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 want
you to imagine this scene: It's a damp morning during the Christmas
season in London. The city awakes to see streets swirling with
a thick gray mist. But this is no ordinary London fog. As the
clouds roll through the streets and seep into the houses, men,
women and children are gasping for breath. Within hours, hospital
emergency rooms are crammed with people complaining of stinging
lungs. When the fog finally lifts five days later, thousands
are dead.
 It sounds
incredible, doesn't it? A doomsday scenario dreamt up by a Hollywood
writer, and something that hopefully never could happen. But,
of course, it already has, in 1952. In fact, that scene was simply
the worst of the so-called "killer fogs" or "pea-soupers"
that repeatedly struck London, Liverpool and other areas of England
and Wales after the Second World War. They were caused when warm
masses of air trapped smoke and fumes, primarily generated by
coal heating. The 1952 fog which killed more than 4,000 people
and contributed to the subsequent deaths of another 8,000 ultimately
prompted the British Parliament to pass the Clean Air Act in
1956.
If the
killer fog of the winter of 1952 was an environmental "wake-up"
call for Britain and the west, perhaps the burning of the Indonesian
rain forests in 1997 and 1998 will prove to be the alarm that
awakened the developing world to the importance of environmental
conservation. Like Londoners in the early 50s, thousands of people
today are dying prematurely, while the health and productivity
of countless others are impaired.
Now
imagine these cities with more cars, and with each person using
more and more energy. Because this is precisely what will happen
as a result of rising income levels and urbanization. The world
now has almost 6 billion people. Two billion more will be added
by 2025. Primary energy usage is likely to grow by more than
50 percent by then, as the children of the billions of people
now without commercial energy services are added to electricity
grids and acquire cars, trucks or motorcycles. Consumers everywhere
seem to want what we have in the developed world: the comfort,
convenience and mobility which energy makes possible. Life gets
a lot better with energy.
We've
embarked on the beginning of the Last Days of the Age of Oil.
Nations of the world that are striving to modernize will make
choices different from the ones we have made. They will have
to. And even today's industrial powers will shift energy use
patterns. So I believe it's time to prepare our selves for the
"new look" of the energy industry of the 21st Century.
The
volume of carbon emissions in the atmosphere has increased by
as much as 30 percent since the 1970s. Some experts predict that,
over the next century, temperatures might rise by a further 1
to 3.5 degrees centigrade and that sea levels could rise by between
15 and 95 centimeters. And the general public takes environmental
issues much more seriously than it did 20 years ago. Greenhouse
gases and global climate change are now significant issues of
international import. As the 21st Century unfolds, these concerns
will feature even more prominently in the global arena because
the environment is no longer a concern solely for the Western
elite.
Energy
companies have a choice: to embrace the future and recognize
the growing demand for a wide array of fuels; or ignore reality,
and slowly but surely be left behind.
Who
is this speaking? Did you think it was the biased remarks of
another tree-hugging environmentalist? It turns out that everything
up until this paragraph of this column happens to the public
remarks of none other than Mike R. Bowlin, Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of ARCO, delivered February 9th, 1999 at a
conference in Houston Texas.
ARCO
wants to be known as the "Clean Energy Company." Bowlin
observes: "There will be a demand for cleaner energy."
What
the world needs is an energy revolution a swift transition from
outdated, polluting energy sources to an energy system based
on superefficiency and clean, safe, renewable energy sources.
The
world's energy system is a technological dinosaur. Not only are
fossil fuels such as coal and oil outdated and inefficient, they
are also the source of serious problems: smog, oil spills, and
global warming, to name a few in addition to great wealth, prosperity
and political power.
Twenty-six
years after the first oil embargo; 13 years after Chernobyl;
seven years after the United Nation's Earth Summit in Rio; two
years after the Kyoto Climate Conference no country on earth
has made a serious commitment to a renewable energy future. The
time is long overdue to begin constructing energy systems based
on solar, wind, biofuels, and other sustainable sources. Global,
national, local and individual energy choices can be made today
that produce far less carbon dioxide and zero radioactive waste.
Renewable
energy from the sun, wind and other sources will not only help
the environment, but will also save money, create new jobs, and
protect human health. 
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