Summary Of Hallett's ' Efficiency Trap '

Energy has easily become one of the most important necessities for our everyday lives. Without it we would simply not be able to have transportation or be able to gather any of our other resources that we depend on. If at anytime our energy supply ceases or no longer attainable the results may be horrific. However, it is quite easy to keep this from happening, It is crucial that our current population realize the importance of sustaining our present non-renewable resources. An examination of all the present energy issues and human impacts of energy conservation along with the a resource plan will show importance of energy

From the moment we wake up in the morning until the time we go to bed each night, we all use different forms of energy to perform our daily activities. On a daily basis I use energy for transportation to commute to and from work and run errands; for cooking meals using either my gas range, microwave or charcoal grill; for heating my home in the winter and cooling my home in the summer; for daily showering, and for lighting my home in order to be comfortable and productive. Most of the resources we rely on for energy are nonrenewable and will soon be depleted.

Preventing the wasteful use of a particular resource is one of the definitions of the word efficient. The most common thought when people hear the word efficient is that when something is efficient it is better than something that by comparison is not as efficient. Now we have gas efficient cars, energy efficient appliances and as many highly efficiently people would say we are working to have a more efficient society. What is the cost of more efficiency, in many things of course the more efficient the better, with more energy efficient cars and appliances we are saving our planet reducing car emissions make for cleaner air that we all breathe and will make us less reliant on fuel and other natural resources. Can a real value or cost be put on the human mind and spirit, what happens to people when they are set aside or determined to be of little or no use, what happens when people begin to question their own worth in the world.

One of the major issues in global affairs today consists of the supply of energy and other minerals and commodities. Michael Klare in “The End of Easy Everything” argues that the transformation from an effortless to a more resilient resource period will be expensive. Looking at the state of the supply of energy oil and natural gas today, I tend to agree with the findings as presented by Michael Klare.

Efficiency is not always the answer. David Owen explains that society is headed in the wrong direction, believing that to be greener we need to make our everyday lives more efficient when in reality we need to change our behavior. We as consumers want to be sustainable and take care of the Earth we live on while ironically expanding our collection of trinkets. Everything we believe in being efficient and green is misrepresented and to save the Earth the truth needs to be heard.

Lecture 4 introduces us to The Great Acceleration5 and development failures. As we increase our usage of more advanced technologies, we also increase the amount of energy consumed. The increase of fossil fuel usage has allowed this growth of not only energy use but also population growth. With this change, there are both societal and environmental changes as well such as changes in GDP, water usage, deforestation, and ozone depletion. Despite this large increase of energy usage, it is not evenly distributed among the countries. Developed countries, though having smaller populations, uses much greater amounts of energy per person than developing countries. This energy usage divide is slowly getting smaller. Over 75% of people globally are cell

In conditions when both technologies and our needs require more and more energy, it is impossible to count only on natural resources and to think that their reserves are unlimited. This is not true. We have learned to receive electricity from irreplaceable resources – oil, gas, also from replenished - water, wind, sun. But the energy of the sun or wind is not enough for today’s rythm of our civilization. And hydroelectric and thermal power plants are not as clean and economical for the modern rhythm

One of the major issues in global affairs today consists of the supply of energy and other minerals and commodities. Michael Klare in “The End of Easy Everything” argues that the transformation from an effortless to a more resilient resource period will be financially, environmentally, socially, and politically costly. Looking at the state of the supply of energy oil and natural gas today, I tend to agree with the findings as presented by Michael Klare.

The beginning of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century led to an exponential increase in our demand for energy to satisfy the growing needs of manufacturing, transport, production of raw materials, healthcare, and agriculture. Simple tasks are taken for granted such as “powering-up” the plethora of devices and gadgets that we “cannot live without” – such as our smart phones and computers. Whilst all of these things are central to our very existence on the planet, our increased dependence on energy has essentially been met to date by the burning of non-renewable fossil fuels, such as brown and black coal.

One of the first diagnostic frames the film addressed was energy consumption. More specifically, they address society’s reliance on coal, oil, and natural gas. These big three enables tremendous explosions of economic growth, propelling society forward into the modern era where we still rely on these big three for sustained economic growth. As Nichole Foss said, “our lives are completely predicated on the availability of cheap energy.”

Earth’s population has grown so much in a short period of time that technology has been improved immensely to sustain much larger communities and their needs. According to the Census Bureau, since the 1950s, our population has more than tripled. It is also predicted to grow from the 7 billion we are today to 9 billion by 2050 (Census Bureau, 2016). In order to comply with these changes, more resources have been used to supply the world with goods and services. Let us take a look at electricity: originally discovered by Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, it only became practical in the 19th

In this day and age, we have new energy sources that could be used to power our homes and transportation. Wind and solar power are used all over the world, but are still used far less than fossil fuels. Most would say it’s not reliable or it doesn’t make any profit. While both statements are true, it doesn’t mean we can’t make a better future using renewable energy. In fact, the only reason we don’t use renewables for everything is that we don’t want to change. The hard truth is we need to change. Fossil fuels are great right now, but if we run out, humanity must have another source of energy.

The United States consumes more energy than needed, compared to the rest of the world. However, to properly address such an issue as over consumption of energy, one first must understand what “energy” is.

“Energy efficiency means using less energy to provide the same service.” An example of this is where a LED lightbulb uses less electrical energy than a traditional incandescent lightbulb to produce the same amount of light. The phrase 'energy efficiency' can also be described as any kind of energy-saving measure. (1)

People tend to focus on the flaws when it comes to humanity’s ability to provide goods and services. News stories on income inequality, lack of adequate healthcare services for hundreds of millions of people, the large number of people who go hungry every day, etc. often capture the attention of humanity better than any other type of story. Combine this with an increasing population, the doomsay predictions about global warming, and the recent economic recession, and it appears that solutions to many of the world’s current and future problems are out of reach. This, though, is not the viewpoint taken by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kolter in their book Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think. They acknowledge that the world have