World Population

Another of the speakers who came in and talked to the class was Henry Curtis, who is the executive director of Life of the Land.  He also was a contributing author of The Value of Hawaii: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future in which he wrote the chapter on energy.

His discussion began with a quick history of world population growth.  He then moved to talk about urban populations, mentioning that London was the first city on earth to reach a population of 1 million (in circa 1800), and that Seoul, South Korea now has the highest population of any city in the world.  He also talked about how the year 2008 marked the tipping point in which more than half of the world's population were urban (as opposed to rural)

He then talked quickly about the history of energy resources in the U.S. and Hawaii.  He began by mentioning the 1859 discovery of oil in Pennsylvania which began a massive drive for oil in the U.S. and simultaneously saved the Right Whale from extinction since it was being hunted on massive proportions for its oil (which was used as a fuel source for providing light).  Currently 80% of Hawaii's energy comes from oil (which is obviously not produced in Hawaii) and 20% from coal (again not produced in Hawaii).  He discussed how there is political manipulation of the term "green energy" which allows for massive amounts of the coal used to be counted as green energy.