Energy and environment

Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 09:38:57 -0300 (ADT)
From: Martin Willison <willison@is.dal.ca>
To: sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca
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I enjoyed Phil Thompson's submission on wind energy, and 
I am sure that generating electricity using wind has an
important place in a sustainable future for the Maritimes. 
I am also sure that solar energy is critical, used both 
directly in "passive" devices, and indirectly in generating 
electricity. In my opinion, ocean-wave energy should play an 
important role in the future; and with caution, tidal power 
can also be harnessed. "Biogas" (methane from decaying 
vegetation) is a useful fuel on a small scale. If used 
properly, these are thoroughly sustainable energy sources, 
but they are not the most important part of a sustainable 
energy future. 
	Conservation and energy efficiency is where the 
greatest advances towards energy sustainability can be made.  
We have a gluttonous culture, and this above all else is 
what makes our culture unsustainable. Only when we begin
to deal seriously with this aspect of sustainability can 
we properly apply sustainable technologies, for these 
technologies alone cannot deal with the problem of energy 
demand. 
	I believe it is impossible to understand sustainability 
without understanding unsustainability. Our economic "system" 
is founded in an unsustainable paradigm: "economic growth".
This so-called "system" is driven by beliefs that consumption 
is good, and that competition to consume and control is 
healthy. These are beliefs in unsustainability. I believe
there cannot be a sustainable future until we fully realize 
that these, and other, fundamental facets of our culture have 
to be examined as objectively as we examine energy technology.
	We need economists who provide economic models for
de-growth and steady-state. We need sociologists who provide
sociological models for de-population with social harmony.
We need consumer advocates who advocate non-consumption,
conservation, efficiency, and re-use. We need elected officials 
who represent what is in people's hearts, not what is in their
pockets. In the end, we have to start loving the Earth and all 
its beings enough to reduce the personal greed on which our 
fundamentally flawed economy feeds. There is a moral imperative 
here; our economic culture is immoral .... just watch a few 
television advertisements and ask yourself, "What are these 
people advocating in the long term?"  It's plain disgusting,
and we should not shy away from saying so!

Martin Willison



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