| Sustainability... Bucky Fuller stated it very precisely, he called it "Spaceship Earth". Remember the iconic picture of the bright blue globe of Earth in a sea of empty darkness, taken from the moon. Everything man has ever touched was contained within that glowing blue sphere. The relative scale of the earth's resources to the scale of man's activity has given the illusion of unlimited energy, unlimited resources. That illusion has contributed to a worldwide culture of waste and squander. The facts are clear, the world will run out of oil, coal and gas. And the effects of the depletion of these limited resources will be dramatic, even catastophic. Just a 1% shortfall in world fossil fuel energy production will disrupt the world's economies. To forestall the inevitable and allow our societies to move toward a more sustainable future we can begin to incorporate these types of technologies into our buildings. The old saying that "you don't appreciate the value of water until the well runs dry" still is more true now than ever.
If your budget was shocked by the $4+ per gallon of gasoline and the spike in home heating fuels like oil and propane recently, hold onto your wallet, that is only the beginning. Hopefully Renewable Energy Technolgies will begin an Energy Renaissance or if we continue on our current path we will truly be in the Dark Ages. |
