Sunlight

There's a special kind of battery

Drifting in the sea

That has harvested the sunlight

For all eternity

Locking light in carbon

Reversing entropy

Priceless like a diamond

At the bottom of the sea

This treasure trove of sunlight

Was found by greedy men

Who squandered in a heartbeat

The heritage of man

It took less than a century

To burn a billion years

To turn the night to endless day

And fill the world with tears

The rapidity with which we are squandering the world’s oil reserves is astonishing. For 5 billion years phytoplankton have used the miracle of photosynthesis to create sugar from carbon dioxide and water. This sugar with its trapped sunlight is ultimately transformed into oil in the sludge on the floor of the oceans. Vast pools of oil accumulated over incomprehensible eons are being burned at an incredible rate to sustain our energy intensive society and to support our huge population. But what happens when the oil runs out? How will we then feed the hungry people on our impoverished heated planet?