heres my 2 cents on this; its a bit long but then I didnt have time to write a short post....
Its worth going back to the basics, we are still governed by basic physics. The law of conservation of energy states that energy may neither be created nor destroyed, energy is just converted from one form to another. Outside of nuclear, energy is not generated. To take oil, tremendous energy (heat and pressure) was exerted on decayed algae and other organic material over millennia to convert some of this material to oil. Some of this energy is now released when the oil is burned. A cup of oil will move a one ton car 10 kilometres in as many minutes. How many people/horses are needed to do that? The peak oil merchants say were screwed, we have used up half of the oil already. Anyways, we are using oil at a faster rate than it is being produced. So we are 'borrowing' energy from the future.
However, unfortunately, the oil/coal etc won’t just disappear after use; it will be discharged to the atmosphere. No physical matter will be destroyed; it will all end up as "greenhouse gases"
A good macro view of the environment is described by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_theory_(science)) Its only a theory but it has gained credibility over the past number of years... Anyways, conversion of oil etc. to energy, whether for electricity generation or transport, is producing literally millions of tons of CO/CO2 emissions which, whatever about theory, is seriously affecting the environment
People, we haven’t changed that much over the years and aren’t that different in different countries. The Easter Islanders who cut down their trees and effectively screwed their descendants over were probably no more stupid than us. Or the people who built Newgrange would be able to drive a car or use an ipod, they were every bit as smart as we think we are. We, at least in ireland, are incredibly fortunate to be alive at this time in history...But, we don’t inherit the earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children. If we care about them, we should leave it in as good nick as we found it, and that means not leaving a mess for them to clean up.
The economic aspect….. Capitalism is a great system, but it is based on growth. A company must grow and continue to grow in order to succeed e.g. imagine if AIB said profits were static? At a fundamental level, there is a conflict between capitalism and sustainability, unless the limits to growth are so far off as to be meaningless. I prefer capatilism, growth sounds more exciting than suatainability but are we approaching limits to growth?
Whether the ultimate constraint to our fabulous lifestyle is supply (oil etc), or environmental degradation (pop growth, global warming, water etc), there is a constraint. It may not be imminent (less than 50 years) but its there and, unless we want to do an “Easter Island” for our children, we should react to it in plenty of time.
While we all like to mock the Ireland of the 50’s and 60’s, back then we did play an important part in the biggest global issue of the day --- non proliferation of nuclear weapons. The big global issues today are the environment, energy and world poverty.
Ireland could contribute significantly to brokering change on a global scale. We should at least have an energy policy, and stop obsessing about property
