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Garnaut: good news or bad? Yes! |
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Written by Jan Lee Martin
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Wednesday, 09 July 2008 |
Whether we see Professor Garnaut’s report on climate change as good
news or bad depends entirely on the lens through which we see the
world. Those who are anchored in the industrial realities of the 20th
century see it as an unwelcome interference with the basic task of
exploiting our natural resources, turning them into goods and services
and selling them to sustain the economy within which we live.
They have forgotten that we don’t live in an economy. We live on a
planet that has been seriously wounded by our activities. If we want it
to provide a home for our children and theirs, we must create economies
that conserve and sustain instead of those that prey and exploit. We
know it’s possible: it’s been done before, by indigenous peoples all
over the world. Admittedly the global population overload increases
the magnitude of the challenge, but we have more tools now to apply to
the task, including the capacity for instant sharing of what we learn.
Nonetheless, climate change is a formidable challenge. How can we possibly see it as good news?
Those of us who have been working hard for many years to warn of coming change may be delighted by
the Garnaut Report. Finally the facts are emerging from the cloud of
disinformation created by powerful vested interests. With the collapse
of their info-blockade, perhaps the innovators will at last be free to
get on with it.
Now at last we can concentrate on fixing problems, turning climate
change around, redesigning the way we live and work so that we can do
it without destroying our habitat.
The good news is that there are already millions of people around the
world ready and willing to make the changes we need. The hardest part
of tackling climate change will be changing our inherited ideas. But
it’s time we did: the age of materialism has damaged more than the
planet.
In responding to the climate crisis, we and our children and theirs
have an opportunity to imagine new futures that are better for
everybody.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 July 2008 )
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More good news from US: 10m solar rooftops? |
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Written by Bob Audette
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Friday, 04 July 2008 |
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Reports of a visionary proposal to install 10m solar rooftop panels in the US are significant not only for their own news value, but as a further indicator that the green revolution is bursting onto centre stage in a polity long dominated by fossil fuel interests. And it is certainly "a good start", as one advocate for renewable energy put it -- perhaps wryly.
“It’s a brilliant and visionary idea to put solar energy into the
middle of the discussion on energy,” said Arjun Makhijani, the
president of the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research. “A
goal like that is very important because it will mean the solar
manufacturing industry will have certainty that there will be a demand
at the other end."
Makhijani was responding to a local newspaper, the Battleboro Reformer (03 07 08), with comments on a proposal from Vermont Senator, Bernard Sanders to encourage the installation of 10 million
rooftop solar units on homes and businesses over the course of 10 years. At one kilowatt-hour a unit, that could supply up to 10,000
megawatts of energy, or approximately the output of 13 nuclear reactors.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 04 July 2008 )
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Slow Food Arrives in US at Last |
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Written by Stacy Finz
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Wednesday, 02 July 2008 |
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 A major exhibition planned for San Francisco at the end of August is being called "the largest celebration of American food in history" -- and it's not fast food but Slow Food. Its message is that Americans need to fix the food system or risk destroying their health and the planet.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle 50,000 people are expected to participate, including some of the world’s leading food
authorities, health care experts, farmers and policymakers.
"Slow Food Nation is the first such event to be held in the United
States, although it’s patterned after similar events in Europe." the newspaper reported on June 30.
The exhibition will be held over the American Labor Day weekend (August 30 to September 1).
"Slow Food, a philosophy that food should be not only savored, but also
produced with a social and environmental conscience, started as an
Italian protest movement in 1986.
"Furious that McDonald’s had come to Rome, political activist Carlo
Petrini organized a demonstration against the fast-food chain.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 02 July 2008 )
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