Every
time I open a packet of saltine crackers, vivid flashbacks of familiar scenes
come to mind. I particularly recall all the disturbing bits where people go to
a facility to voluntarily end their lives. When one man barged into the
facility in an attempt to talk his aging friend out of the latter’s decision to
be euthanized, this man made a startling discovery. The cadavers are processed
into foodstuff, namely, crackers (yum). These crackers, which the people have
come to depend on as a staple food, are rationed under color-coded names. They
are made by the Soylent corporation.
With
dramatic flourish, the man shouts about his startling discovery, “Soylent Green
is people!”
Of
course, I’m talking about the sci-fi cult classic of the same name: Soylent Green. Set in a dystopian future, the film explores the boundaries of a social
atmosphere that struggles to find equilibrium between the needs of the populace
and the production capacity. With the world population reaching an all-time
high, the demand for viable food became exponentially great. Agriculture’s
production capacity has reached its limits, and the industrial factories and
other institutions have poisoned the land.
Soylent
Green paints a viewable picture of the concept of a Malthusian Catastrophe.
Food follows an arithmetic progression, while population follows a geometric
one. This becomes problematic, as a geometric progression always “outruns” an
arithmetic progression. Long story short, the world’s capacity for food
production will always be bested by the ever-increasing population of the
world. In addition, the lack of a “green framework” for the institutions that
societies have come to depend on for hundreds of years would even begin
poisoning the very Earth that would continue struggling to support the
population load.
Speaking
of which, besides food security, other pressing issues are closely related to
Soylent Green’s core mantra.
Population boom and rapid urbanization put pressures
on the Earth with other great demands. Two
highly intertwined issues that easily come to mind are energy security and
climate change.
The
discussions regarding these interrelated issues (or “discourse” for the
academically-inclined) are indeed rather mazy and intricate.
As
the world’s population increases, so does the demand for energy and
electricity. Developing nations are naturally looking towards providing equal
energy access for its citizens. However, not all countries are endowed with
their own reserves of oil, coal, or natural gas (in other words, fossil fuels).
Developing nations without fossil fuel reserves are constantly being put under intense
pressure due to the price fluctuations of these fossil fuels, which they need
to import. In addition, with rising carbon levels that are being made out as
the main culprit for global warming and the concurrent changing climate, many
proponents at the forefront of the climate change advocacy are calling for
increased usage of alternative sources of energy.
The
missing piece of the puzzle therefore comes in the form of renewable energy.
Take
for example the massive blackout that India endured. According to National
Geographic, more than 600 million people in the subcontinent were left
in the dark. Traffic lights stopped working resulting in traffic jams. People
suffered under the sweltering Indian heat. The railway system, which is
popularly known as India’s lifeline being the country’s major mode of
transportation, was halted.
Even
with India’s most developed cities, this power outage was not seen as unusual. Power
shortages are apparently common. However, the duration of the power outage and
their geographic extent were apparently not. The Indian Government’s designs on
nuclear power and coal for its energy future are being met both with public
opposition and the prospective daunting costs for these energy sources. The outlook
of developing a nuclear power plant does not sit well with the populace in the
wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Coal is also getting costly.
Thus,
experts are urging India to move towards renewable energy.
Bloomberg
reports that solar energy has now become cheaper than burning diesel – a first
in India. The country’s wind resource has also been reassessed and is found to
be at least 30 times greater than previously thought. However, renewable energy
still sits in a small corner in the entire country’s energy portfolio. In the
meantime, power restoration would be the main focus. But in the long term,
India as the world’s fourth largest energy consumer will need to find a way to augment
its power supply and to modernize the distribution. The United Nations
estimates that India, with 1.2 billion people, will overtake China as the most
populous country by 2025.
A
dystopian future is not too difficult to imagine, actually. An apocalypse does
not necessarily need to involve zombies outnumbering people. Food insecurity
and shortage would bring about panic buying, supplies hoarding, and chaos for
the people. Energy insecurity, on the other hand, would make us witnesses to
communications and transportation meltdown, darkened buildings, compromised
water and sanitation, and so many other undesirable effects that I don’t even
want to start with. Criminality would presumably arise as more members of the
populace would be put under duress.
While
we still have the time, isn’t it important that we take measure now? A green economy framework and the increased usage of renewable energy are
the tools we can use to our disposal. Otherwise, by the time the Earth reaches
its Malthusian limits, the prospect of eating food made out of recycled people is
actually moving closer to reality.
After all Soylent Green's timeframe was said to be 2022. It's just ten more years to go.
Time to think... and act.