The most common, the most reliable, most sustainable source of energy has been around since the dawn of man. That source of energy is food, in the form of calories.
Ever since Adam was booted out of the Garden of Eden, man has struggled with his relationship with the earth. God meted out a punishment to man for his disobedience. While Adam was in the garden, he had no worries. He didn't have to worry about clothes, shelter, transportation or where his next meal was coming from. He had no use for energy, because it was included in the package.
When Adam was expelled from the garden, God required him to work for the necessities that were furnished in the Garden. He had to develop a relationship with the earth to exploit the things that he would need. Ever since that day of expulsion, man has been trying to bypass the punishment God handed out by making his work easier. We went from animals pulling a plow, slaves working the fields, on to machines that do our work for us. We no longer know what it means to work the earth to get what we need. We think we need things that even twenty years ago was seen as out of reach; computers, cell phones, big screen televisions, automated vacuum cleaners, fancy yard tractors... Not only are we increasing the rate of consuming our natural resources, we are slowly developing dangerous levels of sedentary life. Obesity, high blood pressure, depression are just a few of the symptoms of this sedentary lifestyle. We need to convert some of our practices to using caloric energy instead of electricity and fossil fuel when we can.
Today, we face the threat of running out of these energy sources that helped us for so long. What are we to do? Many of us would not survive in a world without electricity. We wouldn't know how to preserve our food, save it back for winter months, or even know where to get water, if it weren't pumped into our houses. Most of us would perish because we lack the instincts of survival that have been lost over the years of prosperity.
Because of the misconception of an abundance of fossil fuel, we migrated ever further away from our families, we buy vehicles we don't need, we burn lights when we are not home; we take our energy for granted. We have done things thinking there would always be affordable energy to take us where we want to go.
It has been established that the earth has a finite amount of fossil fuel. We may not run out in our lifetime, but we will run out of the most popular energy source we have. Even if we don't, we will have to learn to live with less if we hope to put a hold on global warming.
We are in the beginning of an energy crisis. Big oil doesn't want to tell you that, because they don't want you to start conserving. We won't know that we are running out of oil until we do run out of oil. Therefore, I suggest that we teach our children survival skills that will assist them in the event that their generation is the one that will deal with these problems. If we ourselves don't know these survival skills, it would be in our best interest to learn them along with our children. The things we will not be able to survive without are food and water. They are the energy sources that we must not take for granted. Our children should know how to grow their own food, where to go to get water, and how to preserve these items. They should also know how to keep warm in the winter, and how to acclimate themselves to the heat of summer.
Should the world not run out of oil for another one hundred years, and the global warming thing just be a scare tactic, what will be the harm in preparing our children for the worst case scenario? It is better to be prepared and not need something than to need something and not be prepared.
