Glenn Stewart Coles, 9251 Yonge Street, Suite 8-924, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, L4C 9T3
Text Box: There are children being born today who will live in a completely different world than the one you see out your window. Over the next fifty years, civilization will undergo radical change. We are already seeing evidence of these changes, and it is a different world now than it was at the beginning of the millennium. As we move through this cycle, humanity can either create chaos or transform into a balanced harmonious species contributing to the health of our planet. To shift involves a complete change in who we are and what we do. Not shifting could result in a vast depletion of our population. The choice is up to us, and we need to begin today. We all understand the cycle of water on our planet. Rain falls to the ground, and is either absorbed by earth and plants, or it runs downhill and collects into streams, lakes or oceans. Eventually the water evaporates back into the air, where it is held until enough water accumulates to form raindrops. The cycle is continuous and balanced. The cycle of carbon works the same way. All life forms on our planet are carbon based. Plants, animals, trees, fish, algae, birds and people are all based on carbon atoms. Rock is not carbon based. What we call fertile soil is actually a mixture of rock molecules and compost, primarily the remains of plant life. Like water, carbon undergoes a continuous process that can take days or millennia. From the air, plants absorb carbon dioxide. As the plant receives energy from the sun, it performs a process called photosynthesis, which separates the carbon molecules from the oxygen molecules. The oxygen is released back into the air, and the carbon is stored as a sugar within the plant. Throughout the life of the plant, the stored sugar molecule can be broken down to release energy. However, at the end of each plant’s existence, a large amount of carbon sugars remain. The carbon is released through decay, burning or ingestion, and eventually finds its way back into the atmosphere as it rejoins with oxygen molecules to reform carbon dioxide. Buried within this cycle is the lifeblood of our economy. Crude oil is formed from the rotted remains of plant and animal matter, which was transformed by heat and pressure over a few million years. When we first discovered oil there appeared to be massive amounts, but we now know there is a limited supply. Our world currently revolves around crude oil. It provides the gasoline that is used to power almost every vehicle and motor on earth. Through a refining process that separates the hydrocarbates, it also provides the raw material for all of the plastics that we use. Look around the room that you are in and see what is plastic. The cup, the telephone, the keyboard, the printer, and the fibers of my shirt are all plastic. Cars are now lighter because the bodies are primarily plastic. We do have a problem. The growth of our species, matched with an increase in our dependency on oil, has thrown the system out of balance. Oil was only discovered in Saudi Arabia in the 1930’s, and after only seventy-five years has become the mainstay of our civilization. As our annual requirements for oil increase each year, the oil is being used up. There are limited supplies of oil on this planet, and we are using them much faster than they can be formed. Many projections identify forty or fifty years until we have used all of the known oil on the planet. So what are we going to do? In next week’s column, we will discuss potential solutions and the next wave of discoveries necessary to aid our transition. © Copyright Glenn Stewart Coles, 2006 First Published April 2, 2006

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Over the next fifty years, civilization will undergo radical change.