Fossil fuels are finite. One day we're going to wake up and there'll be a note on the table from coal saying "I'm dead. It's your fault, bitch." Stitch your tears, quit fretting: energy never disappears, it just mutates like a deformed child. It's out there, you just need to know where to look, and how to grab hold of it when you find it. There's always the same amount, no matter what happens; there is no energy crisis. Sure, we lose some energy out into the universe every time we launch a rocket, a satellite, or some other spacey thing, but every day the sun pumps a load back in to us, so it's a fair swap.
We see solar panels, wind farms, wave buckets, all sorts of things to catch the energy that's just buzzing around us like flies, but they suck. If they didn't suck, they'd work, but they don't work, so they suck. We need an alternative to the alternatives, and that - if you'll forgive the strumpet blowing - is where I come in. Think: you have thousands of tiny electrical impulses shooting around your body, to and from your brain. Kablowey. Touch me and be electrocuted. Dude, I'm a giant ball of buzzing blue electricity. We all are. Stick wires in me, in us, steal the electricity and light Anchorage.
It means temporary paralysis, not just physically, but sensorially too. Smell my finger. I can't: I'm saving the planet. Fill a room with people, make all their tiny electrical impulses add up into something powerful. They'll just sit there quietly, they'll be no trouble to anyone. Keep them there for eight hours or so, then send them on their way with a glass of juice and a biscuit. It'd be like National Service, or jury duty, or something. Come down, do nothing, light a small African school. At the moment the technology is rather cumbersome, unwieldy, Soviet, but it'll get smaller and better - just look at TV design for your proof: you can now get TVs smaller than a match head. People will eventually be able to have mobile sets so they can help society whilst sitting on trains, instead of doing that evil reading thing (I can't decide which is more evil: reading or the Manic Street Preachers). I suppose someone clever might be able to find a way to harness just the electrical impulses related to smell, or sight, the left arm, or ...well, you get the idea. There may come some apocalyptic day when the only way to survive is for us all to give up a sense for the sake of electricity. I think I'd give up sight, because if you're blind you can still hear things, but if you're deaf you can't.
The best thing about it all is the dreams: our brains would be unfettered by the world, we could think anything we wanted, albeit loosely based on memories. We'd see, hear, smell, taste, touch reality; what Johnny Got His Gun failed to realise is that it wouldn't be clean flashbacks, it'd be hyperreality, we'd see, hear, smell, taste, touch the truth. I mean really, it's there, but we have it hidden from us by detritus, and even the beautiful things: they mask what's there. It's a perfect 0 thing, it's what 0 ought to be: get rid of everything, and what's left is what's real. I don't expect you to understand, you weak poor fools, but deprive yourself sensorially to save the planet, and you'll be rewarded fivefold, trust me.