1. Introduction

The purpose of this article is not to describe a doom scenario. It will try to describe a process that follows natural laws. It will show the process, which concerns directly the continuation of human society of this planet Earth. The irreversible processes of nature will eventually lead to the extinction of the human race. In geological history, the extinction of a species is not a new phenomenon. Since life started 3.9 billion years ago 99.0 % of the all the species became extinct!!

 

We can only live on this earth, if we have enough energy at our disposal. Our society is using energy from the sun (old and new sunlight) and from deeper parts of the earth. Primitive civilizations of gatherers and hunters have used and are still using only renewable energy resources (plants, animals) in a sustainable economy. Agricultural and industrial civilizations are using in addition non-renewable energy and mineral resources (oil, gas, coal, iron, copper etc) in a therefore non-sustainable economy.

The output of the energy cycle is heat and waste. This is according the second law of thermodynamics an irreversible process. 
(Link 2. More on the detailed information on the laws on thermodynamics click here)

 

Figure 1: The irreversible process of burning energy resources into heat and waste. (After Daly, 1993 and Rees, 1996)