If you feel a little like you are walking over broken glass trying to balance life and ecology then this discussion is definately for you.
Al Gore certainly got the attention of the world with his movie An inconvenient truth, everyone is talking about climate change.
But, are we more prepared to make our lives more sustainable? The truth referred to in the movie is that our way of life is causing climate change and the associated effects. The inconvenience is that to stop this from happening we need to rapidly and radically change the way we use energy.
So, what are we doing? What are you doing? What am I doing? To create a truth that will be more convenient? What is the new truth we want? I hazard that really we want to be told any of the following;
1. Climate change is not happening
2. If climate change is happening that the magnitude of the effects has been grossly overstated.
3. If climate change is happening and the effects are of some enormity that it is not our fault but due to any number of external factors.
4. If climate change is happening, is of enormous consequence and it is our fault, that there are simple cheap and discrete solutions that business/government/anyone else can put in place to minimise and or reverse the effects.
5. That if there are no such remedies that at least they may be found… soon…ish.
What we don’t want to hear, but what seems to being said a lot is;
Climate change is happening, will be of significant impact, is our fault, and the only solutions require concerted effort from us all and significant changes to our lifestyle and business practices.
Why are we afraid of these types of changes?
When GE began to put effective new systems in place to reduce energy consumption they found that not only did they save greenhouse emissions but money as well and that productivity and worker moral increased dramatically. Similarly at the most recent Free Radical Michael Bown from Amcor spoke of seeing similar results when they engaged their workforce in reducing the companies environmental impact.
At the next of our monthly series of talks we will be looking to get a vision of the future we can all live with. How can we take the climate change message and change the truth and our way of deciding what is convenient.
Helping us on April 12 will be Martin Oldfield who is pursuing the greening of Hills Industries, and Tony Mohr the Australian Conservation Foundation climate change campaigner, and more to be confirmed.
Come along; enjoy a drink and a hearty discussion to put hope in you that we are more than capable of creating a more convenient truth (one way or another).
