Tony McQuail

Our current problems stem from our failure to understand and accept that we are biological organisms on a finite planet.   We have experienced a brief moment in history when we seemed able to step outside those constraints and that has coloured our assumptions of what is real and normal. In a century we have burned through millions of years worth of accumulated biomass in the form of fossil fuels. Our beliefs in economic growth and mechanical progress rest on this conflagration. It seems intuitively obvious to me that we cannot sustain these levels of energy use with renewable sources.