I have been teaching environmental geology courses for something like 15-
20 years. A major focus of my course has always been energy, and since
fossil fuels provide almost 90% of US energy needs that has been my strongest
focus. However, over the years I have become increasingly skeptical and even
cynical with regard to the information about fossil fuel supplies provided
by people who claim to know. The lack of reliability, biases, and even
outright lies which have become obvious to me in this material has lead to a
similar skepticism and cynicism with regard to all scientific work produced
for public consumption.
There are a number of factors working against those of us who would like
to teach students about environmental issues in an objective way.
1. Exagguration makes a more interesting story.
2. Simplistic conclusions are more appealing than the complexity of the real
world.
3. Many of the scientists providing data and even writing articles are
dependent on public support of funding for their work and so they are really
engaged in promotion rather than scientific dialogue.
4. Publishers need to sell product and attract readers.
5. The general public and especially our political leaders are quite polarized
on these issues and support one of two fairly extreme positions, neither of
which is supported by an objective analysis, however, anyone who fails to
support one of these camps will be a voice crying in the wilderness and will
have little or no chance of getting his data, or interpretations of this data
before the public.
In 1980 the word among folks who claimed to know was that by the mid 90's oil
supplies would be unable to meet world demand, regardless of price, yet oil
prices, allowing for inflation, have actually decreased. Therefore, what was
being taught by the "environmentally aware" was actally, incorrect and
misleading. A fall issue of Scientific American('90 or '91?) was a whole issue
devoted to energy. The estimates of fossil fuel reserves and resources seemed
reasonable to me at the time, and I still provide those figures to my classes,
however, I have serious doubts about their accuracy and am very careful to tell
my students where the figures came from and that one can not put too much faith
in the numbers. I know this isn't what the student's want or expect to hear,
but it is the most honest answer I can give them.
Some scientists have predictied that the earth was close to its population
limits for decades, maybe centuries? However, somehow we manage to support
larger and larger populations. Where and when will it end? If we're honest
I think we recognize that we have a finite earth and there must be some limit,
but when it comes to what the limiting factors actually will be and when they
will kick in even the most astute among us can do little more than speculate.
In the meantime, I think the real issue is to determine how our known resources
should be distributed among our existing population. If you are an American
you have to like the current system that gives us 25X the average for the
rest of the world, but you have to wonder about the fairness and desirability
of such a system. You also have to wonder how much longer we can afford the
military expendatures necessary to maintain such an inequitible distribution.