Saving the World

Mayan civilisation, one of the greatest in history, should be our first point of understanding when looking at the today’s global crisis. Today’s crisis is economic, or environmental, or it is political, depending on your own particular frame of reference. So why start with the Mayans? Their amazing society was agriculture based, but grew cities that demanded engineering still marvelled at today. As they grew richer and bigger, the rulers built even bigger temples to the gods that had been so good to them. To build these cities and temples, the forest had to be ravaged and the ground broken. The cities overtook the food sources. The starving people rioted and burnt the cities to the ground.

Empire after empire has fallen, from the early Babylonians, Hatites and Greeks to the British, the Communists and now maybe the Americans. Each empire believed that its way of life was the right way of life and that it was an exportable and teachable commodity. That enlightening the unenlightened will be enough to transpose values and gain acceptance. Like Mayan civilisation the growth of Empire usually was economy driven, it a rush for resources, materials and possible cheap labour (out-sourcing is not a new concept). The need for more, overstretching either sustainability or the ability to defend itself or simply maintain order.

For all sorts of reasons we (mankind) are a civilisation that has continued to take from the source without worrying about consequences. It is irrelevant whether you buy into the climate change argument or not ( I personally do), by2050 we will be living on stockpiles of fossil fuels but our known resources will have disappeared.

When the price of oil went up late last year, the price of food almost doubled. Farmers are no less dependent on fuel than the rest of us. So what will happen when we run out of fuel? Do we just stop living?

We have to change our lifestyles now, we have to create electric cars. Green industries will be the new dot coms. We have to expand our ability to utilise renewable energy as well as explore ways of making nuclear energy cleaner and safer.

So yes the ETS scheme we are presented with in Australia is a political document that buys into climate change, its proposals are about maintaining our lifestyles and our world. It is about saving our world. It makes sense on every level except by those who have a knee jerk reaction against the words, ‘climate change’.

Today we are a global community with global responsibilities, but we can still play our political games. China Is investing enormous amounts of money in developing a viable, marketable electric car, because it believes it will be an economic winner. Green is the way of the future and they know it. They are also aware of the massive pollution problem they have. It should not go unnoted that in recent weeks, these leading up to Copenhagen, both China and India have made noises about curbing carbon emissions.

If you don’t believe in climate change (it’s your right) you must still realise that our only way forward is through a greener future. LET’S SAVE THE WORLD.