It’s time for us to wake up to thermodynamics and economics.
A human being at rest runs on 90 watts.
A hunter-gatherer would use about 250 watts.
Life in America requires around 11,000 watts per capita.
That’s like covering the Earth with seven billion blue whales !
Are we headed for success? Or a lasting economic depression on an overheated planet?
“…the wealth of civilization has a direct link to how much energy we can consume.”
University of Utah’s Dr. Tim Garrett has found that about 10 miliwatts is required for every inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar.
Tim Garrett’s latest paper is a significant shock:
“There are no plausible, thermodynamically supported solutions that avoid inflation rates less than 100% and lead to stabilized atmospheric CO2 concentrations within this century.
“It is only with very rapid decarbonization that current economic growth conditions can be sustained while keeping CO2 levels below 1000 ppmv by century’s end.”
There’s a basic law of the physical universe. It is through energy transformations that anything happens. [pdf, http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.0428]
