Peak Air – Charge It!
I created the following video in an attempt to visually define “unsustainable”.
My main objectives were to:
- 1) Show how fossil fuels have taken a long time to develop
- 2) Show how quickly we’ve binged on these non-renewable energy sources
- 3) Argue that we need to stop living off large quantities of dirty, stored energy, and instead, use energy sustainably, which logically means transitioning toward solar power (the sooner the better).
Having now shown it to a few classes of 8th graders as a lead-in to a discussion about fossil fuels, (We were going to a natural gas-fueled, electric power plant the following day.) it was interesting to note what students picked up on:
Many of the comments from students were about how we are running out of fossil fuels. While this is true, it’s a debate that I think ignores a more important issue: that we are running out of things like clean air and healthy oceans which are absolutely necessary for life and well-being. Whether we are able to burn fossil fuels for the next fifty or five hundred years obscures the fact that right now, our fossil fuel use is causing significant harm to our environment and diminishes our ability to live well on this planet. Global warming, ocean acidification, mercury pollution, acid rain, etc. caused by fossil fuel combustion, is a more immediate, salient and persistent threat than running out of hydrocarbons. It could be argued that running out of fuel is what will save us. Instead, most see depletion as the issue of biggest concern because we have been trained by those with specific interests to ignore the alternatives. Politicians try to convince us, in a clear ploy to gain short-term political advantage, that burning fossil fuels is our only realistic option. Special interest groups take the place of schools, educating us about the inherent advantages of fossil fuels.
Another comment I heard from students was that they were fearful. Certainly, the purpose of the video was not to create fear in students but to induce thought. I believe one of the causes for the fear is that students are rarely taught about other viable options for the future. When everything is framed in terms of short-term, false-cost economics, as it is today, alternatives do not look very good. The energy issue needs to be reframed and put into long-term perspective, taking true-cost economics into consideration. Just because something seems cheap today, doesn’t mean it really is. Once schools start teaching connectively, using systems thinking while getting young minds to look deeply at cause and effect chains, then maybe in a few years we will have an electorate capable of seeing past the demagoguery and commercial self-interest of the day.
So, I wonder:
When will schools start to offer any legitimate counter thoughts to the prevailing fossil fuel messages that surround us? How do we expect future voters to be able to reveal fraudulent politics and bankrupt economics for what they are if we don’t teach about the downside of maintaining a fossil fuel-based economy while at the same time neglecting to teach about practical alternatives? What kind of society can we expect to have when ignorance of these issues is deemed acceptable?
Charge it! I’ll They’ll pay later.
Upcoming: Fossil Fuels and Connective Thinking: Transitioning Toward Sustainable Energy
