Suppose you were guaranteed food and shelter for the duration of your long assured life. What would you do to while away your time in this utopia? You could let natural instinct guide your destiny. Nurture a large family. Seek self-gratification in a whirl wind of indulgence and bliss. At the end of your life you would look back, perhaps smile, and say that was a million dollars well spent.

Yet, your utopia would be limited by the trappings of civilization that surround you. If you had movie theatres and an entertainment industry then you could safely voyeur through the imagination of others. With airlines and a travel industry you could see sights anywhere on the globe and maybe even hop into space to watch the Sun set through the layers of Earth’s atmosphere. However a million dollars on its own would never see these grandiose visions happen. Their provision can only result from a civilization where a large number of wealthy and poor people live and work together to make everyone’s utopia a possibility.

Where does happiness lie? Is it a guaranteed long, healthy life with family, personal pleasure and no risk of harm? Will it include helping others without any compensation? How do you coexist with those who need challenges, who accept a risk to life for a new experience? If everyone were to have a million dollars, would that mean that we’ve found utopia.

Photo-NASA

Louisiana is providing stark evidence of humankind’s folly. Our quest for energy pushes into ever higher risk ventures. Common business practise requires minimum cost for maximum returns. Today’s net result has a gusher from 5000 to 25000 barrels of light crude escaping overlying rock, spreading into the Gulf of Mexico and heading shoreward to beach upon large river deltas.

What does this net result mean to the energy picture? In short, the 3 months at 25000 barrels a day is about 1.4e16 Joules or 18 minutes worth of global consumption of primary energy. We’ve lost this. But, we’re also going to lose huge swathes of the Gulf’s ecosystem for potentially many years. Not only will many people be without employment but they will also be unable to forage off the land or coastal waters. As well, the natural system will crash and perhaps never come back to its original state. The net result is that we’ve irreparably harmed some of the Earth’s ecosystem while hoping to maintain our energy dependent lifestyles a little longer.

What is the acceptable maximum level of risk for energy extraction? Wouldn’t it be better to rebuild our civilization to end its reliance upon fossil fuels rather than wait until we’ve consumed all reachable supplies?

photo: NASA