Those Whose “Hearts Are Open” See the Need for Clean Energy
The emcee at a dance recital I attended yesterday began by calling for the audience to observe a moment of silence to honor our fallen war heroes. “Please open your hearts,” he asked us as he closed his eyes and solemnly bowed his head. When he concluded his introductory remarks a few moments later, he asked, “Are your hearts still open? I hope so, for that’s the best way to receive what you’re about to experience here this afternoon.”
I was quite moved by this, and I noted to myself that the concept of an open heart is one of the major reasons to care about the clean energy movement and what it’s attempting to accomplish: a quality of life for everyone on this planet now, as well as those yet to be born.
What’s interesting, though, is that this “open heart notion” is only one of many reasons to get onboard. What if your interest in renewable energy is patriotism, and you want to make sure the country you love succeeds economically in an international marketplace that has a huge appetite for “new energy” solutions? Maybe you’re concerned that our fossil fuel-based approach to energy will cause water and food shortages, that in turn will create global political instability and force the most threatened countries to react militarily. Perhaps you don’t want to be on the receiving end of terrorism, and you’re concerned that our dependence on fossil fuels continues to empower the world’s most evil people. What if you don’t want to be one of the increasing number of victims of the various types of lung disease that are associated with breathing the aromatics of coal-fired power plants and the exhaust from vehicles powered by internal combustion engines?
If you meet any of these criteria, or dozens of others I could name, you have at least one good reason–maybe more–to support the migration to renewable energy.
Of course, if your heart is open at the same time, so much the better.
Denial is the biggest obstacle to action on climate change. By disbelieving people can still feel that they have an open heart. The opponents have used the same tricks they used with tobacco to give the illusion that there is real doubt so it is very easy to be in opposition and still feel that you are a good person. Denial is so powerful that people who have gone blind are often hard to convince that they can’t see.
Hi, Tom. Thanks for the wonderful insight.
Craig,
Your message is much appreciated and similar to this one from a Great Admiral & Navy Seal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxBQLFLei70
Bill Decker SR
From this site it is impossible to order the book if I am already an e-book subscriber
Yes. I just emailed you an e-copy of my first book. – Craig
Beautiful message Craig, I miss your more frequent postings…
Spot On as usual Craig, the bible says in Proverbs, Romans, and Matthew that the issues of life and your treasure are where your heart is.
Cree Indian Prophecy
The quote below was on a poster of a Cree Indian woman standing on a barren hillside. I’ve sent it on to state and US legislators.
Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
— Cree Indian Prophecy
“When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.”
— Cree Prophecy
I added some to The Cree Prophecy
“Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after all the animals have been hunted,
Only when all the waters are polluted,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
Only then will you discover you cannot eat money.”
At a EPA Meeting with about 200 people in the room I had 2 minutes to talk. I could have talked about the fracking well that the meeting was about but the many speakers before had pretty much had said everything I was going to say, so I just winged it!
I changed my 2 minute speech to the Cree Prophecy on the Fly and it went some like this:
“When you are laying on your death bed and your family is all around,
You children are there with your grandchildren around you,
And you see out of the window that the sky is Black and all of the birds are long dead,
You know the river is black and poisoned and you can’t drink the water,
All the fish have been dead for a long time,
All the animals are dying or dead and there is no food to eat,
What are you do? ARE YOU GOING TO TELL YOUR GRANDKIDS TO EAT MONEY!
Yes I was yelling into the microphone!
And my 2 minutes were up.
Everybody is encouraged to YELL The Cree Indian Prophecy microphone they can find!
There are a great many excellent reasons why we should be implementing known, functional, renewable energy technologies – whether economic strength and stability, geopolitical independence, the awful activities and ideologies our fossil energy dollars end up funding, and the dictators our government installs and supports to maintain access… Each of these on its own is sufficient for quick and earnest action, but the most universal and enduring damage is to our climate
People talk about a consensus among 97% of climate scientists. Actually, the 97% figure emerges from a careful survey that examined thousands of separate peer-reviewed and journal-published scientific papers on climate. The study then considered only those that took any position – for, or against – on whether Earth’s climate is being disrupted largely by human actions. Of those thousands of papers, 97.1% concluded – based on empirical evidence – that human action IS disrupting the climate.
For me, it seems absurd on its face to assert that we can keep taking fossil carbon out of the layers of the earth, and pouring 32 billion metric tons of CO2 yearly into the modern sky, without disrupting the climate. (Not to mention the release – from vast expanses of thawing ancient permafrost – of gigatons of methane, which is far more potent in the short term.)
No matter how beneficial renewables will be to our United States and health and well-being for ourselves and our progeny, there is a substantial transition cost for all those fossil firms that continue to regard these resources as competition for their existing revenue stream.
Their formidable lobbying power ensures that the feeble attempts to subsidize renewables will continue to be sporadic, unpredictable and anemic. We may also expect the campaign of misinformation, concealment, and discredit to endure long past the tipping point.
However – not exactly your average band of tree-huggers – insurance and investment firms across the “developed” world are now fervently urging quick intergovernmental action to address climate disruption – because they’ve looked at the data, and they see the very real and emergent threat that disruption presents to their own and their clients investments and profitability. Jeremy Grantham is just one among many such folk who speak frankly on the subject. They see the damage coming over the horizon, and they are trying – literally, and from cold financial motivation – to stem the tide.
Well said. It’s both the tree-huggers AND the folks who control the many billions of dollars associated with insurance and investment who recognize the problem and are calling for solutions.
Good message Craig. You are doing good work. We need renewable energy. Dependence on fossil fuels is creating a global crisis. Check out this movie by Nafeez Mosadeqq Ahmed at TEDxHornstull http://crisisofcivilization.com/watch/
This is good, but I’m not in total agreement with the premise, i.e., that people aren’t looking at sustainability from a holistic framework. That may be the case for some, but certainly not all.
Now that I finished this, let me remark how truly incredible it is. I’ll write a post on it in a second. Thanks very much for thinking of me, Debi.
It is a beautiful message; there is no doubt about it. However, mere sentiment will not reduce climate change. Doing so requires effective action. Unfortunately, it looks as though we are moving backward.
Deutchland is increasing CO2 emissions. It is building more coal burning power plants and importing coal. Unless that trend is reversed, we will be facing more climate trouble than the trouble that is already inevitable.
And why is Deutchland building more coal burning power plants? It is because they are closing nuclear power plants and unless they build more coal burning power plants, they will have blackouts.
It will be interesting to follow trends in Deutchland over the next few years.
For more information, visit the following:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/30/germanys_clean_energy_plan_backfired/
Of all the nations on Earth, I’m most confident of Germany to figure this out (though they have taken a few bad steps). They’re smart, industrious people — and, most importantly, they’re actually trying.