Dystopian Futures and Energy Woes

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.