|
I had heard that the Romans did a fine job of stripping the countryside.
Supposedly, they ran through so much of the available useful fuel, that they ended up being the first to really make use of solar heating as an alternative.
These are the same people who had wood-fired heated floors and baths! To go from such luxury to renewable energy by necessity is very interesting.
I think we are at a similar place today. We are over-consuming, and at a rate that the ancients could never have imagined. (The amount of energy in a gallon of oil is AMAZING!)
Continuing at that rate, means we are going to run out of it REALLY fast! I just recently read an article that Peak Oil already hit.... in 2006!
Richard Heinberg is the author of a number of books, but PEAK EVERYTHING is particulary interesting. The chapters detail how much of absolutely EVERYTHING we are burning through right now.
|