How much energy does the world consume?
“We are really, when you count performance and tabulate behaviour, not supercomputers but a lot like locusts, little chafing dishes maybe, small woks, modest ovens, simple furnaces, barbecue pits and picnic grills: we consume. A universe is burning – a forest for our flame.”
For perspective on consumption, two charts. First, the absolute levels of consumption, as shown in this chart: (from here)
Second, this snapshot about ‘rejected energy’: Rejected energy is an outcome of using the traditional ways of creating usable power for gridlines. It is an integral part of electricity production, an implicit, still, perhaps relevant to get a sense of how inefficient and seemingly careless our production and usage of power is. (From here)
The consumption of energy in the world, is perhaps a proxy to the speed and clutter of lives being lived in the world. A lot like locusts, perhaps sums up what we have been consuming in terms of Earth’s long-term resources (which take millions of years to take shape which we burn in minutes). Any accountant will raise eyebrows at the gross mismatch of periods here. One wouldn’t let a business run like that. Assets consumed as expenses. No real putting back in the system, no way of doing it even understood. And yet we let the modern world run like that, burning away stuff created over millennia since no-one really owns the ‘world’. People and nations own parcels of land and forget that we are just custodians of the world for generations yet to come. These resources and land belong to all human generations, and not just to the current.
But it can be difficult to think like that. We are born in a world at a particular time with particular details of life. And we tend to continue from there. Perhaps, the value of any perspective is in showing us a generational and inter-generational mirror. To take these data points in that vein.
Perhaps one way to think of resources is to think of a common drinking water stream where all generations are to find fresh water. Seems like we have done a lot of damage to the stream. In terms of resources already consumed completely, it seems there is little that can be done. But even for the yet to be consumed, any solution can be practical and workable only if it squarely recognises our massive dependence on resources. Our modern average middle class lifestyle relies heavily on continued use of resources and a maintenance of the infrastructure already built.
Perhaps the best we can do for any future generation is find ways which can slowly wean off large sections of our lives from this crazy dependence. The question seems daunting and on first look l can’t think of any practical solutions. But we keep looking.
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We can only begin from where we are. Perhaps the call to action is at the level of the self – without too much of fraying discussion about little acts (that of course helps as every little bit), but some foundational thinking updates, some attitude shifts to how we regard and consume resources. A lot of the world (people’s livelihoods) depends on these industries, this is the way the world is right now, highly liquid, highly interconnected. So any action, or thinking needs to come from within out recognising what is. Shaping inside to eventually shape the outside.
And when one talks of insides, one talks of philosophy, of a way of existing, of what are we and how should we live?
We cannot look away from all that is, the technology, the connected world, the massively dependent on resources modern lifestyles. Perhaps we begin by minding the pace of our lives. Things that we can control and influence. How and when it affects the world around is perhaps a wonder, but the important thing for us is to appreciate what is, and perhaps where some light shines on what we have obviously been imbalancing – or drawing much more than we can give. All this, without a loading of guilt that impedes any action. Just a simple acknowledgement, a realisation, and a recalling to mind – to simply move forward with this recognition.