All living things, including people, survive by exploiting this flow. Our world is bathed in energy radiated from the Sun, but is also provided with stocks of fossil fuels in which energy is locked up. Our economic development has taken us away from using sun, wind and water power to a technology dependent on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels represent natural capital.
Industrialism has been committing the fundamental economic error of using capital as income. As E.F. Schumacher has pointed out, the wealth generated from the use of capital energy resources must be directed towards making ourselves independent of that type of resource. We must either wean ourselves off fossil fuels or risk increasing atmospheric pollutants leading to forest damage and changing global climate. The primary solution to this problem is for us to radically reduce our need for energy by energy conservation measures and in the long run by reorganising our economy and built environment. There will nevertheless continue to be a need for energy supply.