Renewability of Renewable Resources

Renewability of Renewable Resources

Human beings are indeed strange creatures. We are perpetually involved in a game of snake and ladder with nature.  

A couple of centuries ago, when muscle power got replaced by machine power, there was wide spread celebration. We started ascending an almost vertical ladder. Little did our great grandfathers realize that the celebrations were hinged on their absolute ignorance about accumulated consequences. 

Pretty high up the ladder, we realized that it opens into the mouth of a snake! Today we are tired, gasping and the lower steps of the ladder have disappeared! We can only continue to climb into the reptilian mouth. 

The good part is; we have moved up, considerably. However, there still exists a slim chance that we might escape being completely devoured by the snake, if we can climb softly without provoking it. Hence, after every few steps, we reaffirm ourselves and jointly agree to climb up softly so that we leave behind minimal or no foot prints. 

In this endeavor we have developed an infatuation for renewables. It is an appealing adjective that is currently trending.Like our great grand fathers who danced at dawn of mechanical era, we are today celebrating the prospects of renewable energy to help us live in a manageable environment. 

Do we have a scale to measure our level of ignorance?

How renewable are our renewable resources?

Let us consider the case of solar power. Albeit modest space requirement estimated to power our planet exclusively on solar energy, we will end up trapping about 700 quadrillion Btu (estimated global energy consumption by 2030 - US Projection) energy on the Earth.

Going by documented history of human energy consumption, our greed will make us eventually transform the surface of Earth to become heat absorbers and thereby again intervene in the radiative balance. Hence it is highly likely that a couple of centuries later, our great grandchildren will continue with the snake and ladder game and debate global warming. The principle culprit will be solar panels!

Todays' hero will become tomorrows' villan. There is nothing in nature that is perpetually renewable. We only expose our ignorance by labelling certain things, renewable.

Precipitation of probabilities

Less than 40 cm rain in a day was all that was needed to make infrastructural and technological marvels crafted over a century, redundant.

Food, health and security are the three essential things for human survival. As a society, we need to ensure these before we concentrate on structural and virtual empires.

The wise learn from their past. Are we wise enough?  Perhaps the only thing that a hawkish economy will learn is the need to insure. We can expect attractive immovable property insurance!  

Chennai- XII/2015 is just one incidence of precipitation of probabilities about which the climate change bandwagon has been highlighting. Till yesterday, if rain of this magnitude used to occur once in a century, from tomorrow, it will become once in 50, 40 or 60 years. Well over 80% Chennains are likely to experience this at least once, if not more times.

Haridwar, Chennai, ………. The list will swell. What is be the magnitude of economic losses? Can we recoup it? The important but perpetually overlooked question remains ……. . Could we have reduced the intensity of deluge? Let us keep it aside till the next one.