Somewhere along the way, fossil fuels have gotten a bad rap. Coal, oil, natural gas — you name it. We use fossil fuels for everything from creating electricity, warming the shelters we live in and scooting around town. Burning fossil fuels has become a necessity for our way of life. The main reason that burning fossil fuels has conventionally gotten a poor reputation is the proposition that when we burn them, they release carbon dioxide, which contributes to this idea of global warming. Anyone who has grown up in or visited a metropolis area with smog can imagine all this weird brown air just drifting around with nowhere to go. The sky is supposed to be generally the color of light blue with some puffy clouds now and then, right?
We can imagine these carbon dioxide gases being trapped in our atmosphere and limiting the amount of solar radiation that should be bounced back into space. For Ethan, that was pretty much the extent of his own perception on the subject along with the experience of inhaling smog and feeling his lungs burn when he was growing up. Whether or not any of us are convinced that Gaia is heating up due to our own parasitic behavior or it is just a cycle in the billion-year birthday of earth, how much energy do we really need, and what is the best way to get it?