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century shall have ended. No doubt the disappearance of all available 

 energy is a matter of millions of years, perhaps of billions of years. But 

 the disappearance of so much of our available energy that what remains 

 may be entirely inadequate to supply the demands of a civilization such 

 as we now have, is not a matter of millions of years, not even of thousands 

 of years. 



The progress of man has been proportional to his mastery of, and use 

 of, Nature's resources. Thus we have the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, 

 the Iron Age, and the Steel Age — the age of today. A 1914 model auto- 

 mobile, if made of bronze or iron, would not run a mile. The invention 

 of the automobile could not have preceded the invention of steel. Steel 

 made possible the light weight engine of high power, without which flying 

 machines would be impossible. Without steel most of the weapons, and 

 instruments, and machines of today would be impossible. Without power 

 they would be useless. So this has been called the Age of Power or the 

 Age of Energy, or better still, the Age of Coal Energy, for coal supplies 

 almost all the energies required to do the work of the world. King Coal 

 reigns with a lavish hand. We feast at the table, apparently unmindful 

 of the fact that we are nearing the dessert course of his final banquet. 



Our boasted triumphs over past generations are due to the fact that 

 we have learned to use energy freely. We are not superior to those of 

 earlier ages, in art, in architecture, in music, in intellect. We are vastly 

 superior to them in our ability to make use of Nature's mineral resources. 

 I might even say in our ability to use coal, for without coal the production 

 of iron and steel would be practically impossible and the mineral re- 

 sources of the world would remain undeveloped. 



It is high time that we were awaking to the fact that civilization as 

 we know it must disappear from the earth when the available energy has 

 been exhausted. Concern over the social, intellectual, religious, and po- 

 litical state of future generations is of secondary moment compared with 

 the question of the existence of civilization itself. 



Each individual knows that he must die. But if he thinks the' event 

 somewhat remote he scarcely gives the matter a thought. He may even in- 

 dulge in things that he knows will surely hasten the event. So with a race. 

 We give no thought for the morrow, but continue to use and to waste 

 Nature's resources, knowing full well that the death of the race is the 

 inevitable result, and that our prodigality is speeding the day. We make 

 the mistake of supposing that the day is indefinitely removed. We 



