Conner Quigley
The future isn’t
all gloom and doom we will progress. What is something you do every
2-3 weeks and sometimes once a week depending on the events that
conspired in that week? Did you get something? If you thought to hard
about this question then you most likely came to the conclusion that
it’s filling up your vehicles fuel tank. Millions of American
citizens do just this on a regular basis and millions more do it in
the world. It’s estimated that there has been over 600 million cars
produced in the world (Worldometers). Petroleum has the world by a 1
inch chain collar locked onto an immovable pole. Developing in
society that most don’t seem to recognize is that humans can’t
predict resources. Fueling up every 2 weeks is described to be a
fading activity as so many environmentalists describe the world
running out of oil. My main point that I will prove to you in so
many words is that the future holds a spot for alternative energy
sources. It’s a matter of knowledge that the human race believes it
can reach a stopping point of productivity or discovery. I know I
find myself and fellow friends debating on whether we have reached
the end of inventing. By invention I’m assuming something to the
magnitude of the gas powered car or the technology of cellular
devices that have been introduced and imbedded in today’s society..
I can’t imagine any other way humans will be able to communicate
with each other than with a cell phone in say 100 years. This is just
the beauty of discovery and inventions. It’s almost impossible to
imagine the future suddenly taking off again towards a new adaptation
of some idea because as a human race we tend to lean towards knowing
it all like teenagers. Maybe you are someone that believes we’ve
reached full capacity and that humans won’t have another life
changing idea. Let me throw some real life situations from the past
where people thought just like this. Did we ever run out of oil in
1992. If you don’t recall this event you can blame it on account
we didn’t. The world as a whole hasn’t even broke ground in
reaching this point although in 1972 the international panel of
climate change or what was then the Club Of Rome decided to estimate
when we would run out of certain resources (Hutter info. Box 15). A
respected group filled with some of the smartest scientist and
analyst in the world at the time. Intelligent people managed to
predict something that never happened. What about President James E.
Carter saying to the American people in a televised address that all
the world’s oil reserves would be used up by the end of decade in
1977. The president of the United States of America; a well
respected, well educated, well supported, well informed, and well
trusted man was painfully incorrect. He thought that he could predict
the future but didn’t look at history. My economics teacher once
said that he could spend a whole semester showing us time and time
again of examples in which people thought they could predict the
future of resources, technology, and the world in a sense of doom.
Each time they didn’t see that humans find a way to do things
differently. If you think I’m being one sided then go to google and
search “predictions gone wrong” you will find a nice one million
40 thousand result of examples you can research yourself. Find for
yourself all the famous and smart people who’ve attempted to
predict the worlds “doom and gloom” (Sandmeyer). I apologize for
pushing in sort of a mixed direction but in order to get you the
reader in the right mind set I designed a way of freeing your mind to
the possibility of change. Now that the mood is set let’s begin
with a roadmap of this paper. In this research will include
alternative energies of the future, a point of how gloom and doom is
so incorporated in the world we know of now and later of time, how
the fictional world relates to gloom and doom in the now and later of
time, and In conclusion a finalized review of this paper.
When I say
alternative energies you might think of electric cars, air powered
cars, and maybe even solar powered. These are prime examples of now
technologies. In the progression of life humans strive to find
directions to be more efficient, more productive, and benefit
themselves in some way. When you think of the future what do you
picture. For me I produced an image of flying cars, magnetic cars,
and maybe even teleportation. Thinking of new ideas are what keep us
progressing to new heights. It’s ironic that every year smart
people in the world make the mistake of predicting what we can call
gloom and doom events(Sandmeyer) What I don’t think gets punched
into our minds enough is that change can happen. We aren’t at a
stopping stage in human development. I remember my great grandma
telling me a story of when she heard about cell phones first coming
out. She said everyone thought it would be gross for someone to be
able to talk to another person from anywhere in the world. She also
thought it was weird someone could track you no matter the location
your at. Thanks to a wonderful constitution generations before us
created government that is outlawed from tracking our personal
locations in the United States. It’s easy to understand what a
crazy thought that must have been. Technologies that easily relate
to this in our time are under skin injection chips. These chips have
personal information in them that are embedded a few inches under the
skin from a shot. A weary thought for some but one that is easily
becoming a reality used by government officials in military already.
What may surprise you is this technology has been in design for a
couple years now and is even approved by the food and drug
administration (Halley line 3). These great ideas are stepping stones
to new lifestyles we will discover in our next generation of friends
and family. Now what can alternatives energies do in the aspect of
say a home?
If you’ve heard
of solar energy then you’re on track to a new and upcoming
technology. If you don’t believe it will take off then why don’t
I throw another example where people thought something wouldn’t
happen? Know the computer you have at home, ten years ago people
couldn’t in any way comprehend how much computers would have taken
off today. Computers have been doubling consumer memory every year
since computers first started. If you think that’s fast imagine
this. Batteries and solar panels are doing about the same thing. Yeah
really weird to picture but our roofs could very well be made out of
solar composite that powers maybe %50 of the utilities in your home.
What an estimate, at the rate solar is taking off its only a couple
years down the road that we will see solar incorporated in our daily
life’s assuming we don’t get more efficient then we are now.
Efficiency is a key topic in everything and can’t be ignored. Only
a matter of time when generations will be looking at us laughing that
we weren’t able to come up with free energy when they might be
taking it for granted. It’s just how everything is perceived.
In this paper
predictions are no stranger. A sense of the word prediction can be
associated with maybe fiction. A book that closely relates to
predictions is Richard Matheson’s “I am legend” In this
brilliantly written book is a mind full of gloom and doom ideas
(Sandmeyer). A few examples of this gloom and doom is when the main
character Robert Neville accidently makes a super disease and becomes
the last man alive on earth. Through his trials and tribulations he
tries to turn his diseased subjects back into his friends and family
he once knew (Craddock). How this is relevant to this paper is that
humans never cease to doubt the extinction of future existence.
In conclusion
alternative energies will be in the future. The gloom and doom
predictions in the world aren’t always right. Research yourself if
this paper doesn’t persuade you enough but oil is not becoming
extinct. A close examination of efficiency and we find the sole heart
that the human race never ceases to find new ways of doing something.
Whether it’s from solar power or micro chips under the skin it’s
hard and sometimes weird to imagine the future. In the book “I am
legend” we see another uncountable example of human kind’s
prediction of future. Although this book is fictional it shows the
humans mind idea of extinction.
Works
Cited
"Cars
Produced in the World - Worldometers." Worldometers
- Real Time World Statistics.
Web. 16 Mar. 2010. <http://www.worldometers.info/cars/>.
Craddock,
David. ""I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson."
Fantasy
Book Critic.
12 Dec. 2007. Web. 16 Mar. 2010.
<http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-am-legend-by-richard-matheson.html>.
Halley,
Drew. "Will Your ID Soon Be a Microchip Under Your Skin? |
Singularity Hub." Singularity
Blog Covering Robots, Genetics, Stem Cells, Transhumanism, The Brain,
The Future.
2 July 2009. Web. 16 Mar. 2010.
<http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/02/will-your-id-soon-be-a-microchip-under-your-skin/>.
Hutter,
Freddy. "Peak Oil Depletion - Charts for Prediction &
Projection of Peak Date, Rate & Decline." TrendLines
... Welcome to the Web's 1st Chart Blog! Graphs of Global Peak Oil
Depletion Projections, Climate Change, World Election Predictions,
the USA Recession Meter, the USA Housing Price Correction and More.
Web. 15 Mar. 2010. <http://www.trendlines.ca/energy.htm>.
"Jimmy
Carter - - ProCon.org." Alternative
Energy.
Web. 15 Mar. 2010.
<http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=008537>.
Sandmeyer,
Greg. "Gloom and Doom Predictions from the past."
Timberline High School, Boise. 22 Jan. 2010. Reading.
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