“When the family is small, whatever little they have they are able to share. There is peace.” Philip Njuguna, pastor, Nairobi, Kenya
Population
In the year 1900, there were 1.6 billion people living on the planet. That is a lot of people. Just about thirteen years ago there were 7 billion. That is a lot more people. At the time of writing, there were 8.1 billion people. It reminds me of the fruit fly experiments they had us do in high school to give us an example of what is really happening. In a couple of hours there will be 18,000 more mouths to feed, clothe and care for on this planet. Every day there is over 200,000 people more people on the planet that need energy throughout their lifetime. According to STATISTA(1), each will need over 2.4kWh of energy every hour on average. In total, these 200,000 people will need 480MW every day that has to come from somewhere. In one week, indeed every week from now on, we need to provide the equivalent of this 3.5MW nuclear power plant located in Ontario, Canada. 52 per year or their equivalent…
3.5GW Electrical Power Plant — Ontario, Canada.
To give you an idea of what just 700 Watts is like, watch this YouTube video of a world-class Olympic cyclist try to generate enough power to toast one slice of bread.
How much effort does it take to toast one slice?
Population is our greatest challenge when it comes to energy and the environment because the fact is that regardless of all that has been done to reduce emissions by conserving energy and adopting green energy technologies, the reductions pale in comparison to the additional energy requirements of over seven billion people. Simply put, we have lost the race and spent billions of dollars doing it. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) confirmed this in their report.
Population dynamics is our nemesis. If we ignore this one variable, we are wasting every moment of every day we try to solve the energy and environmental problems that go with it.
Yet, we need only clarify the reasons why current solutions have not worked. You can explore some of the reasons here: www.thegreatsites.life.
Comments