Time on Earth Author:John Lyon Billions of years passed in the formation of the earth. Billions more passed before man rose to his present state, with probably five catastrophic events along the way. Early man was limited to his instincts for survival; the environment was hostile; tools were primitive; communications were limited, and li... more »fe span was short. Even in the earliest days, mans desire for knowledge and life improvements was there. As difficult as it was, man spread out across the earth. In the last 2000 years, the world population has increased almost 70 fold.
Today our population is doubling every 50 years. Demand is growing for everything that improves life quality. With this high demand, we are depleting our natural resources and polluting our environment at an unacceptable rate. Fossil fuel sources for energy will be seriously low within 5-10 generations. Alternate non-carbon energy sources, however, will be developed that will produce a major fraction of our electricity and significantly reduce carbon dioxide air pollution. While these will be developed, the cost and human effort will be enormous. The problems of water pollution, and forest difficult future problem will be the development of a renewable alternative for the 50 million barrels a day of oil used to make plastics, rubber, fertilizers, lubricants, soaps, drugs, roofing and road materials, etc..., as well as a liquid fuel for non-electric applications requiring energy. Broad international cooperation will be required for success in this undertaking.« less