You know why you should join an action near you on Global Divestment Day? Like the one down on Wall Street this Friday in New York City, or the one at London’s City Hall on Saturday?
Because we’ve got the bad guys on the run. It’s as if this week’s been scripted as a buildup to the worldwide weekend of divestment festivities.
On Monday the Independent Petroleum Producers (that is, Oil Inc.) released a study purportedly showing that divestment is a bad idea, financially — except, to prove it, they had had to go all the way back to 1965 as a baseline and argue that the next 50 years of energy will resemble the last half-century. Good luck with that: Every measure of the last year, the last decade, or, for that matter, the whole current millennium shows that fossil fuels are fading quickly and getting riskier. (Heck, if institutions had listened to divestment campaigners last year, they’d have avoided this year’s crash in oil prices.)
But Monday was nothing. On Tuesday fossil fuel PR guru Rick Berman, who, last year, was caught on tape convincing oilmen to wage “endless war” against environmentalists, released his great brainstorm: a video you absolutely have to watch. It tells the story of Joey, who breaks up with his girlfriend — who is a barrel of oil — because his scientist friends think she’s uncool. Then, without fossil fuels, he can’t have a cellphone, or dinner, or clothes. That’s right: He’s naked. (I play a cameo role as a leering demon trying to wreck modern life. Really, you need to watch.)
This short film goes right to the heart of the anti-divestment argument; in fact, it’s a perfect mind meld with the Swarthmore board of trustees, who recently wrote that they wouldn’t divest because students still use fossil fuels. Of course they do; that’s the point! And the point of divestment is that if we can break the power of this industry, we can use sun and wind instead.
Kind of like Apple, which announced on Wednesday that it was building a giant solar farm in Monterey to run all its California operations off the sun — and that it was expecting “major savings” in the process. But what does Apple know about technology?
So now we’re almost to the weekend, and it’s time for your move. Divestment is on a roll: Last week the New School, in the center of New York, and the oldest university in Australia joined the long and growing list. There are more than 400 events around the world, which means there’s one near you. Sign up now and scare these guys some more!
P.S. And, you know, tweet the living heck out of this weekend. Because in some ineffable way that’s a bit hard to explain, Twitter matters. If you follow the #divest hashtag, you can watch pictures flow in from all over the place.
On Saturday I joined a panel at the Munich Security Conference in Germany and talked about global security and energy security. You might be surprised to see Greenpeace at a security conference. The room was full of members of the “strategic community,” people who are not the crowd we normally engage with; they are the crowd we have historically challenged with our peace campaigns. However, I appreciated having the opportunity to be a dissenting voice and to talk about what I consider is the path towards true energy security.
The only way forward is choosing energy efficiency and renewables. EU leaders should put greater emphasis on energy saving and renewable energy in order to reduce Europe’s dependence on fossil fuel imports and to enhance its energy security.
What often dominates discussions about peace and security are questions about solutions—around how conflicts are to be addressed and solved, economic sanctions, peace missions, diplomatic negotiations—these are all the mechanisms we have become accustomed to which dominate the discourse.
I urge you however to think about this from a different perspective—prevention. How could conflicts have been prevented and even more importantly—how can the next conflicts be prevented, or at least how do we mitigate the risks.
When I look back at 2014 and consider the many conflicts that have plagued our planet, there is one fact that I cannot ignore and that is—our addiction to fossil fuels is taking us on the road to nowhere.
It must be made clear—conflict is always driven by a unique set of circumstances and it would be wrong to try to reduce a conflict to one dimension. However, if you look at some of the conflicts that have dominated our news screens this year you will see that fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—have often played a role. Sometimes in the background, sometimes taking center stage. The conflict in the Ukraine, which had partly been triggered by its ongoing energy crisis, has been making headlines. But there were several other conflicts around the world last year, also related to energy issues: in the South China Sea, Iraq and South Sudan, to name just a few.
Energy security was high on the agenda of world leaders in 2014. Governments all over the world are now trying to come up with plans to ensure stable energy supply. I would urge you to consider that our quest for energy security must go hand in hand with the quest for true security. And when embarking on this quest we must insist on finding true solutions. Opt for a system change rather than tweak the existing broken system. For me, true energy security would mean freedom from the geopolitical instability and conflicts triggered by fossil fuels, from the risks to lives, health and the environment, and from some of the threats of climate change.
The conflict in Ukraine has brought the issue closer to home. Gas imports from Russia through Ukraine represent more than 15 percent of Europe’s gas supply and last year’s threat by Russia to cut off this supply has caused EU leaders to urgently scramble for solutions. Let me be clear—replacing energy supplies from Russia with nuclear energy and fossil fuels from elsewhere, as has been suggested, such as the Middle East or North Africa, is not the answer. We should not be thinking about changing the dealer but instead kick the dirty energy addiction.
The only way forward is choosing energy efficiency and renewables. EU leaders should put greater emphasis on energy saving and renewable energy in order to reduce Europe’s dependence on fossil fuel imports and to enhance its energy security. Greenpeace’s “Road Map for Europe” explains exactly how this could be done. The citizens of the EU have already made up their mind. According to polls, Europeans overwhelmingly support national targets forrenewable energy and strong policies for energy efficiency
This is the only way the EU can set its own course now and forever.
The choice is not between Russia and Saudi Arabia. The choice is between dirty and clean energy providers and between climate chaos and more sustainable living, it’s a choice between the past and the future. Fundamentally it is a choice between peace and ongoing and intensifying conflicts. We can choose for a win-win-win for the climate, the economy and people.
Germany is an example: 15 years ago only 6 percent of Germany’s electricity was generated by Renewable Energies. Today, 27 percent of Germany’s electricity comes from renewables. In another 15 years according to the Government’s projections it will be at least 50 percent. German Energiewende (energy transition) is the model for how an industrial country can move towards true energy security.
A report launched at the conference presented a poll according to which more than 8 percent of those asked, and more than 90 percent in some regions, thought there was a leadership crisis in the world today. As long as elected leaders hesitate to take those decisions they were elected for, this will remain the case. Masses of people want change for a just world, fueled by clean energy sources. The year 2015 might be remembered as the year in which this leadership crisis was tackled, in which world leaders turned towards a global Energiewende. Four months from now, Chancellor Angela Merkel will welcome Barack Obama and the other Heads of G7 Governments to Germany to discuss future climate and energy policy. I call on Mrs. Merkel to use this unique opportunity. The G7 summit must give the world a vision for a future energy system without nuclear power, without coal power, based 100 percent on Renewable Energies.
Veggie News Daily 