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A NewLook at the
ENERGY CRISIS
The Western world is
on an
astounding energy binge. Available supplies
of coa/, oil and natural
gas
are be ing blasted and scraped from the
earth and sucked up and burned at unprecedented
rotes.
Why must we use ever increasing amounts of energy
per person?
by
Jerry Gentry
E
NERGY MAKES
today's world go
round. In its various forms, it
powers our factories and pro–
pels our airplanes, autos and ships.
lt
transports our bodies over
freeways and through airways.
lt
moves our cargo and blasts rockets
to the moon. It illuminates our
homes and offices.
Inside our buildings, e nergy
warms our bodies when we are too
cold. Later, it cools us down when
we are too hot. It brings us the eve–
rung news · on television or a re–
corded stereo concert in the Living
room. On our heavily mechanized
farms, energy drives sophisticated
machinery and even causes our
crops to grow. In the home, it cooks
our food, which supplies our bodies
with necessary nutrients.
Energy itself is good. It is a fan–
tastically marvelous servan! of man–
kind. Yet the by-products of our
daily energy consumption pollute
the air we breathe and the water we
drink. And the way we obtain en–
ergy sometimes strips mountaín–
sides and plains of their beauty. By–
products of our energy-consumíng
automobiles create the fami liar
dirty brown haze over our cities.
2
While bringing us a higher stan–
dard of living and gross national
product, energy production and
consumption often degrade the
quality of our lives. Energy gives us
material things to titil late our
senses, excite our minds and pam–
per our bodies. Yet it does not al–
ways increase our well-being.
We bate the filthy by-products of
our energy cravings. We don't want
a power plant
in
the back yard, nor
do we care to live next door toan oi l
refinery. Yet when the lights dim or
when we hear of gasoline rationing,
we insist we really do need power,
we can't live without it, please don't
turn it off.
World Consumption of Energy
loto this picture of energy in our
daily lives enter sorne staggering
facts about present world energy
consumption:
• The United States repre–
sents about 6% of the
world's population, yet con–
sumes about 30% of the en–
ergy extracted from the
earth. Half of everything
transported in the Uruted
States today is fuel.
• The combined European,
Japanese , Soviet and
United States energy con–
sumption comprises ap–
proximately 70% of all fuels
burned - leaving only 30%
for the remaining three
fourths of the world.
• Affiuent man has become
dependen! upon ever-in–
creasing volumes of energy
which are totally out of pro–
portian to population in–
crease. In fact, per capita
consumption is doubling
every
lO
to
15
years in the
United States. In the Euro–
pean Community, energy
cons umption has trebled
duriog the last 21 years and
represents one fourth of all
industrial development and
over one million jobs.
• The world's nonrenewable
energy sources - oil, natu–
ral gas and coal- are finite.
Known reserves of natural
gas are very limited. Oil
and coal will run out in only
a few hundred years.
Fuel shortages are focusing world
PlAIN TRUTH July-August 1973