Response to Eating Fossil Fuels

Eating Fossil Fuels by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
Published on Thursday, October 2, 2003 by From The Wilderness Publications

This article introduced how our main source of food energy came from the sun and through photosynthesis. As the population proliferated and technology became more advanced, our source of food energy no longer derived from the sun. Factories and the whole industrial world became more common. What people didn't realize was that the sun is an abundant resource. As we began to depend on fossil fuels, the amount of energy the world is consuming is hundreds of times more than using the sun. Although oil will not run out, the cheap oil will and this will be a dilemma to the world because prices of food and the prices of a lot of other things that depend on oil will also sky rocket. While reading this article, i took note on a lot of things said. One of the main important ones that stood out to me the most was "The expanding human population is putting increasing pressure on land availability." According to this statement, it is significant because the rate that the population is increasing by is causing everything to change in the world. While people are complaining about what is happening, they don't understand that they are the same ones that are destroying the earth.
Another statement that is important to publicize is "To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one- third." The more people that are entering this world, the more production there has to be. And all productions require energy. Although in the article it says that one way to protect the earth is to eliminate meat from our diet altogether. I would have to disagree with this statement. I believe that people should just have less of it instead of eliminating it.

Peak Oil Assignment

My understanding of peak oil is the moment of when the extraction of oil reaches its max point. After the peak, it flatens out and then begins to fall. What most people don't seem to understand when they hear peak oil is that oil never runs out. As it was stated in http://energybulletin.net/primer.php, it was clearly stated that peak oil is defined as "running out of 'cheap' oil." My concerns while studying peak oil was what can actually be done to prevent this decline. My only thoughts for this question was to decline the birth rate. The growth of the population is what is causing the value of oil to increase. If the percentile of the birth rate decreases, the value of oil will also decrease. The use of cars is also an effect. There should be mass transportation created in different places, so the use of cars can be limited.