In a nutshell, Who Turned Out the Lights involves one major theme. We need to find ways to balance the earth’s natural resources with the growing demand for energy. Since our fragile atmosphere, too, is a natural resource, our balancing act must not destroy it.
Any educated person by now must believe science’s forewarning that global warming can eventually destroy life on our planet. Yet all of us are aware of the bothersome inconveniences caused by shortages. Remember rationed gasoline? Remember long lines of cars waiting for high priced fuel at gas stations? So our seesaw act between saving earth’s atmosphere and/or demanding more fuel to use carelessly is a two edged sword.
If 70% of all energy in the United Stated is used for either transportation or electricity, from whence doth it come? Much of it comes from fossil fuels. Millions of years ago, vast numbers of plants and animals around the earth died when our planet’s crust covered them with increasingly thick layers of dirt and rock-like substances. The downward pressure and heat dramatically altered this buried goo, both physically and chemically. The result: fossil fuels — petroleum, coal, natural gas.
Bringing these resources to the earth’s surface to provide the world’s energy demands can continue but only until they are gone. And there’s the rub. Scientists are warning consumers that the deeply hidden pockets of these fuels are disappearing. They are irreplaceable because the pressurized fossilization process has stopped. Are we then doomed?
Who Turned Out the Lights would say no. There are other ways of producing energy. All of us are aware of hydro-electric power from dammed up water in our rivers. The United States has an abundance of rivers compared to Saudi Arabia and other arid countries. But damming the rivers causes other environmental shocks. It disturbs aquatic life both in the river and all along the river’s shores.
Nuclear power would seem to give mankind the biggest return on the amount of fuel spent. the economies of some countries, France for example, depend on it. About 19% of U.S. energy comes from nuclear power, but it can be dangerous. The Chernobyl explosion in Russia and resultant radioactive contamination required the displacement of 336,000 people from their homes in large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.
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