If action is not taken immediately my grandson will live in a world suffering heat waves, severe droughts and floods. Cities like new York and Venice will drown. We are on the brink of catastrophe but the solution to the climate crisis cannot be left to governments alone ... People are taking the lead and demanding change. We must not fail them.
Arnold Schwarzenegger at the world’s first summit of conscience for the climate yesterday
4 comments:
Arnold? Really? Good for him!
And my god, it is so scary.
Hmm, I wonder whether we're all actually prepared to change to the degree that would actually make a significant difference - e.g. abandon the car, abandon travelling by aeroplane (or at all), abandon a large proportion of our electrical power consumption, etc etc. Forgive my cynicism, but I doubt it.
I was going to write something similar to what Nick wrote here. I'm glad there are summits and talks, but not sure we're prepared to really change in any way.
There are days when I would fully agree with you all, when I feel we as a species are just too stupid or lazy or ignorant or whatever. But I am not ready to give up so easily.
There are simple solutions, none of which involve waiting for others or governments or summits.
One is to stop extracting fossil fuel and to stop burning coal and oil and gas. If this problem is out of the way, we have a real chance of making it work, of surviving. We have been fooled to believe that we need to use every last drop of oil, we are told that renewables involve dramatic changes, pipelines, massive solar plants, windparks, storage facilities and so on. We have been told that renewables cannot be enough. I think this is rubbish. And I have done my research.
I have seen how beautifully decentralised, local renewables work, in small communities and towns in northern and central Europe where there is supposedly not enough sunlight and unreliable wind.
I have seen small scale solar operations in Africa and SE Asia bringing energy independence to rural areas we think are still waiting for us from the rich countries to provide them with charitable fossil fuel electricity. These people are laughing into our faces.
Decentralised renewable energy autonomy could be the next revolution. But we have been told that we need to wait for the big utility corporations to come up with large solutions.
Think of all the large buildings in your country with huge glass and steel and concrete facades and imagine solar panels on each and every one of them. On every bus stop, car park, school building, shoping mall, motorway siding, church roof . . .
It took us 2 days to install solar panels on our roof three years ago. Every time and almost every day, we continue to feel such fools for waiting so long. We have free energy almost every day of the year, just like that. Why are people still discussing the pros and cons of something so simple?
We are we so reluctant? Why do we waste time? I often wonder what has happened to all the rebels and the hippies, the anarchists and the diggers of my youth, where are they hiding and why? Are we drugged?
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