Industrialization, urbanization, and our modern consumer-oriented society turned consumption into a culture and a way of life. Teamed with the growth of population that crossed the seven billion threshold, humanity has been brought to the edge of a deadlock. This deadlock manifests in depletion of essential natural resources such as clean drinking water and oil.
American geophysicist, Marion King Hubbert, established in 1956 the Peak Oil Theory. The theory explains changes in the availability of oil and other fossil fuels in light of over-pumping and the resulting depletion of the resource. According to the theory, since oil is not a renewable resource, it is likely to assume that at some point in time the global oil production will peak and then gradually decline. Hubbert predicted the peak of oil production in the U.S., which occurred in 1971.
Hubbert’s theory is under constant debate among academics due to the vast economic and social ramifications of oil depletion, since growth depends on the abundance of cheap and accessible energy. When the availability of that energy source declines, global growth will be affected. That assertion applies to individuals, as well as to firms. The passing of the peak of global production will manifest in a global scarcity of fuel fundamentally different from the shortages that came before it. This time, its basis will be geological rather than political, whereas previous crises occurred due to deliberate inefficiency of the oil extraction process. [104]
Currently, developed countries are trading CO2 emission quotas. Put differently, countries are trading their “right” to pollute the air. Air pollution is costing taxpayers heavily, and the trade of air pollution quotas is more proof that the economic system has gone out of control. Instead of thinking in terms of humane, harmonious existence among people and between humanity and Nature, where we strive to prevent or correct the damages we have caused the planet that sustains us, each country is striving to maximize its own benefits and narrow interests.
For example, the Kyoto Protocol strove to establish collaborations and set international standards to prevent the continued deterioration of the state of the Earth. Instead, the protocol has become a tool in the hands of industrialized powers to cover up their ambitions. They began to trade pollution quotas in order to continue the production race. The ecological solution seems to contradict the economic solution, and economic interests and short-range vision continue to prevail, despite the harm to the public good and the future of humanity.
Adapting the connection between people to what is required from the interdependence among us in the global and connected world will result in striving for congruence and harmony with Nature, demonstrating to us that balance is the optimal way of life.
The human tendency to focus on accumulating fortunes, over-consumption, and competition is depleting the non-renewable resources of Earth. Our inconsideration of our planet is in contrast with the interdependence that the global-integral world requires of us. If I pollute my habitat, the rest of us will suffer the consequences. Pollution and inconsideration are destroying our entire society.
By over-producing, we prevent the regeneration of resources. If we shift to balanced consumption, based on relations that are in sync with the necessary relations in a global and interconnected world, we will not only stop damaging ecology, and indirectly the human society, but we will also allow Earth to recover and regenerate its resources.
The regeneration of forests, the arrest of extinction of plant and animal species, and the recovery of the fish population in the oceans are only some examples of the benefits we will derive. Since the energy crisis is hurting the resources available to us, solving it by changing people’s approach will diminish the lack of natural resources. This will occur because demand will diminish due to the transition to a balanced economy, and because supply will grow due to Earth’s natural regeneration processes. The result will be a welcome addition of resources for our use and our well-being.