Energy Consumption in the Hydrocarbon Era - Courtesy Richard Heinberg
I feel like I need to lay the foundation and reasoning behind our move to the country. It’s more than just our desire to breathe clean air and enjoy the wide open spaces. You see, I believe I need to prepare my family for life after fossil fuels. What does that mean? It simply means that I feel we are quickly approaching a period where we will experience the shock of learning to live without cheap, abundant energy. Now I didn’t say no energy, I said cheap, abundant energy. You see, my generation has lived at an extraordinary time. A time of incredible wealth and prosperity made possible by the discovery and use of fossil fuels. Energy has always been the single most important determining factor of human success. The energy of the sun has made life possible and for generations has allowed us to hunt and gather its bounty. But in the late 19th century we discovered how to distill the ancient sunlight stored underground in the form of petroleum. We unlocked a seemingly limitless supply of high density energy. Like a newly announced lottery winner, my generation was handed a giant cardboard check representing a windfall like mankind has never seen before. But we should all understand that a lottery winner’s life is anything but normal. And if we consult history, we’ll find that the fossil fuel era is anything but normal in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, my generation has never experienced true hardship. Most can hardly imagine tomorrow being anything less than what they experienced today. In fact, if you thew in a global financial crisis and a world population reaching 7 billion people, tomorrow could look a lot worse.
As a husband and father, I feel a responsibility to prepare both myself and my family for life after fossil fuels. That means learning how live and prosper in a new era where energy consumption will return to its historical norm.
I believe that moving to the country affords us the freedoms necessary to begin our journey to a more sustainable life, and that’s what Lemon’s Corner is all about.
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