Resistance Is Futile
Facing an climate change show down people would love to think that there is something they could do to reduce the strength of the impact. According to James Lovelock, climate change expert, there is little to nothing we can do about an upcoming “Armageddon”. What a unnerving notion this is! What really made me uncomfortable when reading the Guardian weekly in my Sunday morning tradition is that Lovelock already accurately predicted what life would be like in 2000 in the 1960s.
With conviction he utters that our ways of tackling climate change are just headed the wrong direction. Wind power, recycling and reducing the usage of plastic bags for example are mere waste of time, money and effort. Lovelock thinks that our means are not going to make any difference since, according to him the change in our minds should have taken place in the late 1960s.
What we need to do now is - obviously there is something - relying on technology and seizing all knowledge available to humankind in contrast to the common “back-to-the-roots-thinking.” Nuclear power, for instance, could solve our energy problem.
Furthermore he recommends: “Enjoy life while you can. Because if you’re lucky it’s going to be 20 years before it hits the fan.”
It really depresses me to read people talk like this. I guess now everybody on this planet who is willing to change his/her mind totally gets the importance of this momentous issue. I think, and I say that without scientific proof, that if we optimize our energy consumption we can lower the impact of climate change on our daily life in a energy guzzling society.
What we need is technology, not back to the nature kind of people. On this point, I feel compelled to agree. Of course, it is the little things that make a system of complexity better, but we are in need of a big idea. One that reforms our energy industry. Come on, going green the way people tend to go green doe not really make a change, does it? While they replace their plastic bags with bio-degradable ones, they drive SUVs for distances that people could easily handle by feet. IF we want to change the track of the climate change titanic, research and technology are in demand. I wonder if cutting budgets for education and research is helping. Iffy.
What is your mind on Going Green? Are people really lowering their carbon dioxide footprint sufficiently? What do you think we need to do?
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- Date · April 7th, 2008
- Categories · All Posts, Miscellaneous
- Tags · doom, environment, future, green, recycle
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But the problem is that people don’t care, or are not educated enough with regards to this issue - no matter how much is advertised.
Read my article regarding observations of earth hour. It’s surprising that the number of people who didn’t participate. Maybe they didn’t know, or didn’t care, which is a big issue. Education regarding this subject is KEY.
Also there are people who will jump on the bandwagon for a few days, but then lose interest because they don’t gain anything substantial from it.
And then you have people who say that oh, just this short trip in my gas guzzling SUV won’t make a different.
What we need is incentives - Economics 101 - people respond to incentives. The incentive that my great-grandchildren won’t have clean air to breath isn’t enough - protecting the future generations isn’t really on people’s mind because they think that a magic solution will be found by then.
On this note, my school is particpating in the Earth Day (or doing something similar on the same day)
Because we have a bunch of solar panels, they provide about 40% of the power we use, so for one day we’re going to try and bring our electricity consumption to at or below 40% of our normal use, and thus be entirely self-sufficient off solar power. :-D We don’t know how well it’s going to work, but we’re going to try. I’ll let you know how it turns out if you want.
Thanks for this note, Blake and Puraz.
As to the education, I can only agree with you. People hardly know what climate change is about and what they can reduce their energy consumption. They need to know and once they do they will realize that everyone will be affected and that buying out of it won’t be an option to all of us. I bet there will be an upper class that will get away with it (”gaz guzzling SUV”)…
We can only hope that they will invent something, because as it is now, nothing much is changing. Maybe a little, but that is a drop in the ocean…
Blake, that you are attending a self-sustaining school is amazing. How many high-schools like York participate? Do you have a rough number or percentage? Let me know how everything went…