Andrew Segrave's Blog
A little story - Feb 21st 2007 08:43PM (Updated)

BACK THEN

Picture this. You’ve just bought a big fat 3.0 litre V6 sportscar. Man this baby drives like a beast. Unfortunately you’re sitting in the middle of a traffic jam. This is the middle ages. No-one's going anywhere and people are getting angry at nothing. You flick the gear stick into neutral and rev the guts out of the engine. You feel like an alpha-male silverback beating your chest and flexing massive pectorals. "Hear me roar!" The novelty wears off after a few hours, however, and when a sign to the “Autobahn” appears, you take the exit without hesitation. With the pedal to the metal you fire up through the gears: 100, 160, 180, 220Km/h! Rock’n’roll, this is the industrial revolution baby! After cruising for just under an hour at this ridiculous speed your brand new GPS navigation system interrupts Europe singing The Final Countdown to diligently inform you that you’re going the wrong way: “Turn around at the next safe point.” Is that the IPCC speaking? You ignore the niggling little voice and turn up the radio. Thousands of scientists have put thousands of hours into designing that thing but until a few years ago it still got confused at roundabouts. Just about as accurate as the old climate models. Anyway, you accelerate further in retaliation; the engine screams and the windows feel like they’re going to blow out but you’re making real progress. At 280 Km/h you just have time to swerve once you see a car on the horizon. It feels like a computer game.

AROUND ABOUT NOW

Suddenly you see a flashing sign: “Autobahn ends in 5km.” That’s impossible! An Autobahn doesn’t just end. Your GPS indicates that this is indeed the case, and that there are just two exits before the end. But speed and power swell up in your head. You are invincible in this testosterone saturated rev-head techno mobile! The first exit flashes by unnoticed, except for a few hippies who are forced to dive out of the way as you blast though their daisy chain barrier. Haha suckers! The end can’t be that bad. Maybe it just becomes a winding country road, and since you’re such an outstanding driver you’ll have plenty of time to brake and turn. Why not enjoy these last few minutes of bliss? An enormous mountain range rises up on either side of you. The further you drive the higher it becomes. The road is cut into the earth. As the last exit flashes past you see it is a narrow rocky path. You would have to leave you car behind and ride a hippy goat or buy one of those absurdly expensive hybrid mini jeeps at a suspiciously well placed salesroom. Seriously, who’d bother? Now there a red flashing signs. Even the media has jumped on the bandwagon: Blinking red signs “Turn Back”. There are billboards with photos of the end: ”Driving Kills”. It is a bombsite of industrial infrastructure. Rusty iron bars, twisted and jutting out of massive chunks of concrete. Nuclear radiation and choking smoke. Oh, so they’ve resorted to scare tactics. How cheap can you get? Suddenly a helicopter brandishing ‘EU’ logos and the text “Sponsored by Exxon Mobil” appears and threatens to shoot out your tires if you don’t turn around. But you wave your American express card out the window and they dive off behind the mountain to take their anger out on some poor people.

WILL WE STAY ON THIS ROAD?

Completely intoxicated by speed and power you let go of the steering wheel and grasp a pair of binoculars. Holding these to your eyes you can just make out the end. A calm GPS voice informs you that all you have to do is slow down and turn around. But now it’s a matter of pride. In the final minute you can just make out crowds of poor people chained to the end. Maybe they will act as a barrier. A soft cushion for your speed? Genius! Did we think of that? The radio is interrupted by an important announcement. Scientists have calculated that if you brake now you will hit the end at just 163.4 Km/h. The cushioning effect of the people barrier means you could survive with a broken spine. These same scientists even have a computer program, which they prepared earlier, to model the result of the hundreds of alternative ways you could brake and turn before the crash. Was your course so predictable? You question the accuracy and uncertainty of their predictions and focus on the road. You pump the brake pedal tentatively in moments of doubt. In the final seconds you take a first and last look in the rear-view mirror. There are millions of identical cars behind you all living through the same moment.

change time - Nov 16th 2006 06:53PM (Updated)

Hello one and all,

Much time has passed since my last entry, and a lot of things have happend.

Climate change is the word on everyone's lips, which is truely inspiring!

Now it's time to translate this awareness into action!

While working at a scientific knowledge institute in Utrecht, I've been undertaking future studies for the Dutch water sector.

As you can imagine, climate change and the imminent energy crisis are significant trends and hot topics!

I've also just bought a house! Which is significant because I've entered a whole new world of opportunites and obligations to consume.

When asked "What is the root cause of climate change?", a standard answer is "CO2".

At the moment it is crystal clear to me that the real cause is our lifestyes: our whole paradigm for existing.

But we can change this for the better!

This is what I wanted to share with you, along with a reference: http://www.thebreakthrough.org/images/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf

From extremes to the easy life - May 19th 2006 07:27PM (Updated)

When people live in extreme environments they are forced to think about the basic things like water, food and shelter all the rest is meaningless until these things are secured.

"For the last 10,000 years Earth's thermostat has been set to an average surface temperature of around 14°C. On the whole this has suited our species splendidly..."(1)

In this calm, mild climate humans have developed at an amazing rate, and have learnt to exploit Earth's resources in a highly organised way. This has allowed our population to increase exponentially (with our basic needs satisfied) and we now inhabit most of Earth's land surfaces. Amazing when you think about it!

We have also developed systems that can provide seemingly infinite 'things' for anyone who has enough money to buy them. By creating our own (anthropogenic) systems, which exploit and destroy Earth's resources without restoring them, we have unbalanced all of the natural processes (including the climate). Such systems, like those that use coal and gas, are called 'unsustainable' because the resources they use will run out. Luckily there are natural, renewable alternatives like solar and wind energy.

By disrupting Earth's natural processes we threaten our own security and livelihoods - particularly for the poor majority. Apart from being unethical, this process is irrational and uneconomical...but there is an answer! (o: Change how we think about energy, and then change how we make it and use it. This is easier and cheaper than many people think - we have many of the technological solutions already! This in one step in the 'Sustainable Development' movement that will become increasingly important and intense over the coming years.

See the film below for one example of how close people live to the environment in Greenland. These people are experiencing dramatic changes to their lifestyles caused by the initial effects of climate change. We will experience these significant changes later. Because, aside from the scientific reasons, we have abstracted ourselves from our environment with so many man-made systems. But by the time we are affected by these changes it could be too late to do anything about it. So let's act now!

(1)Flannery,Tim. 2005. The weather makers: the history and future impact of climate change. The Text Publishing Company. AUS.