How the Global Energy and Food Crises are interlinked

The global energy crisis is reaching a tipping point and every facet of our lives is being affected. To understand how necessary and basic the provision of a sustainable and affordable energy should be, it is important to look at how common a denominator energy is to our existence.   

What does Energy Mean?

Energy simply defined, is the ability to do work and this has a universal connotation, whether we are looking at energy as food for our body, or the energy supplied to our homes, by which we operate equipment, heat our homes, or move our vehicles.

Energy is the Food of our Civilisation

The food we eat supplies us with the energy needed for our day-to-day activities, and as food is to body’s subsistence, so energy is to the subsistence of our civilisation.

Without energy there is no power (power is the rate at which energy is used), and without power we shall lack the strength to work; and without work, we have no income; and without income, we become a liability to the state.

This is also the case with fuel shortages. Energy crisis is the root of every poverty and as such, making energy sustainable and affordable is paramount to our survival as a society.

The Case for Energy Sustainability and Affordability

On our analysis of food as energy, we may notice that eating junk food makes us unhealthy, though in the short-term we can say these junks are cheap and sustain the body to work, but in the long run junk food causes physiological dysfunction and illness, and its consumption causes financial drain where we end up spending more resources in putting our health in good order than in the avoidance of illness through healthy diets.

This is also the case for a low carbon energy emission. Our experience for over 200 years shows how we have utilised fossil fuel (like junk foods) to cause damage to the ecosystem and we have seen the ‘unhealthy’ result through climate change and its consequential global warming. We must now make our energy consumption healthy by using renewable sources which must be sustainable and affordable.

We must also make our renewable energies, not only sustainable, but affordable and as such it is important for governments to develop policies which will make healthy foods and clean energies more affordable because of the long-term economic benefits that this gesture accrues. We cannot survive without energy, but energy must come affordable and sustainable. A lack of clean, sustainable and affordable energy affects our health, economy and civilisation.

Why we are becoming Powerless

Energy is the interlink of our existence. The escalation of fuel prices at forecourts and the rise of food prices means a lack of energy, and without energy, we lack power and without power, everything stall and we starve, and if we starve, we die. That is why it is important that energy, be it food or fuel, is made affordable in order to sustain our civilisation.