What will happen to our environment if we don't act now?

We are constantly reminded how important it is to take care of our environment. But what would the effects be if we allowed natural resources to run out, asks Douglas Wright.

''So how can we adapt? Surely we can use solar energy and hydrogen as alternatives?''

According to conventional wisdom our most important natural resource of all, oil, is expected to run out in the next 30 years. Considering that 90 per cent of our transport is fuelled by oil, this will invoke a dramatic change in our day-to-day lives and our long-term future. Oil is gradually running out: fact! Even if we get new technologies in the next 30 years that allow us to conserve and extract the oil more easily, we are still only delaying the inevitable for another 30 years.

We can all think back to the widespread panic after the farmer's protest stopped deliveries of fuel to petrol stations around the country. Petrol was rationed and people's cars rolled to a halt as a result. This is just a taster of what we can expect to happen again when the final drop of oil is burnt out. We may also expect an economic melt down. If people can't get to work, companies can't generate revenue, workers won't have jobs and people will have no disposable income to re-invest in the economy. Bills won't get paid, energy prices will rocket as houses are not heated and investors will dump their shares in oil.

So how can we adapt? Surely we can use solar energy and hydrogen as alternatives? The problem is we can't just switch to this overnight. This technology is being developed but it's a long process that can take up to 20 years to adapt to and it looks like we haven't started early enough. We just simply aren't prepared - the majority of us still depend on oil and haven't realised how big a threat this will be to our society when it runs out. Oil is not only made to fuel our cars but it helps make plastics, another material it would become difficult to live without. Think how many material possessions you have that contain plastic and how important they are in your day to day lives.

It is also these plastics that are not being recycled. The result? We end up with too much waste that cannot be destroyed. The landfill sites we use to dispose of this non-biodegradable waste are gradually filling up. Recycling is one of the easiest things we can do to make a dramatic impact on our environment and, unless we do so in greater volumes, we could be living in a wasteland.

We may be able to develop alternative fuels to transport our vehicles to their destination but, if we plan to go to Barbados for our holidays, forget it - there hasn't been and there probably won't be a development for a replacement in aeroplane fuel.

Whatever the result, expect it to be a defining moment in the history of humanity. Our survival will depend on how quickly we can adapt and solve the problems of an oil crisis, especially if we do as much as we can now before it's too late.