The SNJ’s new columnist Karen Eberhardt-Shelton was born in California but grew up in England.

She now lives in Stroud and is currently working on an education project called Learn, Think, Act and is hoping to develop an eco-community land trust.

Her thought-provoking columns will focus on how we all have to take responsibility for our actions and for our planet.

ON the front page of the Sunday Times business section recently, a story about a 61 year old billionaire named Jim Ratcliffe who is happy to put £2.5 billion into the fracking fiasco. This man is truly uninformed. He obviously worships money, and media recognition. Well, I strongly urge everybody to do a little investigation into Nature's Second Law of Thermodynamics. Those who understand this basic principle of all life would be quick to point out that fracking (along with further drilling for gas and oil) is 100 percent myopic and imperils our Future.

The Second Law shows that while energy isn't lost, it dissipates from concentrated to diluted form -- losing its ability to perform useful work as it flows from one physical system to another -- and that when energy leaves a system, that system tends to degrade. Useful energy density is always thinning out from concentrated form into random dissipation and that's why life forms have to keep eating all the time -- to renew life, and maintain various levels of energy. Life is in a constant state of dissipation (entropy); everything decays, reverts to organic matter, etc. and then reappears in new forms depending on available levels of whatever it needs to feed on. If we keep using what's available on Nature's terms (ancient matter in the form of gas and oil, including fracked gas) beyond the levels/limits of what Nature restores and replenishes naturally, then we are permanently depleting and undermining the Earth's entire system of renewal and rejuvenation. That's why using ancient fuel reserves is a completely irrational method of attempting to sustain humanity's entire global system of growth, the economy, development, an ever-increasing population. Our wasteful and over-the-limits approach will ultimately grind to a halt once these nonrenewable reserves run out. The only realistic and viable way to sustain ourselves is through adopting the sun's method of offering life to the entire planet through the primordial system of photosynthesis: which always and everywhere on the entire Earth makes all life possible. Photosynthesis is the crucial link between organic and inorganic worlds, employing solar energy to draw matter into the plant forms that serve as fuel for other living things. As such, it is a key process in allowing everything to continue in a checks-and-balances manner of interconnectedness. What we must do is stop depleting limited resources, stop fracking, stop building more nuclear power plants, etc. and rely entirely on photosynthesis in its various manifestations to supply us with all the energy we need: solar power (which is being brought up to an ever-higher level of efficiency), wind, hydro power (including the tidal variety), putting all natural waste through the anaerobic digestion process to produce clean methane gas, geothermal heat, ground-source heat pumps, insulation. . .Nature has it all.

Enough energy comes from the sun in one hour to provide all the energy every human on earth needs for an entire year.

This Big Picture situation needs to be realistically addressed, especially in the political and governance domains, as they've got it very wrong -- or are so greedy, they can't resist reaching into the pockets of individuals with huge businesses and vast sums of money -- such as Jim Ratcliffe, the Lancastrian with his head in the sand. If we don't get our act together soon, as it said in last year's great little book, 10 Billion, 'we're fucked.' Go out and look at all the growth, jet flights, massive skyscrapers, countless cities with populations in the millions, the glut of vehicles, the toxins being used in factory farming, and see if you can imagine a contented Future in that. "If you want a new tomorrow, then make new choices today." Good luck.