Carnival-like atmosphere denies real reason for exhibition/conference

The carnival-like atmosphere denied its reason.

All-Energy Australia 2014 was at base about mitigating climate change, but a walk through is associated expo told a wholly different story.

The Industrial Revolution and the legacy is has bequeathed humanity has proceeded unabated and that was obvious amid the plethora of expo product displays.

Climate change is real, and pressing, and yet that reality appears to have been dispatched to another room.

Thoughts of Albert Einstein’s comment that “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them," were unavoidable as the sweep of 21^st century technology left little room for alternate ideas.

Intoxicated by the idea that technology will make the world habitable for humans we remain mesmerized by that chimera and so intellectually unable to see that the solution lies in social and structural change, rather than in our inventions.

No, that is incorrect for almost instinctively we know what we must do, but it is a change of such dimension that we dare not speak its name.



This rather plush display was about LED
lighting at the All-Energy Australia 2014 expo.

Yes, we simply need to consume vastly less (not something being encouraged at the Melbourne energy expo); live in a constrained way; significantly cut our energy use in every way; and live in a “10-minute world” – that is everything important to daily living is within a 10-minute walk/cycling distance. Those ideas were not apparent on the expo floor.

be an unspoken agreement that all was needed, was to take some advice from the top floor and then after spending enthusiastically at the expo, the energy troubles facing humanity would just evaporate. They won’.t

The issue is how we live, but it was an issue not really addressed at All-Energy Australia, and until we have the courage to honestly consider that behaviour, a behaviour exemplified at the conference, our trajectory will not change.