Time For A Re-think on Energy Supplies And Needs

The oil spill in the gulf has once again put question marks over the oil industry and our dependence on oil for our energy needs. How can you put a price on the damage to the environment, the coastline and the seafood we eat from the millions of gallons of crude oil leaking into the sea.

It may seem pretty obvious but hanks to the clean benefits of solar energy it has no such problems. Leaking solar energy is not likely to do much damage. We should be focusing more and more on the clean renewable energy technologies we have available to provide for some if not all of our energy needs and we need to put more effort into reducing our energy requirements so we can call an end to the oil based economy and start on the clean and renewable energy based economy in the future.

Another Great F1 Grand Prix In Canada

After missing out on the chance to have a grand prix last year Canada produced another terrific race. The Bridgestone tire company would probably rather have not had tire problems become a big issue as no doubt they want to be known for quality tires that grip well and last a long time but that can help make racing rather dull.

The tyres made available for this race helped make it a great race because they were more subseptible to wear and damage causing the teams to try different strategies and have plenty of pitstops.

The tyre supply company may not want this sort of publicty but race fans will love it.Let us hope we get more races where the tires are marginal and require careful management.

The F1 season has been great so far and let us hope we continue to have these fascinating and exciting races right up until the end of the season.

Will The New iPhone Bring About The End Of Civilization As We Know It?

So Apple has released the latestversion of the iPhone, whoopee-do. Pardon me while I ignore all the hype and question whether this really is such an important event in world history but it could be very significant as a pointer to the end of human civilization as we know it.

Didn’t we just have an iPhone released that was supposed to be the best phone on the planet? Oh, maybe that was a year ago. A whole year, wow. So what has changed since?

Sure, the iPhone looks cute and it is a beautifully designed little thing but does the world really need another 110 million mobile phones thrown in the rubbish bin because a thinner, faster, improved screen version has been released? Hopefully, the old models will be recycled but is the the great achievement of the human civilization, to be able to come up with another wasteful technology product that everyone feels they must have and then replace, every six or twelve months?

The success of the human race may prove to be its downfall. Like a virus that grows and grows until it eventually kills its host we have come to dominate our home planet. We have bred and increased the population to the point where the resources of the planet are being stretched to supply our needs and our needs have grown along with the population.

Once we would have been happy to have enough food to eat and enough wood to build a shelter and keep warm. Now, it seems, we have to have homes and lives full of technology that is draining not just our capacity to provide the energy to power all these gadgets but it is also draining us of the limited time we have every day.

Thre was once a time when a product had a limited lifetime. That time was usually limited by how long it would last before finally breaking down. With todays efficient design and manufacturing that is far less of a problem and manufacturers have had to find another way of convincing us it is time to replace a product.

The result is a constant stream of new releases. Just like with the washing powder adverts of years ago, each new version of our phones, computers, TVs and cars is New And Improved but can life be sustained at this pace?

Humans have been successful because we have been able to think ahead and learn from our mistakes and we are naturally lazy and always look for a better and easier way of doing things. We have developed technology that has enabled us to improve our health, our comfort and our lives to a degree unimaginable to people of a few generations ago but how much longer can this go on at the incredible rate of change we are experiencing these days.

A thousand years ago at a time when the Romans were conquering Europe people no doubt thought of it as the end of the world and for many of them, it probably was, but in those times change took decades or even centuries. Looking forward it is impossible to imagine what changes there might be in the next thousand years but one thing is very clear. We cannot go on as we are doing right now.

The popluation is growing enormously and there are few undiscovered places left to be exploited to supply our growing needs. Our demand for resources grows exponentially though the supply of those resources is finite and reducing as we use them. In the past plague, pestilance and wars kept the population in check while local supply of food and resources limited the possibilities of the local population. Now the worlds resources are available to all, at a price, but the cost is more than just money.

We have been on a consumption binge that has lasted twenty or thirty years but the financial impact of this became clear when the world financial system came close to collapse. Hopefully, we are working our way out of the problems that caused but it is easier to print money to sort out a fnancial crisis than it is to find the minerals and food to sort out a world short of both.

The simple fact is that we cannot continue as we are now. The new iPhone may be a magnificent example of man’s ingenuity, design skills and technological achievements but we need to face up to the fact that we need to reduce our consumption of the resources available to a far more manageable level if we want future generations of humans to have any chance of having a happy and healthy life.

The resources we are throwing away will not be replaced. When they are gone nothing will be left for the future. It may not happen within our lifetime but if we have any concerns for future generations then we should be thinking about the long term consequences of our actions now.