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David Suzuki: Blind date with disaster
David Suzuki, The Guardian
As I approach my 72nd birthday, I have reluctantly achieved the position of elder, and it is mindboggling to reflect on the changes that have occurred in my lifetime. The population of the world has tripled, while technology has exploded from early radio, telephones and propeller planes to the telecommunication revolution, computers, space travel, genetic engineering and oral contraceptives. And stuff! My biggest challenge is to staunch the flow of stuff into my life. But these great successes - economic growth, technology, consumer goods - have come at enormous cost: the degradation of our very life support systems - air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity.
We are now the most numerous species of mammal on Earth and each of the 6.6 billion of us must breathe, drink, eat, be clothed and find shelter. So the mere act of living means our species has a heavy collective ecological footprint.
... Today, we have all the amplified foresight conferred by scientists, computers, engineers and telecommunications, and for more than 40 years, leading scientists have been looking ahead and warning us that humanity is heading along a dangerous and unsustainable path, while there are benefits and opportunities in moving along a different direction. For example, in 1992, a remarkable document called World Scientists' Warning to Humanity was signed by more than 1,500 senior scientists, including more than half of all Nobel prizewinners alive at that time.
Here is some of what the document said: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future we wish for human society . . . and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about."
... This is a frightening document; eminent scientists do not often sign such a strongly worded missive. But if the Scientists' Warning is frightening, the response of the media in North America was terrifying - there was no response. None of the major television networks bothered to report it, and both the New York Times and Washington Post dismissed it as "not newsworthy".
David Suzuki is emeritus professor at the sustainable development research institute, University of British Columbia.
(12 March 2008)
The End Of The Fire Age
Big Gav, Peak Energy (Australia)
The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital Blog has a post on GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt complaining that "U.S. Energy “Policy” Is a Certain Kind of Hell", noting that the barriers to dirty energy are going up while cleantech remains unsupported by the US government, resulting in energy technology companies being left in limbo. His recommendation is for carbon cap and trade to be implemented as soon as possible to end the uncertainty.
... Grist has a more detailed look at the more recalcitrant members of the audience, who clearly didn't like the "ECO" part of "ECO:nomics", noting it isn't company bosses that have a problem with carbon trading - its various conservative ideologues who talk a lot but don't run actual businesses. To reuse one of Margaret Thatcher's phrases - "there is no alternative" (well - there is one alternative, carbon taxes, but I'm sure the skeptics wouldn't view those any more favourably).
... The impassioned folks from the Competitive Enterprise Institute are known fans of carbon dioxide, having long claimed it is "good for you", but I'm beginning to wonder if there is actually a mystical element behind the obsession some of the ideological conservatives have with continuing to burn fossil fuels instead of just switching over to clean energy sources and getting on with business.
Libertarians have long identified with Prometheus, one of the Titans of Greek mythology, who is best known for stealing fire from the god Zeus and giving it to mortals for their use - thus playing a pivotal role in the early history of mankind. For his trouble Zeus chained him to a rock where his liver was pecked at by vultures, until he was finally rescued by Hercules many years later.
Some examples of the idolisation of Prometheus in libertarian circles include
(15 March 2008)
Can we be zero carbon?
Kyle Schuant, green with a gun
Probably not. But we can be low-carbon, and that should be enough.
... We don't do ourselves any favours by being overly optimistic or pessimistic, by looking at just one side of the story, as I noted in talking about Cuba. We need to examine the facts seriously and thoroughly, and try to understand the way the world works. Some say we need to do nothing because Science! or The Market! will save us all. Others say that we need to do nothing because we're all doomed anyway. Neither is the truth.
The truth is that failure is not inevitable, and success will come through first understanding the problems we face, and next working hard. Knowledge and effort. It's rather like the workplace where we earn our money: knowing your job and working hard does not guarantee success, but it makes it much more likely; not knowing and not working makes failure certain. We're frequently offered dreams of success with no real work or effort. The hooker with the heart of gold meets and marries the handsome millionaire, the trailer park family wins the lottery, someone invents the hula hoop and sells millions of the things. But the reality is that we usually have to work for rewards.
What's important is to have faith in ourselves as humans, as a society. We can hope for scientific advances, for government to step in, or whatever. But let's not hold our breaths. There's an old saying in my faith, "pray as though everything depends on God, act as though everything depends on you."
We probably can't be zero carbon. But we can be low-carbon, and that should be enough. But it depends on us, you and me, the work we do, work that does not have to convert the world, just change the way we live day-to-day.
(11 March 2008)
James Cascio interview - the future is now (video)
Ryan is Hungry via Open the Future
The folks at the video blog "Ryan is Hungry" interviewed me recently on just what it means to try to change the world.
(9 March 2008)
James Cascio was a co-founder of WorldChanging. He sees the three big issues in the future as: climate, world poverty and nanotechnology. -BA
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Published on 17 Mar 2008 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 17 Mar 2008. Deep thought - Mar 17by Staff FAIR USE NOTICE: |
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