There’s a movement spreading across the world, hopscotching from one forward-looking city to the next, that will fundamentally shift the way we all use energy, the way we think about energy and the likelihood that modern society will survive through the next fifty years.

That’s no small matter, particularly to those of us who are under age 30.

The fundamental problem we are facing today involves population. There are too many humans on earth and that is unlikely to change during this century, absent either a serious breakdown in public health (perhaps due to some new or newly morphed disease organism) or due to nuclear war. Neither would be pretty.

But it isn’t just the absolute number of people that presents a problem. It’s the combination of basic needs for food and water, and the general desire for a reasonable level of comfort that will make for some very rough sledding.

Fresh, clean water is already in short supply in much of the world, and water is a key ingredient in agriculture. So food availability is becoming increasingly tenuous for many populations. Food shortages and resultant high prices were one of the main triggers of the Arab Spring that shook or collapsed governments in recent years. Malnutrition and absolute starvation threaten about 1 billion humans just now, one in seven of our fellow earthlings. So the basics are already in trouble.

But what we in the United States tend to think of as normal life involves a whole lot more than food and water. We expect electric and other forms of power to be at our fingertips. We assume we’ll  have lights at night, electronic media, cooking and refrigeration, temperature control in our living quarters and work places, entertainment venues, restaurants, affordable clothing and tools, personal or public vehicles to get us where we need to go — all of this and more. All of this depending, of course, on one’s level of wealth. But still there is a certain expectation of access to the basics, and our basics go way beyond the 19 personal items owned by a typical !Kung Bushman. most of which are simple tools for the gathering of food.

All of the energy needed to produce our modern lifestyle has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere has been from fossil fuels—petrochemicals including oil and natural gas for vehicles and heating systems, and mostly coal for electricity (with some natural gas, some hydro, some nuclear, a little wind and a tiny amount of solar in the mix). A looming shortfall of oil looked poised to curb our use, but then came hydraulic fracturing (fracking) which has permitted extraction of a whole lot more oil and gas than was previously accessible. The gas boom is encouraging electrical power companies to switch from coal, which is good from a pollution standpoint, since gas burns cleaner. But markets being what they are, the American gas boom has resulted in a sharp rise in coal exports, so the stuff is being burned elsewhere, and mountaintop removal here is now fueling generators in Europe.

The problem with burning of anything is the buildup of greenhouse gases that are now estimated to push world temperatures up several degrees by the end of this century. That is the real and mortal threat of population growth. Vast areas of agricultural land will dry up. Sea levels will rise to flood some of the most densely populated places on earth. Tropical insects carrying some very nasty diseases will move north. 

Unless we find a way to use energy more wisely it will only get worse. That’s where AMAZED comes in: the Asheville Metro Area Zero Energy District. ZEDs are popping up around the world in communities that have adopted a goal of generating as much power as they use each year. Can it be done?

Perhaps not, but we can learn to use a whole lot less and still live modern, successful, comfortable lives. The first AMAZED community meeting was held May 30, I’ll have more to tell you about the idea and how you can participate in my July column.

Stay tuned! You’ll be AMAZED!

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Cecil Bothwell is author of eight books, including “Whale Falls: An Exploration of Belief and Its Consequences,” and a member of Asheville City Council.