Global Warming - Are You and I doing enough?

Years ago a friend of mine, unable to sleep on a hot and sticky night,  at 2am wrote a letter to editor of the local paper. Her letter, which she proudly showed us published in the paper the next day, said 'Have you noticed it's been very hot lately? Do you think it's global warming?'

Personally I've long bought into the idea that global warming is an issue and we need to do something about it, however Jeffery Sachs' lecture on sustainable growth was a wakeup call about how urgent the problem is.  To see an economist, whose breed I'm used to hear talking about markets, exchange rates and availability of capital, stand up and say if we don't do something soon about climate change our  planet and the whole economic system is screwed, was striking. To hear that if in fact we just burn all our currently tapped oil supplies we will cause temperature increases that could be catastrophic for the planet was also a surprise.

I'd previously felt it was enough to support political parties or campaigns with green friendly policies, however politics is a difficult game, and it takes someone bold to tell all those making their millions producing/consuming fossil fuels that they have to find another way. Even Obama, supposedly working on the side that wants to do something about climate change, produced an 'All of the above' energy bill.  Meaning he promotes all forms of energy!

Sachs proposed that we have 3 possible saviours to this crisis:

1. Technology - Advances in technology making green energy more cost efficient and hence accessible
2. Scarcity - As the price of fossil fuels goes up people will seek alternative solutions
3. Human Decency

And it got me thinking, what have I done to help reduce my carbon footprint?  Putting aside my pescatarism, which is motivated by the treatment of the animals rather than the fact meat takes more energy to produce than vegetables, well nothing. 

The problem is for most of the general public, myself included, it's not something we consciously factor in when making every day decisions, such as to take the car or the train.  Even my parents when considering other energy options, as power prices are rising in NZ, disregarded solar panels as by the time they would recoup the purchasing cost they would need replacing.  From an economic point of view both options are equal, from an environmental point of view solar power is far better.  I don't think my parents are bad people, I just think the issue hasn't been hammered home as much as it could. Of course if/when technology causes the short term economics to fall on the side of solar power they would probably change their mind, but do we have enough time to wait for that to happen?

I'm not sure what the answer is, but in the meantime I plan to apply a little bit more consciousness and human decency into my decisions.

What if we burned all the fossil fuels we have? infographic by OpenCanada.

What the world needs now...is idealism (Remembering Aaron Swartz)

Someone said to me recently that if you want to write you should write everyday. At the time I nodded my head politely and thought, yes, I've heard that before it must be a good idea. But the truth is I think it's bullshit! You should write when your mood soars, your mind is engaged or your heart aches so much that the words pour out of you.  Currently I'm somewhere in one of these states.

You see my company employed Aaron Swartz, if you don't know his story watch the Democracy Now report, Freedom to Connect, Aaron Swartz , but in short he was a very talented young man and idealist who was being prosecuted by the US government and facing 35 years in prison for attempting to provide public information publicly, and who took his own life last Friday.

Yesterday in remembrance for Aaron, we watched in the office the democracy now report. It was a hard thing to watch, with interviewer and interviewees voices crackling with emotion.  But it was even harder for the realisation of what we have lost. Aaron was an idealist, an idealist who lost hope when he realised that his ideals where not enough to change the world.

It started to grate on me as the presentation was turned off and the day resumed as normal with a standup talking about security patches and contact us forms.  Sure the pragmatist in me understood, but the supressed idealist in me wanted to scream, 'Wtf, are we talking about this for, shouldn't we be off trying to change the world?'. The pragmatist won out and I quickly got swept up in the daily routine.  Yet that supressed idealist is still there, and it got me wondering just how many people like Aaron are there in the world?

An idealist is certainly a hard thing to be. I, for example, was brought up to believe that men and women are equal, and also that it shouldn't matter what you look like, but what you do and who you are. In my 20s it irked me anytime a man made a point of opening a door for me or offered to carry my luggage. I mean I was perfectly capable of doing these things, for what reason should he feel the responsibility to offer to do this for me and what did it say about me? It bothered me that I should shave my armpits among other areas, when its perfectly acceptable for men not to. I struggled when I realised that the world is not a meritocracy. It does not matter if person A is brilliant and does their job well without complaining, if person B is charming and knows person C, who do you think is going to get promoted or keep their job in redundancies? In time I learnt to appreciate that men who open doors and carry things for me are trying to be nice, more than suggest I am incapable.  And that if you want to get somewhere in life you have to play the game too, even if that means shaving your armpits! The sad side of this is, that while I'm happier and life is less of a struggle, I have had to a degree, leave my ideals by the wayside. I don't mean to compare my struggles to Aaron's lofty goal of free information for all, but just to point out its tough to go against the grain and stand up for what you believe in.

And yet as tough as it is to be an idealist, if humankind is to progress in a positive direction this is exactly what we need more of. If Aaron's death has left any legacy with me its that it's going to make me sit down and have a good think about, not how I want the world to be, but how the world should be. I hope too, it has stirred the idealist in you and that we all have the strength to weather the storm that  that brings.