By Robert
McLean
Somehow we have to
change the conversation.
Life in Australia and many other parts of the developed
world is simply too good and so any suggestion that we alter our behaviour is
met with “Why?”
Life in the underdeveloped parts of the world is so bad, that any suggestion
about doing things differently is greeted with “How?”
The gap between the “why” and “how” groups becomes more
distinctive each day and with the mitigation of climate change being many
faceted, one of the cards that must be played is that of equity.
The way of life for many, particularly in the developed
western world, must come down, while that of those in the world’s
underdeveloped countries must be ratcheted up.
How do we talk about living a life in which we use less
energy?
How do we explain to people that we can live a less energy-intensive
life and still enjoy a fulfilling existence?
What do we say to break the prevailing consumerist vice-like
grip that most are addicted to?
A simple elaboration of the facts of climate change is
clearly inadequate as appears to do little other than further entrench many
deeper in their denial of the realities that are eroding the near ideal
atmospheric conditions that have existed for about 10 000 years.
The corporate world loudly proclaims its interest in
preserving the environment on which it so inescapably depends, but the charade
never stands in the way of ensuring record profits; profits which are its legal
and prime reason for being.
Those profits are built on the fossil fuels, the very things
that are producing climate change and the same things in this finite world that
are being seriously depleted.
Civilization arose from the first agricultural revolution
about 10 000 years ago giving humans their first taste of surplus energy, a
surplus that changed little until fossil fuels were discovered, understood and
exploited about 200 years ago.
Armed with an energy source that freed us from our
subsistence-style of living we quickly fell into a way of life, and a language,
that quickly made what had gone before not only irrelevant, but something about
which we seemed unable to contemplate, consider or even talk about.
No longer could we articulate or envisage life without the
surplus energy afforded us by fossil fuels.
However, talk we must for if we don’t, we allow ourselves to
continue to live in delusory times.
Even initiating a discussion is remarkably difficult for the
conversation is complex and many people are either unaware or wilfully ignorant
of the unfolding energy crisis and the seriousness of climate change.
 |
Let's be a 'language leader" and talk
about energy and climate change. |
Strangely, if we resolve the energy crisis (what crisis? the
fossil fuel companies cry), we have taken a major step toward mitigating what
is that is evolving, quickly in geological terms, as a wounded world climate
that threatens humanity.
Technophobes see salvation in new technological developments
that will end our reliance on fossil fuels, giving us bountiful energy
resources that are not only free from greenhouse gases, but actually use some
in their creation of this as yet unknown carbon dioxide-free energy source.
Shelve in bookshops all around the world are packed with
books written by highly credentialed people who explain repeatedly that such a wondrous
energy source does not only exist, but is not even on the horizon.
They explain that to further complicate the issue, even if
that inexplicable energy-saving process was just a decade away, the transition
from our reliance on fossil fuels to this a yet unknown new thing would be so
disruptive, sweeping and costly, that implementation and adaptation to it could
be beyond humanity’s capabilities.
The language most of us use, sees us cling to the dream, or
fantasy, that our existing way of life will always be preserved through the application
of this hitherto unknown and magical energy source.
In an energy sense it is 15 seconds to midnight and rather than
discuss an unlikely future, it is time we reverted to a conversation about how
we can apply what we already know to a different sort of future; a future
similar to that the pre-agricultural revolution and one that has a striking
resemblance to the subsistence living that has been common for most of human
existence.
We have an inter-generational responsibility to engage all
around us in the conversation, we need to be “language leaders” in that we can
help people understand that a less-energy intensive life is not necessarily a
lesser life, rather a life that it about the enhancement and broad betterment
of the human experience through the greater understanding of what it is to be
human, rather than a corporate slave and consumer.
Humans have walked the earth for about 200 000 years and
with the surplus energy that arose from the first agricultural revolution some
10 000 years ago, we have made hitherto unimaginable changes to our lives and
then with the understanding of fossil fuels, and their exploitation, we have
arrived at a point after about 250 years where the continuation of the human
experiment is in severe doubt.
Now we need to talk about that, but the language needs to be
such that we “don’t scare the horses”.
