progression was achieved in not much more than 100 years. But now, in the twenty-first century, we face the onset of the natural decline of the fuel that made all this possible, and we do so without having a substitute form of energy that comes close to matching the utility, convenience and low cost of oil and gas. THE COMING ENERGY CRISIS The Middle East today is at the centre of a storm that will envelop us all, for the simple reason that it controls the world’s supply of oil. Now that the world has consumed almost half its supply of oil, most of what remains must come from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. Two of these countries, Iran and Iraq, are declared enemies in the new U.S. led war on terror, and the remaining three are living on the declining royal patrimony derived from oil revenues. This arrangement does not give any confidence for security and stability of oil supply. There is a little time left now to adjust to a world without oil, as we have about as much left as we have used so far. Unfortunately, we are now using this limited resource faster than ever before, so that at the current usage rate, it will all be gone within about thirty years. Like it or not, the world as we now know it has to change.
If energy production was increased to the point where a world population of 9 billion people consumed energy at the current per capita rates of the rich world, all estimated fossil fuel reserves (including an estimated 2,000 billion tons of coal) would be totally exhausted within about 40 years.
BEYOND THE LIMIT Energy consumption and resource demand patterns in rich countries are already far beyond sustainable limits. Yet virtually all countries seek economic growth and ignore any question of limits. For example, look at the production and use of cars. Given the limited amount of oil in the world there is simply no prospect of China, India or any other countries such as Malaysia, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, Ukraine, Mexico, the Czech Republic and other emerging car producers being able to achieve American, West European, Australian or Japanese rates of car ownership. The Chinese ‘Car Bomb’ therefore ticks onward, as each day another estimated 112,190 cars are produced. Each one requires up to 55 barrels of oil-equivalent to produce, and must operate on bitumen-based highways, on tyres that themselves are about 40 per cent oil by weight. Not only is this explosion of the world car fleet a serious threat to the earth’s environment, but through its oil demand impact it will become a threat to international peace and stability. By the year 2035, oil and gas production and therefore consumption, will have fallen from today’s levels by as much as 75 per cent and 60 per cent respectively. Coal production and consumption may well have bounded upwards – but if so the environmental and climatic consequences will be grave. World climate by 2035, will have substantially changed from today. The effects of high carbon dioxide levels will most certainly wreak accelerating and unpredictable major changes in climate and sea levels. The overshoot in consumption levels of oil and gas is enormous when compared to availability, and so the amount of energy use in a sustainable society, will have to be a small fraction of the amount we take for granted in a consumer society today. It follows that a sustainable society cannot be achieved without very radical changes in lifestyles, systems of land use, patterns of settlement, the economy and social values. A NEW SOCIETY The kind of society we must shift towards, if we are to solve global problems has already been described as ‘The Simpler Way’ (For more information about this online see: www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/). Proponents of this solution to world problems recommend that energy demands be cut to far below present levels, by adopting:
It is argued that only by moving to something like this vision of ‘The Simpler Way’ can we expect to achieve a just and sustainable global situation. HOW CAN THIS BE ACHIEVED? For the answer to that question we must turn to the Bible. Just when the world as we now know it is disintegrating into chaos and anarchy and the coming energy crisis could well be the cause, the Bible tells us that there will be a remarkable change for the better. It will be along the lines recommended by those advocating ‘The Simpler Way’ but with significant differences. From Genesis onwards the Bible is full of predictions about vast changes to be brought about in the earth. Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation, was told that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through one of his descendants, who is identified in the New Testament as Jesus Christ:
The Psalms speak of a king (Jesus Christ), who will set up a universal rule of such benefit to humanity that ‘all nations shall call him blessed.’ Psalm 72:17 THE COMING NEW WORLD ORDER God’s plan for the future is a practical one. Based upon the personal return of Christ to the earth to reign from Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:17) described as ‘the city of the great King’ (Matthew 5:35), it provides for vast but necessary changes in the political, religious and social structure of society. (See chart above) All these changes are dependent upon the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth, exactly as was promised by the angels when he ascended into heaven almost 2000 years ago. As the disciples watched him go, the angels asked them:
Jesus will ‘So come’ – literally, physically, personally – not merely into men’s hearts and minds. He is literally coming back to change human affairs beyond all recognition. The Bible makes it clear that when he comes again, Jesus will take over the government of the whole world. At a time that the prophet Daniel described as ‘a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time’ (Daniel 12.1), everything will change. But just before this ‘change for the better’ happens, Jesus predicted that there would be ‘distress of nations with perplexity…men’s hearts failing them for fear, and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth’ Luke 21:25-26. In short, there is to be a ‘clean sweep’ of the present human political and religious organisations, just when the world needs it most.
The Bible records that under Joshua – an early leader of the nation of Israel in the past – every family had a farm of its own. This provided the basis of life, whatever else they did. When things went well, as they did when Israel obeyed God, they were blessed with everything they needed. They lived a life that provided every means of comfort and enjoyment, providing a healthy, happy existence. They were ‘partners’ with God, who made all things, instead of being remote from him, as in modern civilisations. They found satisfaction in their work well done, so that their lives, their worship and their families were thoroughly integrated. They were men and women, untroubled by the balance of payments, devaluation, inflation, import quotas, and all the other characteristics of many societies today, for God blessed them and they rejoiced in his goodness. So it will be again when Christ rules on earth. The object will be to give to mortal men and women a proper background against which their minds may expand and their thinking become attuned with the God who made them, that they might reflect his glory. Many of the prophets of the Bible describe Christ’s future rulership of the world. For example, the prophet Micah gives us some more details about this coming worldwide kingdom.
‘Everyone under his vine’ suggests a basically pastoral type of life in the age to come, exactly as recommended by ‘The Simpler Way’ – the only way to overcome the coming energy crisis. A BETTER WORLD IS COMING!! The book of prophet Isaiah is necessary reading if you want to know more about the world as it will be after the coming energy crisis has passed. It describes what will first happen in Israel, and will then spread to all mankind, for ‘Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the earth with fruit’ (Isaiah 27.6). Read Isaiah chapter 65 verses 18-25 for yourself and notice all the good things that God has promised will happen to this earth in the near future. Here is a summary:
And this is just a ‘taster’ of what God says will happen when Christ returns to this earth. With the biggest crisis ever faced by the modern world now fast approaching, his return is assured and cannot come too soon.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
