Energy Observations

It is unfortunate that history repeats itself over and over and that collective memories simple fade away. It seems that societies throughout history continue to rumble along until the knife is at their throat or gun is to their head. There are many factors massing on the United States that point to an accelerated decline of our country. As time passes, the bravado and bombastic claims of our country being able to rise up and overcome any obstacle increase. We seem to be the species that will claim that it is too expense to save ourselves. I used to be worried about the environment and all its beauty, diversity and majesty but no longer. I finally realized that the earth has been through far worse than humans acting as locusts and reckless out of control consumers. In many past extinctions, life was virtually obliterated from the planet, but it endured and grew once again. I suspect the earth will recover again no matter how much we try to squeeze every resource out of it. We have already apparently made a collective decision that all other species are entirely disposable for the sake of our progress not withstanding the heroic warnings, pleadings and efforts of those who try to reverse the trends. Why should people change? What is different now than the Neolithic Age? If anything has changed, the reverence for the natural world and living on only what you needed has vanished. Progress certainly comes at a price but does it need to torpedo the only biosphere we have? Does progress have to be an end sum game based on wealth accumulation and power? If the answer is yes, then any debate is pointless...we will exhaust ourselves soon enough. All the concern about energy independence is certainly a step in the right direction but there are unanswered questions that are directly tied to this problem. Given the climate changes, shifts in rainfall and arable lands, inevitable Diasporas of populations, shrinking reserves of natural resources and fresh water and staggering global population growth, there is a juggernaut swelling up to simply overwhelm humanity entirely. No one has the guts to address these problems in a meaningful way...at least not yet. There will come a time when the problem is so great that a country in panic will take drastic actions to preserve whatever it feels its national interests happen to be. These can include sealing the borders, martial law, provoking wars, expelling undesirables or worse. Pick a scenario and ask yourself will we deal with these problems now with concrete resolve and when the hour is already late or when there is no time and it is a matter of sheer survival? I would very much like for history that has yet to pass to prove me wrong, to say you worry too much, or that I was simply a doomsayer and a mix of a cynic and pessimist. Sadly, I think that for this to happen, humans will have to take another step of mental evolution where lust for wealth, creature comforts, power, hegemony, and the consistent behavior of an out of control aggressive symbiont are abandoned for something better. Slow progress towards that goal is no longer a luxury