The " People Power " Effect !

One of the main reasons that we are seeing little action to stop global warming is the propaganda war being waged by vested interests in the mining and oil industries. Big money interests can usually find highly qualified people with a string of letters after their name to espouse the " global warming is crap " sentiment.  Money is also the motivating factor which influences how politicians vote on issues.

This week a new world leader emerged in the fight to save the planet.  Greta Thunberg is a Swedish teenager and her message brought thousands of children and their parents onto Australian streets. No doubt some of this action is copied from the news coverage of events in Hong King where student led demonstrations have paralysed this huge Asian city over their demand for democracy.

The kids walked out of school and took to the streets because they see with their own eyes the changes that are happening to planet Earth.  The nightly news brings pictures of the ice melting in the arctic and the Antarctic. The storms that are called cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons in different parts of the world are getting bigger and more destructive. The rainfall patterns are changing, bringing a mix of floods and drought to the world.

Those vested interests will dismiss this weeks demonstration as "kids using an excuse for a day off school " but pictures of the crowd give a very different impression.  It was a wide cross section of society.   Three hundred thousand Australians took to the streets and that sort of voting change is something politicians fear.   We are very near the tipping point where global warming can not be halted.  It seems that a mass movement for change is erupting on a world wide basis.

It looks like three basic changes are needed to tame the epidemic of carbon we are spewing into the atmosphere.  Fortunately, we seem to be on the cusp of replacing the internal combustion engine with electric cars and this will sharply decrease the demand for oil.   Most of the world electricity supply is generated from coal burning power stations and we may need to turn to the nuclear industry to ensure base load is met.  Fortunately, coal is fast being replaced by both wind and solar power generation and it is only fear about nuclear that is preventing the coming change.

Perhaps the most widely felt change will be a necessary modification to our food supply.  Meat - in its many forms - is a luxury we can not afford.  The use of both land and water for meat production is unproductive and the animals exhale vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane.  Fortunately, science has developed a meat substitute from vegetable matter that is both tasty and nutricious, but we need to stop destroying trees as we clear land for additional food production.   We urgently need to develop what we eat from non traditional food sources.

Making the changes to stop the planet over heating will not be without pain.  There will be a vast loss of well paying jobs in the short term but the innovations needed will create new job opportunities.  It took the kids of this world to bring the adults into the streets in a massive mood change.  Hopefully, the impetus will be maintained to the extent that the politicians will be forced to make the changes that will save the planet.

What we saw across the world this week was the emergence of " people power "  !