Dr. Raj Pachauri on Climate Change

My friend and colleague Vijay Rochlani, one of our 2GreenEnergy Associates, was instrumental in arranging the interview I conducted last week (for my third book: “Renewable Energy — Following the Money“) with Dr. Raj Pachauri.  To my shame, I had not written Viajy to thank him and to tell me how it went.

In a word, it was great.  It was an honor to be in the presence of someone of that stature, to be sure, and he and I had a wonderful, warm discussion.

From the perspective of my book, however, I’m not sure how exciting that conversation will be for readers.  In fact, if he had been interviewing me on the subject, we would have had essentially the same conversation.  We established:

• Climate change is real.

• It’s caused largely by greenhouse gas emissions.

• Its effects, if unchecked, will wreak untold disaster for all living things on Earth, through a combination of interconnected effects to our oceans, atmosphere, and land-masses.

• The task of communicating the importance of dealing with this on an urgent basis to the world is a challenge.

• The political system in the U.S., as it is controlled by enormous sums of money, makes the task here even harder.

• The fossil fuel industry is using its enormous wealth and influence to maintain the status quo in terms of energy generation and consumption.

• Getting the 200+ sovereign nations of the world to make binding agreements to reduce GHGs in amounts sufficient to make a difference is really tough.

• Fortunately, a great deal of good work is being done “from the ground up,” i.e., by individuals, groups, local governments, and corporations.

That’s all fine, but I think all that had been established in most people’s minds long ago.   Of course, there were a few nuances that I found interesting, but the experience caused me to realize how simple this whole thing is.  Our civilization faces disaster.  Either we care about it and do something about it, or we don’t.