“… one of the best ways for us to not sacrifice is with ethanol, because ethanol makes us feel like the energy crisis has been solved, and allows us to keep living the way we always have; in our cars… the great thing about ethanol is not only do we not have to sacrifice, neither do the oil companies, because to get 100 gallons of ethanol, you have to burn 129 gallons of fossil fuel. So, we can break our addiction to fossil fuels, without sacrificing our dependence on fossil fuels.”

Last year biofuels consumed a third of America’s maize harvest; filling up an SUV with ethanol expend enough corn to feed an average person for one year. Now consider feeding the other 2 billion people who lack food security due to various degrees of poverty; it is then merely common sense to comprehend that producing biofuel from food crops only mean further violating our global food security. This biofuel comparison chart produced by Seattle Post-Intelligencer displays just how devastating it could be if corn and soybeans were to replace only half of America’s fuel demand. It is even more unfortunate to hear about America and Europe’s subsidy programs upon this niche market. In the midst of this change in crop demands, the world is facing the most severe food price inflation in history, on a scale never seen before.

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“It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague… ”

We are the perpetrators of fear. Fear not of our vulnerability, but how we are, and what we will become.

1. The Matrix, The Wachowski Brothers.
2. Overpopulation in the Philippines, madsnissenchina, Flickr.

1. Issue 16.06, Wired Magazine.

“… total energy use in the United States continues to rise, despite efficiency gains. Per capita we’re using more energy… “

“… a more efficient technology could create a rebound effect… the efficiency gains are wiped out by greater demand for the resource.”

“Take the introduction of a new, incredibly cheap, very efficient vehicle in India: the Tata Nano. It costs only $2,500, and luckily it gets around 47 miles per gallon. In many ways, it is encouraging to see India setting the bar so high with such a fuel-efficient vehicle. But even with that standard, can the world really afford to see millions of similar, new vehicles on the road, with their twin threats of increased oil demand and greenhouse gas emissions?”

The inherit threat of relying on efficiency (and technology) rather than decreasing consumption (and behavior) becomes the focus of this set of articles by TreeHugger. In it poses some of the prominent examples of this paradox through various scenarios from around the world. It ends in providing suggestions for social development through an intellectual course of action and change.

1. Beating the Energy Efficiency Paradox/Part II, TreeHugger.
2. Highway Jam, Kirpernicus, Flickr.