What is our plan for the future?

Recently there have been headlines about building a giant new telescope on Mauna Kea. It’s called the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT), and I have written before about some of the unprecedented benefits we may see if the telescope is built here.

I look upon this telescope within the context of food security.

Does that angle surprise you? I’m a farmer, and this is a subject I know about.

I also know that we built our whole society on cheap oil, and assumed it would last forever. It will not, and we need to come to grips with this reality. The history of oil is only 150 years old. It is only a small blip in the history of human kind.

This past October I attended the Peak Oil conference – the only person from Hawai‘i to do so – in Houston. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil is a non-partisan organization whose objective is to bring accurate information to people about the subject of Peak Oil (the point where oil has reached its point of highest production, after which production will decrease at an increasing rate).

As oil production decreases, demand from developing countries will increase at an increasing rate, and that means higher prices for all things associated with oil. It also means that oil will go to the highest bidder worldwide. Others who depend on oil might starve.

It’s important to realize, too, that oil supply and world population stats are tied together. Oil has allowed us to grow more food, and more food equals more people.

So what will happen when there is less oil? Less oil equals less food, and less food means fewer people. This is inevitable.

What will we do, sitting out here in the middle of the Pacific? Will we try to feed all our people? Or will we send some of the people away to look for new lands?

For those of us who are over 60 years old, it’s really not about us. We have lived our lives already. We can stash cans of spam and corned beef for a few years.

It’s about the youngsters now, and future generations. Let’s help them.

We are at a tipping point, and the Thirty-Meter Telescope gives us a real option. It is a much better option than tourism.

What is our plan for the future?