Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
8
FOSSIL FUELS, SUSTAINABILITY,
AND THE FUTURE
IS OUR WAY OF LIFE SUSTAINABLE?
Exploring the evidence about mankind's use of fossil fuels so far, we have seen that the fossil fuel industry
is far and away the world leader at producing cheap, plentiful, reliable energy and that that energy has rad-
ically increased our ability to create a flourishing society, a more livable climate, and greater environmental
quality. On these fronts, so long as we are able to use fossil fuels, the evidence is overwhelming that life can
get better and better across the board, as we use fossil fuel technology and other technologies to solve more
problems—including those that fossil fuel technology and other technologies create.
One big question remains: What are the
long-term
prospects for this way of life? While today we are rich
in fossil fuel resources and the wealth they help us create, what is in store for the future?
With so much consuming, can this way of life really last? Is it sustainable?
The answer is better than yes. Not only can our way of life last; it can keep getting better and better, as
long as we don't adopt “sustainability” policies.
In chapter 3, we saw that the amount of unused fossil fuel raw material currently in the Earth exceeds by
far the amount we've used in the entire history of civilization by many multiples and that the key issue is
whether we have the technological ability and economic reason to turn that raw material into a resource.
For years, actually centuries, opponents of fossil fuels—and some supporters of fossil fuels—have said
that using fossil fuels is unsustainable because we'll run out of them.
Instead, we keep
running into them
. The more we use, the more we create. Fossil fuel energy resources,
we discussed, are
created
—by turning a nonresource raw material into a resource using human ingenuity.
And there is plenty of raw material left.
In the last few years, the shale energy revolution has unlocked vast new oil and gas resources, making the
“running out of fossil fuels” claim seem implausible for the foreseeable future. Many environmental leaders
have therefore shifted from saying that we're running out of fossil fuels to saying that our abundance of
fossil fuels is causing us to run out of
other
resources—arable land and water, most alarmingly, but also a
whole host of other materials that are crucial for civilizations.
