The Day the Earth Will Change

The Prius first appeared in Japan in 1997 but in fact the large motor corporations began to research electric cars back in the seventies after the last major petrol shortage. However, the problems with electric powered cars is that they simply don’t have the range or performance that consumers demand. The hydrogen fuel cell is the big one though, with no emissions and virtually silent running. General Motors has poured millions into the technology but the limitations are still numerous. Performance lags behind petrol and obtaining hydrogen in the first place uses fossil fuels. It’s also still prohibitively expensive.

So technology is finding a hard time coming up with a realistic alternative to petrol. But it gets worse. Further research led me to the realisation that in fact the technology industry, far from saving the day, is actually one of the worst culprits. Plastic, used in computers, displays, mobile phones and all related equipment, is dependant on oil. The same goes for many of the things that our society takes for granted; clothes, furniture, make-up, medicines and yes, nappies. And that’s why I’m a bad person. I’m using up the earth resources. I am arguably, to paraphrase Dr Oppenheimer as he gazed upon his nuclear explosion, “a Destroyer of Worlds”.

So isn’t there anything that technology can do? One that springs to mind is GPS. Already commonly used in cars for navigation, it can be even smarter when integrated with live traffic feeds, and this is already offered with TomTom’s Plus service. There’s are even discussions about fitting every car on the road with GPS, enabling a central system to monitor traffic flow and direct cars along the most efficient routes, avoiding polluting traffic jams.

Smarter use of existing technology then could alleviate the problem. Energy conservation can make a big difference - so TVs shouldn’t be left on standby, lights should be turned off, and we should forgo power sucking processors such as the Pentium 4, for more energy efficient designs such as the Pentium M. Fortunately, this is the way the PC industry is going, with Power per Watt, replacing the mindless clock speed race of just a couple of years ago.

But whom am I kidding? Most economies are capitalist and geared towards the consumer, who by definition will consume and consume until there’s nothing left. So am I going to stop buying disposable nappies? Will I change my performance car for a Prius? Probably not.

But there’s no escaping the fact that there’s a ticking clock as far as oil is concerned. And by buying that SLI system, with two cards instead of one, just because you want to, you could be bringing it a step closer. Enjoy it while you can.