RESOURCE CRISIS: The sower’s strategy: how to speed up the sustainable energy transition
▻http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.fr/2014/05/the-sowers-strategey-how-to-speed-up.html
… and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: but other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 13.4-9).
Abstract. In order to survive the double threat of resource depletion and climate change we need to move as quickly as possible to a sustainable society based on renewable resources. We are already moving in that direction, but we are still investing huge amounts of money to perpetuate our dependency on fossil fuels. Here, I argue that the transition can be eased and accelerated if we adopt the “sower’s strategy.” Farmers, as well know, must not eat their seed corn; they must keep some of the harvest for the future. Applied to the world’s economy, the sower’s strategy dictates that we use part of the energy and resources produced by means of fossil fuels to build renewable energy plants and a sustainable economy. This strategy is primarily something to be agreed upon but it could also be embodied in an international protocol (the “sower’s protocol”?) that would mandate that a fraction of the worldwide revenues from fossil fuels should be invested in sustainability and renewable energy.
“Don’t eat your seed corn!” is a well known saying. It refers to the age-old farmer’s strategy of saving some of the harvest of the current year as seeds for the next. Unfortunately, however, our main energy source today, fossil fuels, produce no “seeds.” Once extracted and used, they are gone forever and the same is true for all our mineral resources. This is what we call “depletion.” In addition, fossil fuel burning is the main cause of climate change; an even more worrisome problem.
So far, we have been behaving like farmers who eat their seed corn; burning fossil fuels and consuming our resources as fast as possible. And we are still investing enormous amounts of money just to continue doing that. According to the Grantham research institute, about 650 billion dollars were spent to develop new fossil fuel resources in 2012, mainly for oil and gas and, in particular, for the so called “non conventional resources” (e.g., shale oil). This is the result of our current way of thinking which emphasizes short term gains. Not only does this strategy worsen the climate problem, but it forces us to spend more and more as depletion progresses and that perpetuates our dependence on fossil fuels. Obviously, that can’t continue for a long time.
Is there a way out? Yes, if we go back to the wisdom of ancient farmers: don’t eat your seed corn! Of course, we can’t sow fossil fuels but we can sow what these fuels provide: energy and minerals. We can use some of this energy and these minerals as seed to create the structures needed for a sustainable economy until, in the future, renewable energy eventually produces enough “seed” to replace itself and we learn how to recycle minerals much more efficient than we do now. This is the sower’s strategy applied to the modern world.
We are already using this strategy. At present, most of the resources used to build renewable energy plants and other elements of a sustainable economy come from fossil fuels. It is good that we are doing that, but are we doing enough? According to UNEP, some 250 billion dollars were spent in 2012 for new renewable sources. This is much less than what is being invested in fossil energy but, so far, it has nevertheless allowed a rapid and consistent growth of renewable energy. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the necessary levels of investment will be maintained in the future if we continue giving priority to fossil fuels. Already in 2012, indeed, we saw a decline in the investments in renewables. So, if we leave choices on energy to the market alone, we risk facing runaway climate change together with rapid resource depletion without having sufficient resources available to create a new energy system. If we continue along this path we will eat all our seed corn.......