The Three E's is the catchy centerpiece for Chris Martenson's eloquent discussion of three important issues facing the world at this point in time, and specifically, the United States. They are Economy, Energy, and the Environment.
By the economy he is simply referring to our current system, capitalism, and its underlying basis for success which is in very simple terms, exponential growth.
By energy he means, peak oil, or the fact that oil is a non-renewable resource that will reach a peak of "cheap" production sometime very soon (and based on some recent articles may already have happened). The problem arises with peak oil because the demand for it is exponential and there will come a point when the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI)becomes very marginal thus driving the price sky high. If you don't already know about peak oil, here is a great primer that explains it much better than I have. There are also a slew of resources out there on peak oil such as Energy Bulletin, ASPO, and the Oil Drum, just to name a few. There are also several documentaries out there talking about the issue for those of you who prefer to watch things. Here is one, which is available to watch for free, called Blind Spot (and in my opinion it is one of the best documentaries on the topic out there).
By environment, Chris Martenson means, not global warming, but rather resource depletion. This works on the same concept as peak oil, as peak oil is but one form of resource depletion. Take a look around for facts on how fisheries are being depleted at record rates, drinkable water is being depleted at record rates, the copper content of mines is now somewhere around .0023%, in fact one report estimates that by the year 2030, we will need the equivalent of 2 earths worth of resources to sustain the planet at our current rate of population growth (another exponential growth problem).
Mr. Martenson's presentation wholly avoids the issue of climate change, but this I would suggest is also another very real and serious issue that needs to be tackled. Immediately. However, as the upcoming conference in Cancun will no doubt show, the leaders of the world will do nothing concrete about it.
I urge you to please spend the approximately 3 1/2 hours it requires to get through Mr. Martenson's presentation, as I firmly believe as he says, that the nature of these issues demands the highest level of our attention.
Before you get started though, Dr. Albert Bartlett explains the driving force behind all of this with the simple mathematical explanation of the exponential function which you can watch here. There are 8 parts to this presentation, and it is necessary I feel to watch them all, in order to truly understand how serious these issues are. As he says "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is its inability to understand the exponential function."
Mr. Martenson's "Crash Course" Chapter is embedded below.
If you're not going to watch the whole presentation, here is a truncated version of his Crash Course:
No comments:
Post a Comment