Undergraduate / Global energy crisis affecting my generation- UT Austin Prompt B [3]

Our generation will have to invent new ways to increase supply of earth's
"limited" resources. Is this a challenge that we, as peers, chose? No, it was
thrust into our hands be a previous epoch, as industrialization took stride,
efficiency and innovation becoming top priorities of corporate America. The
seemingly insatiable urge to build bigger, faster, cheaper, better; leaving
impact on forthcoming generations close to last on the list of priorities. The
world's resources are not unlimited, when people feel that something is or will
become scarce, they panic, increasing demand and decreasing supply, which
rapidly accelerates price. As this facet of human nature seems to be incessant,
We are, therefore, expected to solve this impending global catastrophe of ours,
equipped with only the tools that our previous epoch entrusts to us, the values
of education, communication, inquiry, trade, and collaboration; are all
necessary to ensure future successes for our children.

Just as past generations have all had their defining moments and
accomplishments, we will have ours as well, when we solve this imminent energy
crisis. If we look at our parent's generation, for example we see their
defining moment, their pinnacle achievement was the fall of communism and
the end of the Soviet Union, they were also very much impacted by the September
11th terrorist attacks that took place when most of us were in elementary
school. Our parents and their peers still have more to do, however, they must
decide if socialist health care is right for Americans and decide what to do
about our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as they fade into the
background, my generation's greatest accomplishment will just begin to come
into focus. I sincerely believe that we, as a generation and as products of a
fastidiously accomplished society, must surpass all expectations of us, we must
innovate more, solve more, inquire more, and accomplish more than any
generation previous to ours. We can do it, but only if we, as a people, work
together. As we start to formulate plans for our future, members of previous
generations must not stand in our way, we have the utmost respect for our
elders, but usually, if permitted, a freshman on a varsity team can teach his
elders a trick or two.

This open-mindedness of generations past is necessary
for ours to be the greatest it can be. When focusing on the problem of scarce
natural resources, all factors considered, it is very likely that present
levels of consumption will lead to near complete depletion of oil in the next
century. I feel personally connected to this issue in that everyone uses
energy, and few are taking steps to solve its problems. Speaking again of oil,
people will buy a hybrid car and justify it by saying that they are "doing
their part" and, in fact, they are, but only if they also alter other aspects
of their environmental or carbon "footprint". For example, if someone buys a
hybrid car that gets 50 miles per gallon at a cost of 23,000 dollars and drives
16,000 miles per year, they are using 360 gallons of gasoline per year. If
someone
buys a traditional car that gets 30 miles per gallon at a cost of 15,000
dollars, but combines errands and outings and only drives 10,000 miles per
year, they use
333 gallons of gas per year, costing about 30 dollars more per year in gas,
while
saving 8,000 dollars on the cost of the car, money that could be spent
installing
solar panels or a wind turbine to further supplement their use of non-renewable
resources.

People do not realize that the nearly seven billion people on earth
could survive on much less then we do, it is a self proclaimed status as
Americans and as members of socially and economically elite countries that
consumes the worlds resources and slowly suffocates the earth.