Energy—The Critical Resource - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 28

population biologists place the Earth's carrying capacity, with any kind
of reasonable quality of livelihood (certainly below that of the average
American), at no more than two billion people. Without further elaboration,
it must be noted that the world population of humans is rapidly approaching
seven billion.
Unfortunately, most economists were trained with an eye toward promot-
ing rapid growth. The last two to three centuries have been powered by fos-
sil fuels, which have given a historically brief spurt to something we now call
the growth ethic through the use of limited supplies of energy accumulated
over millennia of geologic time. Aided by this history-induced myopia, ana-
lysts and policy makers have given scant attention to systems that might
realistically encompass sustainability, despite the fact that the longer ver-
sion of history has approximated exactly that. Unfortunately, the geologi-
cally instantaneous fossil fuel era has obscured that fact. The days of the 19th
century “cowboy economy” are over, and our intellectual constructs must be
retailored to fit that reality. This leads us to another basic principle.
Principle 4—Promote Diversity
A diversity of sources must necessarily match a diversity of uses.
Promoting diversity is a subtle principle with far-reaching implications.
Sources, which are, in reality, now marginal or rapidly approaching mar-
ginal, are often supported by hidden fossil fuel subsidies. When those sub-
sidies are no longer available, such sources will not yield the net value they
now appear to have. Some may become completely nonviable. As with the
oil-shale example, economists often get this backwards. Marginal sources
are seen as becoming viable with increasing scarcity and higher prices of
currently used sources of energy, but a true net energy analysis might indi-
cate they should be ignored completely.
On the other hand, energy sources and technologies, which are currently
seen as marginal or at least incapable of producing enough power to merit
attention, may well come into their own for specialized uses that are uniquely
fit to their capabilities. The call for diversity in this principle is an important
point. In a natural ecosystem, the succession of species will include a variety
of organisms that behaviorally partition the habitat in myriad manners that
allow the use of available energy in different ways. Thus, a rich diversity
of species will characterize a state in which there is little or no untapped
energy. The important lesson for us humans is that cooperation must replace
competition, and diversity should replace “monoculture” as the order of the
(new) day.
In human settlements, this might involve someone tapping wind power
in appropriate places, farms using small-scale hydro, methane from live-
stock feces, selected use of solar panels, or even some combination of these