We live on a finite planet, filled with a finite amount of things. No well is bottomless and all wells will eventually run dry - so what happens when they do?
The rebuttal I am often given is that our planet's resources will last for many decades to come - and will probably far outlast anyone alive today.
Yet what happens once the barrel is empty? Scraped clean by an ever more avaricious species of upright primates that, not so long ago on the geological time scale, knew nothing of electricity, metalwork or any of the apparent magic that can be conjured by exploiting the elements found within the Earth's crust?
Perhaps human ingenuity will ride to the rescue - Spiesshofer himself argues that "technology is not to be feared or resisted" and the success of Solar Impulse proves that "we can run the world without consuming the earth".
Or perhaps in another 125 years, once the oil has dried up and the last of those elusive elements have been scoured from under our feet, a lone survivor will stand and stare across the desolation, wondering where it all went so wrong.
And then he'll look up, and he'll see through the haze a shadow passing across the face of the sun, as an unmanned descendant of that aircraft once known as Solar Impulse completes another pointless circumnavigation of the Earth, for the 1,000th time.
Perhaps.
Broadcaster:
Greg Fountain is a copy editor and occasional presenter for China Daily. Before moving to Beijing in January, 2016 he worked for newspapers in the Middle East and UK. He has an M.A in Print Journalism from the University of Sheffield, a B.A in English and History from the University of Reading.
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