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Once
fire making became a child's play, we started looking for
alternate sources of energy. And in the process we tumbled
on crude oil. Since then, we have jolly well burnt out one
half of all the recoverable oil, whose creation took nearly
100 million years. Of course, it is the advanced Western countries
that are the major culprits for such mind-boggling consumption:
the US alone consumed as much as 25% of the oil produced in
the world and that, too, hardly with 5% of the world population.
According to one estimate, the world today uses 3-4 barrels
of oil per every new barrel discovered. In 2004, China alone
accounted for 44% rise in the global demand for oil.
The
oil experts had a warning to make on this unabated consumption:
oil being finite, the problem associated with its scarcity
will not wait for the oil wells to go dry to start mocking
at us but when the production simply cannot keep pace with
the demand. The looming threat of falling oil reserves is
well captured by David Goodsteina distinguished professor
from California Institute of Technology when he said: "Civilization
as we know it will come to an end sometime this century unless
we can find a way to live without fossil fuels". |
