response

Hi Ms. Smith!

I think it's also interesting how we're so focused on finding alternative routes to energy consumption. In the Environment 100 course i'm taking this quarter the two lecturers talk about this exact topic in terms of population growth also.
The reason from what i've learned so far seems to be the fact that the consumption of energy will increase, with the increase in population, so there is logical link between the two. People who are looking into alternative approaches in using energy seem to be realistic when tackling the problem. since we can't stop using energy in our daily lives we must find alternative ways to consume energy, possibly because they think that to switch to alternative methods is a way to decrease our biological footprint..? Even if we were to decrease our energy consumption today with the number of people in the world increasing and our luxuries in the US of driving our cars, leaving our TVs on, etc. are behavioral issues. The behavioral issues seem to be the hardest kind to change. It's one of those problems that are easier said than done for most people, especially the people in the US, who consume much of the energy produced. Right now the problem the people who are investing in the alternative energy methods seem to be one of decreasing environmental impact. Possibly trying to relieve such problems that could exponentially increase with the continued use of the amount of oil we use daily, etc.
The comment on how oil is not going to run out anytime soon seems to be true also, according to the Env class i'm taking. We had guest lecture who spoke on petroleum and he gave news of how we have enough oil now to last us for the next forty years, but this same estimate has stayed the same since the 1980's because we keep finding new reserves. This estimate is assuming that population increase of consumption stays at the same level it is now, which probably will increase if population increases. We will probably find more reserves though, and in that case we're probably pretty far from seeing the end of oil usage as a form of energy, especially for the US. out of the 83,607,000 barrels/day consumed in the world in 2005 the US used 20,680,000. I think it's safe to say that the US should think of decreasing their dependence on oil if we're at all concerned about the global warming or climate change issues that concern everyone around the globe. I think the research on alternative energy is serving a good purpose, but then again i don't know exactly what needs to be done to obtain these alternate energy sources. Like the wind turbines that I keep hearing about killing off many migratory bird populations, this sort of effect of alternate energy isn't good at all. It seems no matter what sort of energy we're looking to consume, some kind of environmental impact that comes out of it is a negative one. Does that mean we should stop searching? i don't think so. People need to be smarter about what sort of energy will work best for the cultural/geographical area they're located. nothing will come easy or with 100% approval from everyone.

-Leeann Yang