Al Gore’s recent article in Rolling Stone magazine (June 18, 2014) certainly provides a turning point away from any who despair that we’ve passed the point of no return for Earth’s inhabitability. Does he also correctly diagnose that the turning point he sees will get us into a revised equilibrium with the planet sometime in the doable future? That’s the question I’m asking myself as I delight in all the informative positives Gore is seeing (1) in sustainable technologies, (2) in businesses running toward green strategies, (3) in economics searching for alternatives to capitalism, and (4) in the politics of nations tweaking their policies.
Highlights for me as I read Gore’s encouraging essay include:
- Solar energy rapidly becoming cost effective.— The cost of electricity from photovoltaic solar cells is now cheaper in 79 countries than the cost of other sources powering their electric grids. Solar has become cost effective far more rapidly than most predicted it would.
- Central energy generation vs. distributed alternative energy sources.—The chief battleground between energy systems of the past and future is our electrical grid. Will current utility companies be able to maintain their centralized, corporate profit-making approach? Or, as is already done in 43 states, will homeowners be able to install solar on their property and sell excess generation back to the grid?
- Capitalism failing to measure green values.— A primary reason for capitalism’s decline in respect is its failure to measure what is most valuable in the solutions we need: clean air, clean water, safe food, climate balance, greener infrastructure, quality education, etc.
- Investors ponder possibility of stranded carbon assets.— Several large banks around the world now advise their clients that carbon assets may well become “stranded,” meaning that investments in carbons are vulnerable to sudden decline when markets belatedly recognize they’ve lost value (like the subprime mortgages in 2007-2008). Despite their public bluster to their investors, carbon-based companies are developing strategies in recognition that massive amounts of ancient sun (carbon fuels) will remain underground.
If the OneEarth Project could speak with Gore, the basic question would be: “Al, which of the turning point indicators you name actually come from a OneEarth worldview, and which ones, though positive and more green, still keep us in the MultiEarth paradigm?” The point is that while everything more sustainable is applauded, and all greener actions benefit us during a brief interim in which we push toward balancing eco-regions, only those actions that fully embody OneEarth practices can satisfy what Earth requires of us.