Our high standard of living from fossil fuel burning comes at the expense of increased global warming. Growing carbon dioxide levels are now 31 percent higher than in the last million years. Temperatures and weather extremes are increasing.

Humanity must limit these increases. Our predicament is that developing countries like China and India are increasing their fossil fuel burning to enhance their standard of living.

Could the Arab Spring be a precursor to the 2030 crash in the world’s food production per capita predicted in MIT’s “Limits to Growth?” Published in 1972, its dire predictions from the population explosion, climate change and resource depletion have been accurate to date. Can new technologies save us in time?

Syria’s drought from 2006-11 caused 800,000 farmers to leave their land and move to crowed urban areas. They and the unemployed youth from the population explosion – which started in 1980 – are manning the present revolution.

Record-high food prices helped spark the Arab Spring. Egypt must import grain to feed its exploding population. The severe drought in summer 2010 caused Russia, a major grain exporter, to stop shipping grain outside its borders, driving up food prices.

The 2012 drought in the U.S. Midwest was the worst since the Dust Bowl. Half the corn crop was lost resulting in a $20-$25 billion loss in crop insurance. Corn futures prices were the highest in history.

Can new technologies save us? The article “Wild Plants to the Rescue” published in the “American Scientist” in the May-June 2013 issue describes research underway to develop perennial wheat. Its deeper roots could withstand severe draught from increased global warming and stabilize the soil erosion that was the source of the Dust Bowl.

The Gates Foundation is investing in birth-control technology. Melinda Gates plans to use the foundation’s billions to revolutionize contraception worldwide. The Roman Catholic right is pushing back. Is she ready for the political firestorm ahead? Her Catholic faith has always informed her work. She has said from the very beginning that we, as a foundation, we will not support abortion.

The Gates Foundation is serving the other piece of the Roman Catholic mission, which is social justice. The Depo-Provera contraceptive is popular in many poor countries because women need to inject it only four times a year.

The June 21, 2008, cover article in “The Economist” envisioned an oil-free, non-carbon-emitting transportation sector with electric vehicles charged by wind, solar and nuclear power plants. Today, electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi-i, Tesla Model S and the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt now get the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon. Hybrids like the Toyota Prius typically get 50 mpg. If Jesus were to return to Earth, what car would he drive?

The cost of solar photovoltaic cells has in the last year come down to 10 cents per kWhr, less than what most people can buy from the grid. Companies will install roof-top solar cells at a nominal cost to the homeowner in return for a 20-year contract.

Conservation and efficiency can reduce our use of fossil fuels. Steven Chu, President Obama’s former secretary of energy, has said that conservation is “sexy” and it can be high tech. The nation’s energy secretary has pushed for the next breakthroughs, along with energy efficiency.

The U.S. energy use and per capita carbon emissions are the highest in the world. Our emissions are twice those of Europe and the former Soviet Union. Our energy use is four times that of the rest of the world. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. is using 20 percent of its oil.

Nature is the capital on which capitalism is based. In the long-term, our world’s economy will be constrained by ecology. The world’s exponential population explosion cannot continue indefinitely. There are indeed limits to growth.

The environmental challenge is to balance the beauty of nature with its utility. Is beauty “in the eye of the beholder” or an encounter with the divine? Without divinely created beauty, nature becomes an object that may be ravaged. For example, the tar sands oil fields can be beautiful in the eye of its owner because they are source of black gold. Can we re-envision beauty to transform our relationship with nature in time?

PAUL H. CARR

Bedford

Beford Journal

10 Comments on "Humanity’s predicament: Can new technologies save us?"

Plantagenet on Sat, 6th Jul 2013 4:26 pm 



People aren’t going to stop using natural resources because of concern about beauty. People will only stop exploiting the world’s natural resources when they run out.

keith on Sat, 6th Jul 2013 5:07 pm 



Or when the biosphere no longer supports human life.

DC on Sat, 6th Jul 2013 5:34 pm 



RoFL! What a load of nonsense. This guy never addresses his own central question. Instead he rattles on about the alleged MPG of the mobile garbage box, aka the GM ‘volt’ hybrid. Then he babbles on about two of dumbest 1%ers alive, the Gates. And then he wraps it up by talking about something called ’emissions’, as if they are the problem ‘tech’ has to fix.

If your ever going to pen an article about tech saving the world, try to answer the question-not pretend the Leaf or the volt are going to ‘save’ the world, or are ‘carbon-free’ transport LoL!

rollin on Sat, 6th Jul 2013 6:02 pm 



The only thing that can save “us” is a complete brain transplant. Maybe if technology focused on bringing the human psyche into harmony with the natural world we would be saved.

GregT on Sat, 6th Jul 2013 9:49 pm 



Human technology is what has caused the predicaments that we are now facing. Expecting the very thing that has caused all of the problems, to fix the problems, is total insanity.

Solarity on Sun, 7th Jul 2013 1:40 am 



I think he really meant “severe drought from increased global warming.” (Or, is he saying that due of global warming everyone will be drinking gallons and gallons of beer?) BTW, warmer air is moister air. So global warming will cause more rain, not drought.

Andy on Sun, 7th Jul 2013 2:45 am 



LTG ran a ‘Tech Society’ model, it pushed out the curves for a bit longer but still crashed because of the build up in pollution. Limits to growth are real, it’s fantasy to think infinite growth is possible because of technology or magic.

GregT on Sun, 7th Jul 2013 3:00 am 



Climate change will dramatically increase severe weather events, and will cause increased instability in weather patterns. Severe drought conditions are already occurring due to increased atmospheric CO2, and these events will more than likely worsen. Saying that “global warming will cause more rain, not drought” is a ridiculous statement, based on nothing but ignorance.

BillT on Sun, 7th Jul 2013 5:35 am 



GregT, there is a bad case of “engage mouth (type) before engaging brain” on here. ^_^

Techies cannot see that their religion is destroying the world. Or that their techie world is a product of cheap, plentiful energy and will disappear when it goes away. Too bad. We could have gone to the stars, but … we bought a Hummer and a McMansion instead.

Arthur on Sun, 7th Jul 2013 10:41 am 



“Techies cannot see that their religion is destroying the world. Or that their techie world is a product of cheap, plentiful energy and will disappear when it goes away. Too bad. We could have gone to the stars, but … we bought a Hummer and a McMansion instead.”

That is all true, but that does not mean we should throw away the child with the bathwater. And there is no way you could survive without technology. Think about that if you press the elevator button of your Manilla highrise building, after you withdrew money from the ATM, wired over from some US pension fund, switch on the light in your apartment, get a beer from the fridge before you switch on your computer to broadcast your message over the planet that technology sucks.