The nightmare life without fuel by Isaac Asimov

The writer Isaac Asimov has drawn a grim scenario of the future world, which according to the writer will be relying under an acute fuel crisis. The scarcity of fuel and other sources of energy will throw life out of gear in the future world. The situation in the future will be so catastrophic that it will eventually threaten to wipe out human civilization.

The writer begins this essay by predicting that bicycles will be a popular means of transportation in the absence of fuel and vehicles. Governments will invest a lot of money on subways, but every other day subways breakdown. The government will also introduce rationing to better manage the scarcity of the daily essential item. Electricity will be rare and expensive as we will have to think twice before switching on the light. Old houses will become the hardware showroom of this future world. The writer is of the opinion that people will be surrounded by different kinds of problems in this future world.

Despite drawing a negative portrayal of this future world, the writer thinks that fuel crisis will also give rise to some positive aspects . The air in the future world will be much cleaner and pollution free as people will not suffer from common cold, coughs and other respiratory diseases. The legs will be king in the future world as people will walk everywhere. Crime rate will also decrease due to mutual protection in the crowd as a result police officers covering their assigned areas of duty. 

Apart from a few instances of rare optimism, the writer is of the opinion that people will have to cope with different kinds of problems in this future world. Suburbanites will be the first people to get a first hand experience of crumbling nature of life with out fuel. In this content, the writer says, 'the suburbs were born with the auto lived with the auto and are dying with the auto.

According to the writer, one of the greatest problems of human beings will be coping with an acute shortage of food grains, resulted by fuel crisis. The food crisis scenario will not just be limited to the people dying due to the starvation but food crisis will also result in permanently brain damaged people. The writer fears that many countries in the world will quietly get rid of increasing population of permanently brain damaged people. 

The writer is of the opinion that fuel crisis will greatly affect the human civilization, which will be reduced to one billion as it falls back to days before 18th century when we had not discovered fossil fuel. The writer however adds that our civilization will fall further back to the primitive days when we were sowing seeds of modern day civilization. The writer therefore emphasizes that we will struggle to save our civilization due to fuel crisis.

In the concluding lines of the essay, the writer notes that human civilization should have realized the importance of fuel much earlier and started saving fuel 50 years ago. The writer concludes his essay saying that if we are thinking in the line of conserving fuel now, it is now too late and the destruction of human civilization due to fuel crisis is inevitable i.e. unstoppable.